Scriptable Workflows with Beancount and Fava
Beancount (a plain-text double-entry accounting tool) and Fava (its web interface) are highly extensible and scriptable. Their design allows you to automate financial tasks, generate custom reports, and set up alerts by writing Python scripts. In the words of one user, “I really like having my data in such a convenient format, and I like that I can automate things to my heart’s content. There is no API like a file on your disk; it’s easy to integrate with.” This guide will walk through creating scriptable workflows—from beginner-friendly automation to advanced Fava plugins.
Getting Started: Running Beancount as a Python Script
Before diving into specific tasks, ensure you have Beancount installed (e.g. via pip install beancount
). Since Beancount is written in Python, you can use it as a library in your own scripts. The general approach is:
-
Load your Beancount ledger: Use Beancount’s loader to parse the
.beancount
file into Python objects. For example:from beancount import loader
entries, errors, options_map = loader.load_file("myledger.beancount")
if errors:
print("Errors:", errors)