beancount-mode VS Emacs-VSCode-Default-High-Contras

For me, the beauty of Beancount[0] is that it's just text files in Git. There's a web UI I use for generating reports, and a Python API with which I hacked together some import/export scripts, but 99% of my interactions with it are via Emacs[1] and Magit.

A ton of repetitive bookkeeping tasks become so much easier when you can copy and paste, or use keyboard macros or something like multiple-cursors[2], rather than have to click tens or hundreds of times in a GUI. Many years ago I used QuickBooks, and basic tasks like importing a bank statement took at least an order of magnitude longer than they do now.

Having my company's books in Git is also huge when it comes to auditing, concurrency, backups, and figuring out where things went wrong when accounts don't balance. As mentioned in another comment: `git diff` is a really powerful tool and it's awesome to be able to check out the books as they existed at a particular point in time. `git blame` is great for when things don't balance. Writing meaningful commit messages and comments keeps me sane when I try to remember a year later why something is recorded the way it is.

The biggest downside—or advantage, depending on how you look at it—is that there's no default or built-in chart of accounts, so you need a certain level of accounting acumen (or professional advice) to set things up at first. I'm pretty sure GnuCash aims to be more plug-and-play, whereas Beancount is more akin to a programming library that you use to build an accounting system that works for you. I agree with the grandparent commenter, who said that text-based accounting is "the best and most flexible accounting experience I've ever had." But the cost of that flexibility is that a certain level of base knowledge is a prerequisite.

[0]: https://beancount.io/

[1]: https://github.com/beancount/beancount-mode

[2]: https://github.com/magnars/multiple-cursors.el

I use org mode for task management. I have just discovered accounting with Beancount (a awesome plain text accounting tool), with emacs support

Interesting post. I'm ~6 mo into using emacs, but I'm a long time vim user. I use emacs for org mode and org-roam, and for personal finance[0]. And sometime, magit.And honestly... I may never use it for much more beyond this, and that's totally fine with me. Which I suppose is the point of flexibility -- people can use a flexible tool in the way that works best for them. My contribution here is to note that its _also_ ok to decide a tool, even an impressive tool, is something you only want in a few specific contexts without feeling bad about not adopting it everywhere.

I think its working out that way for me because I'm not actually much of a tinkerer. I very much like the straightforwardness of plain text, and I like all tools that empower me to put that in the center of my workflows. I can take or leave emacs, but I love org-*. Actually not too different from how I got into programming in the first place -- being able to write a plain text file in a certain format, point my browser to it, and boom it's a web page, was magic. And from there into actual programs -- use a certain format and boom it does stuff... The tools themselves - eh. Keep it simpler and I'm happier, but I'm not much for customizing them.

I can see how for the tinkering personality one can really get into emacs. That's not me, but emacs works for me for some things, and I've been happy to learn it for those.

[0]https://github.com/beancount/beancount-mode

what do you mean by that? i know that beancount-mode talks about outline-minor-mode, which is a minor mode that allows to use heading just like Org-mode (and indeed Org-mode was built on top of outline-mode), but i make heavy use of noweb and tangling.

I only recently feel like I've "gotten" Emacs, to the point where I'm confident enough to tell others about my setup [1], but in the process of doing so I've realized I have so much more built-ins that I've barely touched. Like, dired. Magit, I've only skimmed the surface of. Hilariously, I only learned about apropos last week!

For some reason though I gain great enjoyment from tweaking my Emacs environment (I even made my own theme [2]), and I'm productive at work, so I really can't complain :)

I'm with the author though... would I recommend it? Yeeeeah maybe not, in the long run it's worth it but for new programmers no way, just use vscode like everyone else.

[1] https://blog.calebjay.com/posts/my-emacs-environment/

[2] https://github.com/komali2/Emacs-VSCode-Default-High-Contras...