Double Entry Book Keeping

debk.py is a simple collection of utilities to facilitate double entry book keeping. It was inspired by Glen Jarvis who is working on a (I suspect much more sophisticated) version of his own.

A major design decision (championed by Glen) is to keep all the data files in text format (csv or json) to allow direct editing. Large business entities (with so much data that it could not all be held in memory at once) could not be accommodated. Also note that it is not suitable for the naive user: assumed is an understanding of what is meant by debit and credit and how the significance differs depending on the account type. Expressed different way: this is only suitable for use by those who understand the fundamentals of double entry book keeping.

Yet to be implemented is a method of 'closing the books,' that is to say there is no accounting cycle concept as of yet.

Installation

The following is a suggested way of getting up and running.

Choose:

1. An existing directory to serve as a parent for the project directory.
2. A directory for the data files.

By default the latter will appear within the project directory.

Let's assume you've choosen your home directory (e.g. /home/user) to be the parent of your project directory. Make it your working directory, clone the repository thus creating the project directory structure, and then make it your working directory:

cd /home/user
git clone https://github.com/alexKleider/debk.git
cd debk

The debk project directory tree will contain all needed files and subdirectories including a debk.d directory for persistent storage.

All of what follows assumes that you have the project directory as your current working directory. Although not likely to be necessary, if experiencing difficulties: Check that all the .py files have the execution bits set:

chmod 755 */*.py

The directory in which the data files are kept is specified in the debk/src/config.py file. If you wish to change the default value (~/debk/debk.d) you'll have to edit ~/debk/src/config.py and change the value of DEFAULTS['home']. Be sure to set ownership and permissions appropriately. (This will not be necessary if you stick to the defaults.)

Still from within your project directory, prepare your environment, activate it and bring in dependencies as follows:

virtualenv -p python3 venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Not now, but when it's time to exit the environment, you can do so with the following command:

deactivate   #... but don't do it now!

Another requirement is to add your project directory to the PYTHONPATH environment variable. Provided is path.sh, a shell script, which can be sourced to accomplish this:

source ./path.sh

Usage

Use of the program requires familiarity with the DefaultChartOfAccounts file which can be edited to suit your purposes. Rather than editing it, you might want instead to create copies for specific entities and customize each as described further down.

To begin using the program:

./src/menu.py

Explanatory Notes

Most of the functionality is found in src/debk.py although entity creation is handled by src/entities.py. A menu driven user interface is provided by the src/menu.py module. The next level down menu driven interface is provided by src/workwith.py. src/money.py provides regex support for reading money values. There is also a src/config.py dependency. A test suite is found under the tests directory.

debk.d/defaultChartOfAccounts provides a suggested chart of accounts (aka ledger) which can be edited to suit your own needs. Indentation is for readability only. Comments are not permitted. A copy must exist in the debk.d directory discussed in the next paragraph. A leading white space stripped version of this file is treated as a CSV file so apart from the leading white space, it must conform to the format of a CSV file.

Persistent Storage

The system depends on the existence of a debk.d directory to provide a 'home' for the project's data. It is specified within src/config.py as the value of config.DEFAULTS['home']. By default this is set to ~/debk/debk.d. This directory must (at a bare minimum) contain a defaultChartOfAccounts file.

Entities

The system allows management of more than one set of books, each representing a named entity. Entity creation, selection and deletion are handled through the menu interface which relies on src/entities.py.

Entity names must consist only of letters, no dashes or underscores. Before creating a new entity, testentity for example, you might like to first create a custom chart of accounts. Be sure its format matches the defaultChartOfAccounts file and then place it in the 'home' directory naming it testentityChartOfAccounts (a concatenation of the name of the entity and ChartOfAccounts.) debk/tests/debk.d/ManeroChartOfAccounts and debk/debk.d/defaultChartOfAccounts serve as examples. New entity creation wil result in a new sub-directory testentity.d populated with the following files:

• CofA
• Journal.json
• Metadata.json

If you experience difficulties, verify that read/write privileges are appropriate.

Journal Entry

Journal entry can be done individually by the user responding to prompts, or, more conveniently, by means of a previously created input file, as described in the file how2input. It is suggested that you create a Pvt directory and keep journal input files there with file names such as MyEntity16 (containing 2016 entries for MyEntity.)

Back Ground

The project was inspired by the book keeping needs of a group (Kazan15) taking a wilderness canoe trip on the Kazan River in Nunavit, Canada. The software includes several 'custom' features specialized for this group. These custom features probably do not work in the current version since their support has been neglected as the project has evolved. Support may reappear in a later version.

Disclaimers

There is still, as of src/config.VERSION no support for adding accounts except by editing the entity's CofA file. Deleting accounts will likely create havoc!

To use this software, the user must have a clear idea of the meaning of 'debit' and 'credit' in the context of double entry book keeping. Familiarity with the command line, text editing, file manipulation and Python's virtualenv is also assumed.

TESTING

The script test.sh runs the whole test suite redirecting all output to testresults which is then opened with vim.

Finally

Correspondence with the author is welcome whether it be criticism, suggestions for improvement, offer to collaborate, or anything else.

alex at kleider dot ca