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Accounts & Balances

Balance Sheet View

The Accounts & Balances view is the tree-grid representation of your active ledger accounts. It acts as the command center for inspecting your net worth, examining individual account balances, and managing your account list.

📊 Interactive Charts​

Net Worth Trend Asset Allocation Chart

The top portion of the tab provides visual analytics:

  • Net Worth Trend: An interactive chart showing your historical net worth over time. You can toggle the interval between Weekly and Monthly.
  • Balances (Sunburst Chart): A visual sunburst diagram of either Assets, Liabilities, or Equity. You can click on segments to drill down into sub-account distributions.

🏛 Valuation Methods​

You can toggle the Valuation dropdown to view balances in three formats:

  1. Market Value (Convert): Converts all holdings (including commodities like stocks, ETFs, cryptos, or foreign currencies) to your operating currency at the latest recorded market prices using convert().
  2. At Cost: Displays holdings at their original cost basis (acquisition cost) using cost().
  3. Units: Displays raw counts (e.g. 50 AAPL, 1.5 BTC, 1000 USD) without any currency conversion using units().

🌳 Account Tree Hierarchy​

Your accounts are structured hierarchically (e.g., Assets:Checking:Main is a child of Assets:Checking).

Parent-Child Aggregation​

  • Leaf Accounts: Accounts that receive postings directly from transactions.
  • Parent Accounts (Categories): Accounts that group other accounts. Parent account balances automatically display the aggregated sum of their own balance plus all their children's balances.
  • This makes it easy to see your total checking assets by looking at Assets:Checking even if you have several sub-accounts.

Collapsible Nodes​

  • You can click on any parent account row to collapse or expand its subtree.
  • The plugin remembers your expansion/collapse state so that you don't have to re-configure it every time you switch tabs or reload Obsidian.

➕ Managing Accounts from the UI​

You can create or retire accounts directly from this tab without writing plain text directives:

1. Opening a New Account​

  1. Click the ➕ Open Account button in the header.
  2. Fill in the fields:
    • Account Name: Select a parent prefix and append your new sub-account name (e.g., Assets:Savings:VacationFund).
    • Date: Select when this account becomes active (typically the current date or start of the year).
    • Allowed Currencies: List comma-separated currencies (e.g., USD, EUR) if you wish to restrict the currencies this account can hold (optional).
  3. Click Create. The plugin appends the open directive to accounts.beancount.

2. Closing an Account​

  1. Click the ❌ Close Account button in the header.
  2. Select the active account you wish to retire from the dropdown.
  3. Choose the closing date.
  4. Click Close. The plugin appends the close directive to accounts.beancount.

    [!WARNING] An account can only be closed if its balance is exactly zero on the closing date. If it holds assets, transfer them to another account first.