Find the guide for the task you want to finish: start a ledger, record a purchase, import bank data, or check your reports.
Start your books
| Your next step | Guide |
|---|---|
| Understand the accounting model | What Beancount is: plain-text double-entry books |
| Learn the plain-text ledger structure | Beancount tutorial: install and first ledger |
| Record an entry in the browser | Add your first transaction |
| Create a ledger from your terminal | Beancount CLI quick start |
| Finish your first month, import to report | Your first month with bea |
| Bring in a bank export | Import bank exports with the CLI |
| Look up a terminal command | Beancount CLI reference |
Local CLI bookkeeping needs no Beancount.io account. Hosted ledgers and optional AI assistance use your Beancount.io credentials. The CLI guides explain which steps use each.
Look up the basics
- Beancount syntax reference: directives, accounts, amounts: directives, postings, and metadata.
- Cheatsheet: common ledger patterns.
- Glossary: accounting terms in plain language.
- Frequently asked questions: importing, signs, currencies, and business books.
- Working ledger examples: complete household, budgeting, freelance, property, and investing examples.
- Model a public company in Beancount: rebuild a filing as a balanced ledger.
- Beancount v3: What's New? and native plugins guide: dated overviews of the modular v3 stack and built-in plugins.
Review and organize your ledger
- Filtering and searching: find entries and accounts.
- Query language: answer questions with BQL.
- UI features: navigate the browser interface.
- Multi-file support: organize one ledger across included files.
- Budgets: compare spending with a plan.
- Beancount financial report templates and examples: prepare statements from your records.
- Cash-flow roles: classify accounts for the cash-flow statement.
- Share or embed a ledger: publish a read-only view.
Configure accounts and reports
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Set up automatic prices in Beancount: choose managed feeds, understand manual overrides, and use prices with hosted or local tools.
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Prices API reference: inspect the price service endpoints and schemas.
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Beancount options: configure your ledger.
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Fava options reference for the Beancount web UI: customize the Fava web interface.
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Precision: understand decimal precision and tolerances.
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Inventories: track quantities, costs, and lots.
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Sidebar links: customize navigation.
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Amortization: spread costs across periods.
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Forecast plugin: work with future scenarios.
Use your records for a specific task
- Industry-specific setups: choose accounts for your work.
- Prepare taxes with Beancount country-by-country: organize records for tax season.
- Track a crypto portfolio with cost basis in Beancount and crypto templates: record digital-asset activity.
- Real-estate tracking and property templates: record rental income, costs, and financing.
- Beancount community setups, plugins, and workflows: see how other people organize their books.
Automate a workflow
- Automate bookkeeping with bea: script the CLI with JSON output, exit codes, and a scheduled ledger check.
- How Python scripts automate Beancount and Fava: automate repeated local tasks.
- Use LLMs with Beancount to import, review, and query: use language models with accounting records.
- Accounting with AI agents: import a statement and answer balance questions with an external agent.
- Extend bea ask with skills: teach the built-in assistant your own bookkeeping conventions with a SKILL.md file.
- How Beancount and Fava power real-time dashboards: explore reporting and analysis tools.
- How Beancount keeps books transparent and auditable: keep changes inspectable.
- Bean Labs research notes: open experiments on AI agents and plain-text accounting.
Get help with your account
Check the FAQ for common questions, or visit the Beancount community. For account-specific help, contact the Beancount.io team. To remove your hosted account, follow the account deletion instructions.