Write a Basic Transaction in Ledger

A Ledger transaction consists of a date, a payee/description, and two or more postings. The format is whitespace-sensitive — postings must be indented (by at least one space or tab; two spaces is conventional).

Basic structure:

DATE PAYEE
    ACCOUNT1    AMOUNT
    ACCOUNT2    AMOUNT

Rules:

• The date format is YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY-MM-DD.
• Account names use colons as hierarchy separators: Expenses:Food:Restaurants.
• Amounts include the commodity symbol: $100.00, 50 EUR, 0.5 BTC.
• The last posting’s amount can be omitted — Ledger infers it.
• All postings must sum to zero.

Example — paying rent:

2024/04/01 Landlord
    Expenses:Housing:Rent    $1200.00
    Assets:Checking

Example — paycheck with splits:

2024/04/15 Employer
    Assets:Checking           $3200.00
    Expenses:Taxes:Federal     $800.00
    Expenses:Taxes:State       $200.00
    Income:Salary             $-4200.00

Transactions can appear in any order in the file — Ledger sorts by date at report time. Multiple transactions can share a date. Add metadata with ; comments on any line.