silverfox is a command-line double-entry plain-text rootin-tootin accounting tool like ledger-cli or hledger. But unlike other plain-text accounting tools, silverfox is designed around "envelope budgeting". Its main concern is helping you budget without overspending as well as keeping a good record of your finances.
silverfox has matured some and is ready for basic ledger parsing, balance reporting, and envelope use. Give it a try!
Since silverfox is so new, it lacks a lot of features that other plain-text accounting tools have, so please feel free to open new issues as your needs arise. I'm also open to new ideas and to implement new features that other plain-text accounting tools don't have. I look forward to hearing your ideas and requests!
silverfox works by moving money from your available balances into "envelopes" every day. Little by little (or lots by lots), it puts money towards anything you might be spending money on: rent, electricity, or a new boat (whatever; you name it).
For any recurring expenses, silverfox keeps two envelopes: one for what's ready to be spent, and another for the next time an expense is due. This ensures a separation of concerns from due date to due date.
silverfox lets you choose from two methods of automatically moving money into envelopes: aggressive or conservative. Aggressive saving moves as much money as possible into envelopes as soon as possible. Conservative saving moves money in little by little every day, saving up just in time for a due date.
Of course, you can also move money manually and disable automated saving on a per-envelope basis.
Each transaction entry must be entered with one of three statuses:
? Pending
~ Cleared
* Reconciled
silverfox will let you know if a transaction is not marked with one of these statuses.
silverfox requires you to define a list of accounts. You can
use the account property to do this:
account assets:checking
account assets:savings
account expenses:groceries
account expenses:auto:gas
account expenses:home:rent
account expenses:home:electricity
account income:salary
account income:gifts
Accounts in silverfox can't include spaces in their names. Instead, underscores should be used:
account expenses:food:dining_out
account liabilities:credit_card
silverfox will try to be as fast as possible, which will hopefully come in handy for big ledgers. Eventually, silverfox will take advantage of concurrency to process transactions as fast as possible.
If you've used ledger-cli or hledger, silverfox uses a similar formatting syntax for journals:
2019/08/02 * Groceries
assets:checking -30
expenses:groceries 30
More specifically:
<date> <status> <description> [<payee>]
<account> <amount>
<account> <amount>
<payee> is not required, but if provided in square
brackets as above, can be queried by silverfox.
Note: While silverfox has formatting extremely similar to hledger or ledger-cli, a silverfox file is not necessarily compatible with an hledger or ledger-cli file. You'll notice that (for example) an equal sign (=) in a posting (an account-amount line in a transaction entry) has two very different meanings between hledger and silverfox: hledger uses it for balance assertions, and silverfox uses it for cost assertions.
Comments in silverfox are done with either a semicolon (;)
or a double-slash (//).
2019/08/02 ? Restaurant [Fancy's]
assets:checking -140 // Not worth the price, by the way
expenses:dining 140
Note: double slashes are preferred. The
formatsubcommand (coming soon!) will replace semicolons with double slashes.
If a currency symbol isn't included, silverfox considers it your default currency. You can include currency symbols in your transaction:
2019/08/02 * Bought crypto
assets:checking $-100
assets:crypto:btc 0.012345 BTC
Note that in the above transaction, silverfox will automatically balance and infer that the total cost of 0.012345 BTC (Bitcoin) was $100. You can define the total cost of BTC manually as well:
2019/08/02 * Bought crypto
assets:checking $-100
assets:crypto:btc 0.012345 BTC = $100
Or, you can define the price per unit:
2019/08/02 * Bought crypto
assets:checking $-100
assets:crypto:btc 0.012345 BTC @ $8100.45
If you mix amounts without a currency symbol and amounts with your preferred currency symbol, you can tell silverfox which currency symbol you use:
currency $
silverfox will combine amounts with blank symbols and with the specified symbol.
2019/08/02 * Account closure
assets:checking -100 ! 0
assets:new_acct 100
Balance assertions are used to make sure the amount in an account is what you expect it to be. The exclamation mark is used to set balance assertions. With only one exclamation mark, the assertion operates on a per-currency basis:
2019/08/02 * Crypto account closure
assets:crypto_wallet -0.01 BTC ! 0
assets:crypto_wallet -1.00 ETH ! 0
assets:crypto_wallet -32.0 BAT ! 0
assets:new_wallet 0.01 BTC
assets:new_wallet 1.00 ETH
assets:new_wallet 32.0 BAT
Here's an example of how to configure envelopes with silverfox. Envelopes are created under asset accounts:
account assets:checking
expense rent due every 15th // due the 15th of every month
amount 1000 // for $1000
for expenses:home:rent // automatically moves money when expenses:home:rent is used
funding aggressive // use aggressive funding
expense food due every 1st // due the 1st of every month
amount 300 // for $300
for expenses:groceries // automatically moves money when expenses:groceries is used
for expenses:dining // and expenses:dining
expense some_weekly_thing due every Monday // due weekly on Monday (could also write `Mon`)
amount 100 // for $300
// accounts aren't required
Note: the
fundingoption is optional. If omitted, silverfox won't move money automatically.
If you want to delay the starting date for an envelope, you
can do so with starting:
account assets:checking
expense streaming due every 20th starting 2019/10/20 // due the 20th of every month, only after the free trial tho
amount 12 // for $12
for expenses:entertainment // automatically moves money when expenses:entertainment is used
If you opt for the frequency of an envelope to be every other something, starting is required (so silverfox can
know which weeks and months to use):
account assets:checking
expense electricity due every other 15th starting 2020/01/20 // due the 15th of every other month, but not until the new electricity bill starts
amount 100 // for $100
for expenses:home:electricity // automatically moves money when expenses:home:electricity is used
funding conservative // use conservative funding
We can also do envelopes for goals:
account assets:savings
goal camera by 2020/12/25 // "due" and "by" are interchangeable
amount 1000 // you get the gist!
funding conservative
goal new_boat by 2025/06/28
amount 35000
funding conservative
Really, the expense and goal keywords are both
interchangeable. They do the same thing. And, as mentioned,
due, by, and even due by are the same. But not by due. That makes no sense. silverfox will throw an error.
A couple of other points to note:
- Expenses and goals can co-exist under the same account
- Like account names, envelope names can't have spaces; use underscores instead
2019/08/02 * Groceries
assets:checking -50
expenses:groceries 50
envelope food
silverfox infers that this transaction should take money from
the food envelope under the assets:checking account.
Of course, things can get a little more complicated:
2019/08/02 * Groceries with cash back
assets:checking -70
assets:cash 20
expenses:groceries 50
envelope assets:checking food -50
If assets:checking and assets:cash both have food
envelopes, silverfox can't infer which account from which to
use an envelope. We tell silverfox which envelope to use (and
how much money) with this syntax:
envelope <envelope_name> <account> <amount>
This was my first project in Rust. This is the project that got me addicted to Rust.
Now I write everything in Rust. I love it.
Your interest in this project means the world to me! If you're interested in helping me pay for my life (or even just a milkshake), let me know.