"Account drop" cannot be disabled

[gnidan]

I organize my accounts into top-level buckets, e.g. gnidan:assets vs. llc:assets, and it appears that this tool hardcodes the use of "account drop" when integrating with the underlying golang wrapper.

This makes the resulting views in the dashboard very difficult to read and essentially makes puffin unusable for me :(

Any chance this could be made configurable? Thank you!

[siddhantac]

That's a very interesting use-case that I never thought of. Let me review the code if this can be made configurable.

[siddhantac]

I looked at the code. I think this can be made configurable. I will leave the default as --drop=1 and I will provide a way to change that. But it will take me a few days to get to this, hope that's ok!

[gnidan]

I looked at the code. I think this can be made configurable. I will leave the default as --drop=1 and I will provide a way to change that.

Awesome!

But it will take me a few days to get to this, hope that's ok!

Totally fine! Thank you!

[siddhantac]

#65

This should fix this issue. Would it be possible for you to test it? You'll have to compile it locally. Totally fine if that's not possible.

In the config.json file, you can set these values.

    "balanceOptions": {
        "accountDrop": 0
    },
    "generalOptions": {
        "accountDrop": 0
    }

Actually if you don't specify anything then the default will end up being --drop=0 if you use a config file. If you don't use a config file then the default will be --drop=1. So my recommendation is to make it explicit.

[gnidan]

#65

This should fix this issue. Would it be possible for you to test it? You'll have to compile it locally. Totally fine if that's not possible.

Awesome, thanks so much! I should have a golang toolchain on a computer already, I'll try this out later today.

[gnidan]

It's definitely improved but the display is a bit confusing, particularly the expenses report:

That top expenses should be grouped under my LLC llc:expenses, although my personal expenses seem to be reported correctly.

Here's the config.json I'm using

{
    "balanceOptions": {
        "accountDrop": 0
    },
    "generalOptions": {
        "accountDrop": 0
    },
    "startDate": "2025",
    "period": "monthly",
    "reports": [
        {
            "name": "assets",
            "cmd": "hledger balance type:a"
        },
        {
            "name": "expenses",
            "cmd": "hledger balance type:x --drop=0"
        },
        {
            "name": "revenue",
            "cmd": "hledger balance type:r"
        },
        {
            "name": "liabilities",
            "cmd": "hledger balance type:l"
        },
        {
            "name": "income statement",
            "cmd": "hledger incomestatement  "
        },
        {
            "name": "balance sheet",
            "cmd": "hledger balancesheet  "
        },
        {
            "name": "accounts",
            "cmd": "hledger accounts "
        },
        {
            "name": "register",
            "cmd": "hledger register"
        },
        {
            "name": "commodities",
            "cmd": "hledger commodities",
            "locked": true
        }
    ]
}

I've tried modifying the --drop flag and removing it, but I can't seem to get it to behave properly.

EDIT: Oh, I should add that when I turn off tree view, the accounts do show up correctly.

[gnidan]

Actually if you don't specify anything then the default will end up being --drop=0 if you use a config file.

Also, don't feel obliged to add this surprise breaking change just for my issue! I'm happy to specify things explicitly and wouldn't want your other users to get annoyed :)

[siddhantac]

Have you tried turning off tree mode?

'm happy to specify things explicitly
Yes you can define your own custom commands in the config, and lock it if you don't want the default drop filter to get applied. However, then you would also lose out on all the other filters.

So this change would be generally in the right direction for this project.

PS: I'm building a revamped UI at the moment, so it's good to know about these different usecases so I can make it configurable from the start.

[gnidan]

Have you tried turning off tree mode?

Yes, and it behaves as expected with the full :-separated account names. But this is a bit annoying, since tree view is awesome :)

[siddhantac]

Your usecase is quite interesting. While investigating I learnt how hledger handles non-traditional account names like yours (if you haven't, I highly recommend reading this section of the manual which states the traditional top-level account names).

It turns out that hledger also cannot display tree mode for accounts which do not follow the traditional format. You can see that in action by making a small change to the sample journal file and running the following command:

replace the first 2 transactions of data/hledger.journal with this

2021-12-01 Gym
    personal:expenses:fitness                                  $60.00
    liabilities:credit_card:american_express      $-60.00

2021-12-08 Rent
    biz:expenses:rent              $2,300.00
    assets:bank:maybank    $-2,300.00

then run this

hledger balance expenses -f data/hledger.journal --depth=3 date:2021.. --layout bare --yearly --pretty --average --tree

You should see something like this:

Balance changes in 2021-01-01..2022-12-31:

┌───────────────────────────╥───────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────────┐
│                           ║ Commodity │     2021 │   2022 │  Average │
╞═══════════════════════════╬═══════════╪══════════╪════════╪══════════╡
│ biz:expenses:rent         ║ $         │ 2,300.00 │      0 │ 1,150.00 │
│ expenses                  ║ $         │   900.54 │ 140.49 │   520.52 │
│   entertainment           ║ $         │        0 │  21.98 │    10.99 │
│   groceries               ║ $         │        0 │   3.48 │     1.74 │
│   household               ║ $         │   800.00 │      0 │   400.00 │
│   travel                  ║ $         │        0 │  15.05 │     7.52 │
│   utilities               ║ $         │   100.54 │  99.98 │   100.26 │
│ personal:expenses:fitness ║ $         │    60.00 │      0 │    30.00 │
├───────────────────────────╫───────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────────┤
│                           ║ $         │ 3,260.54 │ 140.49 │ 1,700.52 │
└───────────────────────────╨───────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────────┘

So with the changes I made in #65 this is the closest we can get.

---

Another point to note, hledger commands using type: will not work. With the same journal file as above, if you run the following command, the non-traditional accounts are completely ignored by hledger.

hledger balance type:x -f data/hledger.journal --depth=3 date:2021.. --layout bare --yearly --pretty --average --tree

Note the expenses vs type:x. You will notice that biz:expenses:rent and personal:expenses:fitness are not even displayed.

The default configs use the type:x (and family) commands. You will have to update your config to use expenses , assets etc.

If this works for you, I'll merge the changes. 🙂 Making the --drop option is configurable is good to have.

[siddhantac]

Hi @gnidan if no further support is needed I will close this issue.