personal-finance/deduping/

[redstreet]

Test

[stelewis]

Hi Red,

Thanks for all the work you've put into documenting your approach, it is very helpful and inspiring for what I might one day be able to achieve!

In this article, you mention Beancount V3 and the proposal to allow single-leg entries: I'm assuming you're referring to the Posting vs. Settlement Dates section of the V3 Goals and Design document.

I'm curious to get your updated perspective - given where V3 is at today, should I consider shifting to V3 and utilising that syntax rather than implementing zero sum accounts?

[redstreet]

Hello @stelewis, Thanks for the kind words, and glad to know it's of help!

That's correct--that was the section I was referring to, and to be clear, it only applies to "Deduping Transactions with Counterparts in Other Accounts". TBH, I haven't kept up with v3. From what I knew last, it didn't have this feature yet.

But this doesn't matter for the purposes of your question: from an importing perspective, you will do almost exactly the same for zero sum accounts as you will for the posting vs settlement dates, as "Input Split Transactions" is a part of the proposal. It might be a minor 5 minute tweak in the importer when the time comes, to go from zerosum accounts to split accounts.

So if I were you, I'd definitely start with zerosum accounts. It only takes a few minutes of reading, understanding, and adding to your accounts, and can help you in many more ways than just deuping. It's a very integral part of my workflow in many scenarios, and has been very smooth for years now.

Hope that helps!