What are /r/plaintextaccounting's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

I keep my files in a git repository. The entire directory is synced between multiple computers by Syncthing. Note that I don't push/pull to a remote repository; Syncthing handles all synchronization and as far as git is concerned, it thinks it's always dealing with a single standalone repository.

Advantages:

• Synchronization is automatic; I don't have to remember to push on one computer before I start working on a different one.
• Everything is private; all involved systems are under my direct control. (More or less; there's one Digital Ocean VM involved.)

Disadvantage:

• If I accidentally delete a file, Syncthing will automatically delete it everywhere. git serves as a source to restore from if needed, but that's predicated on nothing getting messed up with the .git directory.

There's geographic diversity to the systems involved, so that serves as my insurance against losing a system (theft, fire, etc.).

(I also do back up parts of one of the servers involved, including my PTA files, to an external disk and, very sporadically, to an offsite external disk.)

As /u/Personal-Fuel4621 suggested, git with remote repositories is great for backup, and git-crypt gives you the privacy you'd want. That was my setup for a while, until I upgraded my self-hosted environment.

Another option, if you merely want backups and don't want to bother with git, is <code>rclone</code> (and its crypt backend takes care of encryption). It supports pretty much any cloud storage provider you can come up with, and it's FOSS. Just run it with cron, and you're golden (or enhance with something like <code>restic</code> to manage backup versions).

I'd recommend Syncthing. I don't sync my Beancount files to my Android phone, but I do use Syncthing to sync my Beancount files among multiple computers, and I use Syncthing to sync other files with my phone.

The only thing you might want to be aware of is that Syncthing has difficulty writing to arbitrary directories on external (SD card) storage. If you're syncing to internal storage (or if you have an SD card and you've adopted it as internal storage), you don't need to worry about this.

Neat!

I have a slightly different setup that I've considered extending to the same effect—having an Internet-accessible Fava.

I synchronize my Beancount files via Syncthing. Fava detects file changes, so when I change a file on one computer, the Fava instances on other systems should pick up the change automatically.^(0)

That should mean I could just run Fava on my home server or one of my VPSes and have the changes synced to it automatically. I haven't actually tried this yet, because I haven't felt a strong need. (It might be nice to see stuff from my phone when I'm out and about, but most of the rest of the time I'm near one of my computers with the files already synced, so I can just examine stuff and run queries with a full keyboard and mouse/trackpad to work with.)

^(0)In practice, this nearly always works. Fava doesn't like it when you remove a file, though, even if you've already removed the include directive that pointed to it. I always have to restart Fava when I rearrange my file structure. Fortunately, that doesn't happen very often.

Before I used a plaintext approach I used GnuCash. In its documentation there is a "Tutorial and Concepts Guide". Obviously it mostly focuses on how GnuCash is used in regards to accounting concepts but you could take a look at 2.1 Accounting Concepts and see if it seems appropriate to you.

This looks like a great dependency for a React Native app.

Currently there are no good Android apps that I can see that will let you report ledger data. Modifying can be done with cone or any other text editor.

I think I'll bookmark this repo

Normally I’d say a vm or docker you can ssh into with an iPad app but https://www.gitpod.io/ looks pretty interesting and might worth a look.

I haven’t had a chance to check it out but an iPad workflow is my goal for short travel so I’m hoping it’ll work well for that.

I keep my files in git. Then I synchronize the git directory among my laptops, desktop, and server with Syncthing. Unlike Dropbox, et. al., all of the data is on systems under my control, so I don't need to worry about encrypting the data before backing it up. (And most of the systems involved use full-disk encryption so the data's encrypted at rest anyway.)

The synchronization is really convenient because I can leave off work on any system and later pick up right where I left off on a different system.

I'm treasurer for a small non-profit. Every year, I send a zip file of that organization's files to the other officers. (It contains a README file giving directions on how to read and understand the data.) That serves as a backup of sorts, though I think of it more precisely as business continuity planning.

Just a quick answer, re irc: an easy way to get persistence is to set up a matrix chat client and then join the irc channels via:

• #plaintextaccounting:libera.chat
• #ledger:libera.chat
• #hledger:libera.chat
• #beancount:libera.chat

It's worth the effort. You can get all the answers you need in one or other of these rooms, just not always in real time. No plans for a discord presence AFAIK.

Sync your hledger with a hosting service. It can be Syncthing but an easier solution is pcloud.com, which provides a webdav endpoint. In your phone, install foldersync app to sync to a folder in your phone. Than install cone on your phone and points it to the synced folder.

pull requests are welcome. One thing that would be helpful would be to package ledgerble (https://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/application-distribution) for windows/mac so that user don't need to install npm.

I also use orgstruct-mode. Now that it seems to have been unceremoniously dropped, I'll have the same question..

https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/orgalist.html appears to be more about lists than collapsible outline nodes ?

https://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-outside-org.html has a complicated discussion of other options.