Why I start bookkeeping
My money go out of my control.
Bookkeeping is not the task for the people who earn a lot, it is for everyone. Bookkeeping Why I start to do bookkeeping?
I started to record my expenditures three years ago, before that, I have no ideas what bookkeeping means, and I have no ideas how to save money. I am just a normal software developer and not an finiancial experts, how can I save more money.
After three years of bookkeeping experience, what I learn is that I really love recording my money, it becomes my habits, and my idea to money totally changed.
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Money is data, my daily expenditures are good source of data to be analysed. To understand myself more.
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I complely control my money, no panic. Panic is software is disaster, you know. I would not worry about if some case I need to pay a big bill, since it is under my control.
In order to analyse my data easily, I choose Plain Text Accounting, it is a lot of benefits than APP accounting well-known to others.
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Most apps don't use double-entry accounting.
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Most apps have privacy issue.
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Plain text can be easily analyse by Any Programming Languages and create unlimited possibilites, and a lot of advance usage. I like to use python to do indept analysis, the data plotting feature is really impressive.
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Your data is only text, will be saved forever. You can sync with any cloud services.
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Treat the record is programms.
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Would be great to integrate with org-mode.
Making a budget is the single most important thing you can do to take control of your spending.
Steps
Collecting
There is no specify rules to tell you what should record, what should not. It really depends on your habit. For the people who is lazy like me, my banks already bookkeeping for me, that's enough, I do not need to open an app and record every single expense. But if you really need to, I would recommend to use Money Manager Ex or Money Wiz, which is great for Collecting and Exporting. But I highly recommend Fiva.
Rather than record the expenses after every expense, I will perioidally check my bank statment. Save them and analyze them each month. Around half to 1 hour Each month on my free time.
Think what you need to record
I will tell you how to record your daily life easily. Normally, you may want to know:
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What is my expenses?
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How many assest I own?
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The money you lend to others
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You spend your money in advance for your friends/company, they promise that they will give you back
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The debit.
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The mollage
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The income
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The side income
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How much income I made
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How many money I can save
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Daily Expenses
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Reimbursements
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Income
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Investments
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Stocks
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Bit Coins
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Liabilities
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Mortgage
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Special Account: Equity
Basics
Here are some basic knowledge
Intro to Plain text money management
Intro to Basic Finance Knowledge
Need to understand some basic concept, target for no finance knowledge guys.
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What is assets
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What is liability
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What is equity
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In ledger manual
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In Money Management's help manual
Introduce some finiance books I read
Make good use of Blink!!!老高也是这么做的，先阅读，然后收集，最后整理，并且呈现给人，如此反复。
Double-entry bookkeeping
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping_system https://plaintextaccounting.org/
Why we need double-entry bookkeeping?
The history of double-entry bookkeeping
What's the benefits of double-entry bookkeeping
What's the disadvantages of single-entry
Installation
Tools
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Fava
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Emacs
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Fava
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My
How to use Emacs to manage
How to use phone to manage
How to use Termux to setup
Step
Open Accounts
option "operating_currency" "HKD" option "operating_currency" "CNY" option "operating_currency" "USD" 1970-01-01 commodity CNY 1970-01-01 commodity HKD 1970-01-01 commodity USD
Manage "Assets"
Checking
| Type | Category | Content |
| Assets | Checking | Hang-Seng-HKD |
| Assets | Checking | Cash |
Saving
| Type | Category | Content |
| Assets | Saving | BEA-Saving |
Investment
| Type | Category | Content |
| Assets | Investment | Hang-Seng-CNY |
| Assets | Investment | Hang-Seng-Stocks |
| Assets | Investment | Hang-Seng-USD |
| Assets | Investment | Bitcoins |
Reimbursements
| Type | Category | Content | Person |
| Assets | Reimbursements | Company | Alipay |
| Assets | Reimbursements | Friend | Raine |
Fixed
| Type | Category | Content |
| Assets | Fixed | 新会保利西海岸 |
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/accounting/types-of-assets/
Manage "Expenses"
Bills
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Bills | Electricity |
| Expenses | Bills | Gas |
| Expenses | Bills | Water |
| Expenses | Bills | Internet-Broadband |
| Expenses | Bills | Mobile-Phone |
| Expenses | Bills | Stock |
| Expenses | Bills | Fine |
| Expenses | Bills | Other |
Clothing
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Clothing | Clothes |
| Expenses | Clothing | Shoes |
Digital
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Digital | Apps |
| Expenses | Digital | Books |
| Expenses | Digital | Movies |
| Expenses | Digital | Other |
Education
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Education | Books |
| Expenses | Education | Tuition |
Food
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Food | Dining-Eating-Out |
| Expenses | Food | Groceries |
Health-Care
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Dental |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Facial |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Gym |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Sports |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Haircut |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Health-Insurance |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Medical |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Pharmacy |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Physician |
| Expenses | Health-Care | Other |
Housing
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Housing | Cooking |
| Expenses | Housing | Furniture-Accessories |
| Expenses | Housing | Home-Insurance |
| Expenses | Housing | Rent |
| Expenses | Housing | Other |
Online
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Online | Shopping |
Stuff
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Stuff | Electronics |
| Expenses | Stuff | Tools |
Taxes
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Taxes | NA |
Transfer
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Transfer | Credit-Card |
| Expenses | Transfer | Stock |
Vocation
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Vacation | Accommodation |
| Expenses | Vacation | Souvenir |
| Expenses | Vacation | Transportation |
| Expenses | Vacation | Travel |
| Expenses | Vacation | Travel-Insurance |
Withdrawal
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Withdrawal | Cash |
Other-Expenses
| Type | Category | Content |
| Expenses | Other-Expenses | NA |
Manage "Income"
| Type | Category |
| Income | Salary |
| Income | Family-Support |
| Income | Credit-Interest |
| Income | Gift |
| Income | Investments |
| Income | Other-Income |
| Income | Red-Packet |
| Income | Refund |
| Income | Bitcoin |
Manage "Liabilities"
Credit-Card
| Type | Category | Content |
| Liabilities | Credit-Card | BEA-Visa |
| Liabilities | Credit-Card | Hang-Seng-Master |
Mortgage
| Type | Category | Content |
| Liabilities | Mortgage | 广发银行 |
Manage Equity
| Type | Category |
| Equity | Opening-Balances |
Example
Programming Tips
Analysis your data
References
https://medium.com/@yurenju/beancount-part-1-20eb4833bb84 https://medium.com/@yurenju/beancount-part-2-c1fc006ce767 https://byvoid.com/zht/blog/beancount-bookkeeping-1/ https://byvoid.com/zht/blog/beancount-bookkeeping-2/ https://byvoid.com/zht/blog/beancount-bookkeeping-3/ https://byvoid.com/zht/blog/beancount-bookkeeping-4/ https://www.ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html https://plaintextaccounting.org/