Recurring¶

Some of the transactions recur on a regular interval and it might be useful to know the next due date for such transactions. Recurring page shows the upcoming or recently missed transactions.

Paisa depends on the posting metadata to identify which transactions are recurring. This metadata can be added in couple of ways. Let's say you pay rent every month and you want to mark it as recurring, a typical journal would like below

2023/07/01 Rent
    Expenses:Rent             15,000 INR
    Assets:Checking

2023/08/01 Rent
    Expenses:Rent             15,000 INR
    Assets:Checking

You can manually tag a posting by adding ; Recurring: Rent.

2023/07/01 Rent
    ; Recurring: Rent
    Expenses:Rent             15,000 INR
    Assets:Checking

2023/08/01 Rent
    ; Recurring: Rent
    Expenses:Rent             15,000 INR
    Assets:Checking

The first part of the metadata before the colon is called tag name. It should be Recurring. The second part is the tag value. This value is used to group transactions.

Tagging each and every posting can be tiresome. Ledger has a feature called Automated Transaction which can make this process simpler.

= Expenses:Rent
    ; Recurring: Rent

The first line is the predicate and the line below it will get added to any matching posting. By default, it will match the posting account name. But you can target other attributes like payee, amount etc. You can find more examples below, more info about predicate is available on Ledger docs

= expr payee=~/^PPF$/
    ; Recurring: PPF

= expr payee=~/Mutual Fund/
    ; Recurring: Mutual Fund

= expr 'account=~/Expenses:Insurance/ and (payee=~/HDFC/)'
    ; Recurring: Life Insurance

= expr 'account=~/Expenses:Insurance/ and !(payee=~/HDFC/)'
    ; Recurring: Bike Insurance

= expr payee=~/Savings Interest/
    ; Recurring: Savings Interest

Tip

Include the automated transactions at the top of the main ledger file. Ledger will apply the rules only to transactions that follow the automated transactions.

Period¶

Paisa will try to infer the recurring period of the transactions automatically, but this might not be perfect. Recurring period can also be explicitly specified via metadata.

= expr payee=~/Savings Interest/
    ; Recurring: Savings Interest
    ; Period: L MAR,JUN,SEP,DEC ?

Let's say your bank deposits the interest on the last day of the last month of the quarter, we can specify like the example above. Paisa editor recognizes period syntax and shows the upcoming 3 schedules right next to period metadata.

┌─────────── day of the month 1-31
│  ┌─────────── month 1-12 or JAN-DEC
│  │  ┌─────────── day of the week 0-6 (Sunday to Saturday)
│  │  │
1  *  ?

The syntax of the period is similar to cron, with the omission of seconds and hours.

Field	Allowed values	Special characters
Day of month	`1–31`	`* , - ? L W`
Month	`1-12` or `JAN-DEC`	`* , -`
Day of week	`0-6` or `SUN-SAT`	`* , - ? L`

* also known as wildcard represents all valid values. ? means you want to omit the field, usually you use it on the day of month or day of week. L means last day of the month or week. , can be used to specify multiple entries. - can be used to specify range. W means the closest business day to given day of month

Multiple cron expressions can be specified by joining them using |. Refer the wikipedia for more information. If you are not sure, just type it out and the editor will show you whether it is valid and the next 3 schedules if valid.

Examples¶

Last day of every month ; Period: L * ?
5^th every month ; Period: 5 * ?
Every Sunday ; Period: ? * 0
1^st of Jan and 7^th of Feb ; Period: 1 JAN ? | 7 FEB ?
Closest business day to the 15^th day of every month. ; Period: 15W * ?

Warning

Recurring page will only display a transaction as recurring if there is more than one transaction with the same tag name. If you have only one transaction, wait untill the next transaction is added to see it on the recurring page.