hreports

A simple wrapper to create and manage reports based on hledger queries.

Free software: MIT license
Documentation: https://hreports.readthedocs.io.

Features

hreports saves shortcuts to hledger queries to conveniently manage multiple queries with different settings and ledger files. In addition, hreports can save the query output to pdfs with jinja templates using Pandoc.

Conveniently create and manage multiple heldger queries
Customize the representation of hledger query results with templates
Save report results in pdf format
Parametrize queries
Use case: generate invoices with a single command, e.g. hreports save invoice_client1
Use case: Manage tax reports, e.g. hreports show tax_2017

Quickstart

Ensure that hledger is installed. If you want to save generate pdf reports pandoc (>=1.16) and a PDF engine such as wkhtml2pdf need to be installed as well. Ensure to use the patched version wkthmltopdf to ensure wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltopdf#2037

Use pip to install hreports:

$ pip install hreports

The starting point of running hledger queries is having a ledger to run queries against. Imagine following simple hlegder file:

$ cat cash-account.ledger
1917/12/14 * Income
    assets:cash  10 USD
    income:client1

1917/12/12 * Expense
    assets:cash  5 USD
    expense:milk

and a hledger timesheet:

$ cat timesheet.ledger
1917/12/14 * Time
    (consulting:clien1)  1

The following command creates a report named balance that executes the query hledger bal --depth 1 on the ledger cash.ledger:

$ hreports create balance --query "bal --depth 1" --ledger cash.ledger

When executed, hreports stores the query data in a config file for future reference. Now hreports can render the query by running:

$ hreports show balance
               5 USD  assets
--------------------
               5 USD

This makes it easy to store many different queries on different ledger files and executing them by refering to their hreports name.

Templating

Sometimes, it is helpful to add context to query results. hreports uses jinja templates to customize the representation of reports. The query results are added to the output variabel in the context of the template. In addition, the report configuration data, global configuration and custom variables are added.

Imagine the folowing simple template:

$ cat balance.template
The balance on {{ now }} the balance was

{{ output|last }}

hreports can now use this template to embed query results:

$ hreports show balance --template balance.template
The balance on 2017-12-15 15:39:11.519658 was:

                   5 USD

If you need this information for future reference, create a pdf of it by executing:

$ hreports save balance --template balance.template
Saved balance.pdf

If you keep reusing this command, simply your life by updating the report:

$ hreports update balance --template balance.template

Now hreports will always use the balance.template when rendering the balance report.

Templating is also helpful when you use hledger for timetracking and invoicing. Create a hreport and a simple demo template. Add a custom variable name ("hourly_rate") and value ("20") with the -var option:

$ hreports create timesheet --ledger timesheet.ledger -q "bal" -var hourly_rate 20 --template invoice.template

$ cat invoice.template
{% set hours = output|last|float|round(2) %}
{% set net = hours *  hourly_rate|float  %}
Please pay me {{ net }} USD.
Signed {{ now|datetime("%Y/%m/%d") }}

$ hreports show timesheet
Please pay me 20.0 USD.
Signed on 2017/12/15

Admittedly, this is a somewhat simple example. But feel free to check out heldger edit --template invoice_de.template for a fully fledged template of a German invoice.

Finally, all report configuration data is stored in a simple YAML file which can be manipulated manually if preferred. To inspect and manipulated the config file run:

$ hreports edit

Roadmap

Add documentation
Add tests

Credits

[ ~ Dependencies scanned by PyUp.io ~ ]