Below is a short reference of the Beancount language syntax. Also see the full
[Syntax Documentation](http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/syntax) and the
[Syntax Cheat Sheet](http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/cheatsheet).

Beancount defines a language in which financial transactions are entered into a
text-file, which then can be processed by Beancount. There are a few building
blocks that are important to understand Beancount's syntax:

- Commodities,
- Accounts,
- Directives.

## Commodities

All in CAPS: `USD`, `EUR`, `CAD`, `GOOG`, `AAPL`, `RBF1005`, `HOME_MAYST`,
`AIRMILES`, `HOURS`.

## Accounts

Account are given by a colon-separated list of capitalized words. They must
begin with one of the five root accounts listed in the table below. The separation
by colons defines an implicit hierarchy, for example we say that `Assets:Cash` is a
sub-account of `Assets`.

| Name          | Type | Contains                     | Examples                  |
|---------------|------|------------------------------|---------------------------|
| `Assets`      | +    | Cash, Checking-Account, etc. | `Assets:Checking`         |
| `Liabilities` | -    | Credit Card, etc.            | `Liabilities:CreditCard`  |
| `Income`      | -    | Salary, etc.                 | `Income:EmployerA`        |
| `Expenses`    | +    | Expense categories           | `Expenses:Fun:Cinema`     |
| `Equity`      | -    | Almost always auto-generated | `Equity:Opening-Balances` |

The names of the five root accounts can be changed with the following options:

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
option "name_assets"      "Vermoegen"
option "name_liabilities" "Verbindlichkeiten"
option "name_income"      "Einkommen"
option "name_expenses"    "Ausgaben"
option "name_equity"      "Eigenkapital"</textarea></pre>

## Directives

The basic building block are **directives** (also called **entries**).  Most
directives start with a date, then the type of the directive, and then
directive-specific arguments. The ordering of directives in the input-file does
not matter, because Beancount orders them based on the date of each directive.

General syntax: `YYYY-MM-DD <directive> <arguments...>`

### Open and Close accounts

To open or close an account use the `open` and `close` directives:

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
2015-05-29 open Expenses:Restaurant
2015-05-29 open Assets:Checking     USD,EUR  ; Currency constraints
; ...
2016-02-23 close Assets:Checking</textarea></pre>

### Commodities

Declaring commodities is optional. Use this if you want to attach metadata by currency.

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
1998-07-22 commodity AAPL
  name: "Apple Computer Inc."</textarea></pre>

### Prices

You can use this directive to fill the historical price database:

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
2015-04-30 price AAPL   125.15 USD
2015-05-30 price AAPL   130.28 USD</textarea></pre>

### Notes

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
2013-03-20 note Assets:Checking "Called to ask about rebate"</textarea></pre>

### Documents

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
2013-03-20 document Assets:Checking "path/to/statement.pdf"</textarea></pre>

### Transactions

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
2015-05-30 * "Some narration about this transaction"
  Liabilities:CreditCard   -101.23 USD
  Expenses:Restaurant       101.23 USD

2015-05-30 ! "Cable Co" "Phone Bill" #tag ˆlink
  id: "TW378743437"               ; Meta-data
  Expenses:Home:Phone  87.45 USD
  Assets:Checking                 ; You may leave one amount out</textarea></pre>

### Postings

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
...    123.45 USD                             ; simple
...        10 GOOG {502.12 USD}               ; with cost
...   1000.00 USD   @ 1.10 CAD                ; with price
...        10 GOOG {502.12 USD} @ 1.10 CAD    ; with cost & price
...        10 GOOG {502.12 USD / 2014-05-12}  ; with date
! ...   123.45 USD ...                        ; with flag</textarea></pre>

### Balance Assertions and Padding

Asserts the amount for only the given currency:

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
2015-06-01 balance Liabilities:CreditCard  -634.30 USD</textarea></pre>

Automatic insertion of transaction to fulfill the following assertion:

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
2015-06-01 pad Assets:Checking Equity:Opening-Balances</textarea></pre>

### Events

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
2015-06-01 event "location" "New York, USA"
2015-06-01 event "address" "123 May Street"</textarea></pre>

### Options

See the [Beancount Options Reference](http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/options)
for the full list of supported options.

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
option "title" "My Personal Ledger"</textarea></pre>

### Other

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
pushtag #trip-to-peru
...
poptag  #trip-to-peru</textarea></pre>

<pre><textarea class="editor-readonly">
; inline comments begin with a semi-colon
* any line not starting with a valid directive is also ignored silently</textarea></pre>
