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Snapshot View

The Snapshot View is a persistent sidebar widget that gives you at-a-glance financial awareness while you work in your notes.

👁 Features​

File Status Indicator​

The status button at the top shows the health of your Beancount file:

  • ✅ OK — File is valid, no errors detected
  • ❌ N Errors — Click to see a notification with the full error message
  • Checking… — Validation is in progress

Key Metrics​

Displays three high-level financial indicators pulled directly from your ledger:

  • Net Worth — Total position across all Assets and Liabilities accounts, converted to your Operating Currency
  • Assets — Total value of all Assets accounts in your Operating Currency
  • Liabilities — Total value of all Liabilities accounts. Positive numbers represent outstanding debt; negative numbers indicate a credit or overpayment

All three values are rounded to 2 decimal places and shown in your configured Operating Currency.

Note: Commodities without price data are excluded from the totals. If you hold stocks or crypto without price directives, only the cash portion will be reflected.

Refresh Button​

Reloads all three KPI values and re-validates the Beancount file on demand.

🔍 Underlying Queries​

The Snapshot View uses three typed BQL queries (using your configured Operating Currency, e.g. USD):

Assets:

SELECT round(number(only('USD', convert(sum(position), 'USD'))), 2)
WHERE account ~ '^Assets'

Liabilities (sign-flipped so positive = debt):

SELECT neg(round(number(only('USD', convert(sum(position), 'USD'))), 2))
WHERE account ~ '^Liabilities'

Net Worth (Assets + Liabilities combined):

SELECT round(number(only('USD', convert(sum(position), 'USD'))), 2)
WHERE account ~ '^(Assets|Liabilities)'

The only() function returns null if the position cannot be fully converted to a single currency (e.g., missing price data for a commodity). This is why unconverted commodities are excluded rather than causing an error.

💡 Usage Tips​

When to Use​

  • Daily note-taking — Keep it open while journaling to quickly reference balances
  • Quick checks — Glance at net worth without opening the full dashboard
  • Context switching — Maintain financial awareness while working on other tasks

Placement​

Access the Snapshot View via:

  • Command Palette: Ctrl/Cmd + P → "Open Beancount Snapshot"
  • Right Sidebar: Drag and position the view anywhere in Obsidian's layout