Tracking
Every account, every transaction — one plain-text ledger
From day-to-day spending to long-term net worth, beancount.io keeps your whole financial life in a single auditable ledger you can read, query, and chart.
Net worth
Watch your net worth grow — all accounts in one place
Checking, savings, credit cards, loans, and investments live side by side in one ledger, so your net worth is always one report away — charted month by month in Fava and on your beancount.io dashboard.
- One balance sheet spans bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and assets.
- Net-worth charts show the trend, not just today's number.
- Balance assertions keep every account reconciled against reality.
Transactions
Search, filter, and query every transaction
Find any entry in seconds with Fava's search and filters, or ask precise questions with BQL — the SQL-like query language built into Beancount.
- Full-text search and filters across every account and payee.
- BQL turns your ledger into a database you can query directly.
- Smart Import uses AI to suggest accounts for new transactions — you review, it learns.
Reports
Income statements, balance sheets, and Sankeys on demand
Slice and dice your ledger with double-entry-accurate reports. Zoom from a yearly overview into a single posting without losing the thread.
- Income statement, balance sheet, and trial balance — always in sync.
- Sankey and treemap charts show where money flows at a glance.
- Filter any report by account, tag, payee, or time range.
Plan ahead
Put future transactions on the books today
Record rent, subscriptions, and planned purchases as future-dated entries, and your reports show what's coming — not just what already happened.
Future-dated transactions make upcoming bills visible in reports.
Recurring entries stay plain text you can edit like any other.
Compare planned versus actual spending in the same report.
Investments
Stocks, funds, and crypto with real cost basis
Beancount tracks commodities with explicit lots and cost basis, so realized and unrealized gains are computed from your actual trades — not estimated.
- Stocks, ETFs, and crypto held as commodities with lot-level cost basis.
- Realized and unrealized gains fall out of the ledger automatically.
- Price directives value holdings at the dates you choose.
Dashboard
Your financial home base, always up to date
The beancount.io dashboard brings balances, budgets, and recent activity together — fed by bank sync, linked accounts, or Smart Import, whichever fits your workflow.
- Bank Sync pulls cleared transactions from thousands of institutions.
- Link accounts for automatic balance updates where available.
- Smart Import handles CSV, PDF, OFX, and scanned statements.
Why plain text
Your ledger is a text file — not a database you can't open
Every tracking tool can show you charts. Only plain-text accounting gives you the underlying data in a format you own outright.
Readable by humans
Open your ledger in any editor — every entry is a few lines of text.
Version-controlled
Git history means every change is diffed, attributed, and reversible.
Git for BeancountAuditable by design
Double-entry validation and balance assertions catch errors early.
No lock-in
Export everything, any time — your data outlives any tool, including ours.
Security & data ownershipFAQ
Tracking questions, answered
What tracking with beancount.io actually looks like, day to day.
Can Beancount track my net worth?
Yes. Once your accounts — checking, savings, credit cards, loans, investments — are in one ledger, Fava and the beancount.io dashboard chart your net worth over time, straight from your data.
How do my bank transactions get in?
Three ways: Bank Sync pulls cleared transactions automatically, Smart Import converts CSV, PDF, OFX, or scanned statements with AI, and you can always type entries by hand. Every method lands in the same plain-text ledger.
Does it handle stocks and crypto?
Yes. Beancount models investments as commodities with explicit lots and cost basis, so realized and unrealized gains are computed from your actual trades. Crypto, stocks, ETFs, and multi-currency accounts all work.
How are transactions categorized?
Every transaction posts to accounts you choose. Smart Import suggests categories with AI and learns from your reviews; you can also write importer rules or query and re-tag with BQL.
What happens to my data if I leave?
You keep it. Your ledger is a plain-text file you can export at any time — it opens in any Beancount tool, no conversion needed. There is no proprietary format to escape from.
Is tracking free on beancount.io?
The core ledger and Fava reports are free and open source. beancount.io adds a free tier for the hosted dashboard, with paid plans for bank sync, mobile, and AI features.
Start tracking every account in one ledger
Free to start. Your data stays plain text — portable, auditable, and always yours.