Try it in 30 seconds
No install. No empty-ledger setup. Just record your first real transaction:
- Sign up at beancount.io/sign-up — already have an account? Log in.
- Open your ledger (create one if prompted — it takes seconds).
- Record a transaction — on the web open your ledger's Journal and add an entry; on mobile tap Add Transaction. Try a coffee run:
Expenses:Dining 12.50 paid from Assets:Checking.
- See it land — check the journal, then watch the income statement and balance sheet update.
That's the whole idea: double-entry books you can read as plain text, with reports, phone, terminal, and agents on top of the same ledger.
If Beancount.io is the kind of open, programmable finance you want more of, ⭐ star this repo — it genuinely helps other developers find it.
You don't install Beancount yourself — one command installs bea, which provisions its engine for you.
brew install bex-co/tap/bea # macOS / Linuxbrew
# or: uv tool install beancount-io # anywhere with uv + Python 3.12+
bea --no-input init books --currency USD --date 2026-08-01 \
--opening-balance "Assets:Checking 1000"
cd books
bea add transaction "Coffee" --date 2026-08-02 \
--posting "Expenses:Dining 12.50" --posting "Assets:Checking"
bea check && bea report balance-sheet
Checking now holds 987.50 USD — validated, formatted, and readable as plain text.
Your first five minutes
Who this is for
- Plain-text purists — you want double-entry accounting in files that outlive any app, work with Git, and open in any editor.
- Developers — you want to script, query, and build on your finances from Python and the terminal instead of exporting CSVs from a SaaS.
- Agent users — you want Claude Code, Codex, or another coding agent to import statements, reconcile accounts, and close the month, with every write checked and confirm-gated.
Not sure yet? The live demo needs no account — decide there.
How it compares
| Beancount.io | Plain Beancount + Fava | Spreadsheet / SaaS finance app |
|---|
| Your data | Plain-text .bean files you own | Plain-text .bean files you own | Locked in a database / their cloud |
| Reports | Web, mobile, CLI, and Python reports | Web reports (Fava) | Built-in, but not programmable |
| On your phone | Native iOS & Android apps | Browser only | Native app, tied to the service |
| AI agents | CLI, skills, and MCP built in | Do it yourself | No agent access |
| Self-host | Yes — hosted, local-only, or your server | Yes, manual | No |
| Cost / license | Free, MIT | Free, open source | Subscription |
Beancount.io stands on Beancount and Fava rather than replacing them — existing ledgers keep working. Full credits: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md.
Mobile apps
Review your finances, add transactions, scan receipts, and edit ledger files from the native Beancount client. The same open ledger remains available from the web, terminal, Python, and agent workflows.
Every surface, one ledger
Your ledger stays the same plain-text file across all of them — hosted or local-first, with no hosted service required for CLI and skills workflows.
| Package | What it is |
|---|
dashboard/ | Active web client: ledgers, journal, reports, Monaco editor, imports, collaboration, AI assistant (React 19 + TanStack Start + Apollo) |
mobile/ | Active iOS & Android client (Expo + React Native + Apollo) |
cli/ | Active bea CLI and Python tooling (releases) |
skills/ | One Beancount.io ledger suite with fourteen beancount-* workflows; install the versioned beancount-io plugin or the complete source collection. |
backend-cluster/ | Active backend: GraphQL/REST gateway, ledger service, IDL, and agent sandbox |
The dashboard and mobile app are clients for the Beancount.io API served by backend-cluster/ — hosted, or self-run. Skills have two audiences: Beancount users get skills/; repository contributors get .agents/skills/ (see .agents/AGENTS.md). The root .claude/skills links to .agents/skills so Claude Code and Codex share the internal workflows.
Agents and MCP
Beancount.io is built for the agent era: your ledger is text an agent can read, and every write is validated and reversible.
- Coding-agent skills (local ledger) — fourteen
beancount-* workflows for Claude Code and Codex: scaffold a ledger, record everyday entries, investment trades and property events, import bank exports without duplicates, reconcile against statements, migrate from Mint/Monarch/QuickBooks, query finances in plain language, explain balance-sheet movements, prepare supported accrual drafts, track invoices and bills with the payments against them, and run a confirm-gated month-end close. Install the skills (native Windows: Windows PowerShell 5.1) → ask your first question → first-month guide → migration guide. Unified suite distribution and OpenClaw/Hermes installation record the current publication and host compatibility limits.
- MCP server — point any MCP client at a deployment to query and edit a ledger from an agent. Also listed on the official MCP Registry as
io.beancount/beancount (OAuth sign-in).
{
"mcpServers": {
"beancount": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://your-deployment/api-gateway/mcp",
"headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer [REDACTED]" }
}
}
}
Forty-three tools, one per operation (BQL queries, file reads and edits, entry and receipt insertion, statement parsing, bank import, and more), 64 URI-addressed resources, and four prompts (spending report, month-end close, reconciliation, import categorization — e.g. /mcp__beancount__close-month in Claude Code). File edits, directive appends, and bank imports preview with dry_run, every call re-authorizes, and failures return a machine code plus the next call to make. Per-host notes for Claude, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cursor, Copilot, OpenClaw, and Hermes Agent: MCP docs; contract: ADR 0007.
FAQ
Yes. Your ledger is a plain-text file. Local CLI and skills workflows never require the hosted service; if you self-host, everything runs on your server. You choose where the file lives.
Beancount.io builds on both (Fava ships inside the CLI). It adds native mobile apps, a one-install CLI, hosted or self-hosted collaboration, and first-class agent workflows — while your .bean files remain standard Beancount that Fava and other tools can still read.
Yes — the migration guide converts an export and keeps importing without duplicating transfers.
No. Use the hosted service at beancount.io, run everything locally with the CLI, or self-host on one server with deploy/docker/. Same ledger either way.
Run from source
There is no root package to install; each package owns its dependencies and checks.
Web dashboard (Node.js 22, Yarn 4 via Corepack, plus a Beancount.io API endpoint):
cd dashboard && corepack enable && yarn install --immutable
cp .env.example .env && yarn dev # http://localhost:5173
See the dashboard setup guide. Containers instead? deploy/docker-mac/ runs the full stack locally on macOS; deploy/docker/ is the persistent single-server install.
Mobile app (Node.js 20.19.4+, Yarn Classic):
cd mobile && yarn install && yarn start
See the mobile development guide.
CLI from this checkout:
cd cli && uv sync --all-groups && uv run bea --help
bea upgrade updates through whichever package manager installed it. Full command tree, automation contract, and exit codes: CLI reference and generated command reference.
| Package | Check |
|---|
| Dashboard | cd dashboard && yarn format:check && yarn lint && yarn test && yarn build |
| Mobile | cd mobile && yarn format:check && yarn lint && yarn typecheck && yarn test:unit |
| CLI | cd cli && make check-all |
| Skills | python3 scripts/skills/ci-check.py |
Every active package has path-filtered CI, and a repository-wide secret scan gates every push and pull request. Run scripts/lint-deadcode.sh from the repository root to check for unused files and symbols (scripts/fix-deadcode.sh applies removals; review the diff and rerun full checks).
Contributing
Contributions are welcome across product UI, accounting workflows, accessibility, translations, tests, Python tooling, and agent skills. Start with the contributing guide, browse open issues and the public adoption roadmap, and keep changes focused on one package when possible.
If Beancount.io is the kind of open, programmable finance software you want to see more of, star the repository and help more developers find it.
Community
Acknowledgements
Beancount.io stands on Beancount and Fava — the vendored fava package inside cli/src/fava ships as bundled subprocess resources in the single beancount-io distribution, and the rest of the plain-text accounting stack (beanquery, beangulp, rustledger) is used as unmodified upstream dependencies. Full credits and license compliance: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md.
License
MIT © Beancount.io applies by default. The customer skill suite under skills/ uses MIT No Attribution (MIT-0), including its instructions, references, and fixtures. Upstream projects remain under their own licenses.
