I journeyed from fancy commercial bookkeeping systems that changed data formats every few years (with no useful migration) to GNU Cash and finally to Plain-Text Accounting. I can finally get the information I need with easy backups (through VCS) and flexibility (through various tools that transform the data). The focus is on content, not tools or presentation or product.
When I write I write text. I can transform text using various tools to provide various presentations consumable through various products. The focus is on content, not presentation, tools, or product.
I prefer human-readable file formats, and that has only been reinforced over more than 4 decades as a computer professional.
I have recently migrated ~8y of Apple Numbers spreadsheets (an annoyingly non-portable format) to plaintext accounting.
It took me many hours and a few backtracks to get to a point where I am satisfied with it, and where errors are caught early. I would just suggest anyone starting now to enable --strict --pedantic on ledger-cli from the day 1, and writing asserts for your accounts as well e.g. to check that closed accounts don’t get new entries.
I really miss data entry being easier and not as prone to free-form text editing errors (most common are typos on the amount or copying the wrong source/dest account), but I am confident it matches reality much better than my spreadsheets did.
When I write I write text. I can transform text using various tools to provide various presentations consumable through various products. The focus is on content, not presentation, tools, or product.
I prefer human-readable file formats, and that has only been reinforced over more than 4 decades as a computer professional.