Org and ledger

Org and ledger

[Vikas Rawal]

I have started using ledger with Org, and would be interested in knowing experiences of other users.

I see two sets of uses in combining Ledger with Org.

1. Record keeping of transactions: Org works with ledger mainly through babel. Has anyone considered the possibility of maintaining the records natively in Org, which could be exported to ledger? Keeping native ledger source blocks in Org does not seem to add much value as far as maintaining books is concerned. Some people have tried some basic expense recording in Org, but to my knowledge, these solutions do not talk to ledger.

2. Generating reports: Babel results do not use the standard Org table syntax. Given my limited knowledge of lisp, I am finding it difficult to programme customising these reports in Org. It would be of much benefit if other users could share how they customise ledger reports in Org. Some examples would be great.

Vikas

Re: Org and ledger

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Vikas Rawal <vikaslists@agrarianresearch.org> writes:

> I have started using ledger with Org, and would be interested in knowing experiences of other users.
>
> I see two sets of uses in combining Ledger with Org.
>
> 1. Record keeping of transactions: Org works with ledger mainly
> through babel. Has anyone considered the possibility of maintaining
> the records natively in Org, which could be exported to ledger?
> Keeping native ledger source blocks in Org does not seem to add much
> value as far as maintaining books is concerned. Some people have tried
> some basic expense recording in Org, but to my knowledge, these
> solutions do not talk to ledger.

I've certainly thought about it :)

I think the ideal solution for me would be org headings with
ledger-specific properties. So you could have date and payee properties
(defaulting to using the heading text and any timestamp present), and
then as many LEDGER_POSTING properties as you like. You could "export" a
subtree of postings to a real ledger file, and there would be an
export-and-archive command that would "permanently retire" a set of org
headings as a ledger file.

When keeping track of payments I need to make, or need to receive, the
duplication of data in my org and ledger files has always annoyed me.

I haven't actually done anything about it, though :)

> 2. Generating reports: Babel results do not use the standard Org table
> syntax. Given my limited knowledge of lisp, I am finding it difficult
> to programme customising these reports in Org. It would be of much
> benefit if other users could share how they customise ledger reports
> in Org. Some examples would be great.

Can't help here, sorry.

Re: Org and ledger

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday, 31 Oct 2014 at 12:32, Vikas Rawal wrote:
> I have started using ledger with Org, and would be interested in knowing experiences of other users.

I use ledger within org in the literate programming sense.  This allows
me to have different ledger entries all over the place under different
headings but can then use one src block to generate whatever I want,
either a balance or a register, say.

> 2. Generating reports: Babel results do not use the standard Org table
> syntax. 

Yes, this is true.  It may be possible to change the output of ledger
(using --format, say) to something that babel could process into a
table.  However, I do find ledger a little clumsy in this regard but
maybe that's just the documentation.  

An extra complication is the big difference between ledger v2 and v3 in
terms of invoking it.  What version are you using?
 
-- 
: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 25.0.50.1, Org release_8.3beta-475-g25d50e

Re: Org and ledger

[Alan Schmitt]

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On 2014-10-31 12:32, Vikas Rawal <vikaslists@agrarianresearch.org> writes:

> 2. Generating reports: Babel results do not use the standard Org table
> syntax. Given my limited knowledge of lisp, I am finding it difficult
> to programme customising these reports in Org. It would be of much
> benefit if other users could share how they customise ledger reports
> in Org. Some examples would be great.

I generate reports and deal with my budget using org. I describe my
setup here:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-04/msg00727.html

Since then, I've slightly refined these functions, here is the current
version:

#+begin_src org
#+name: call_ledger
#+begin_src emacs-lisp :var lcmd="bal" :var bucket="Quotidien" :var prefix="Expenses:" :var period=()
  (let* ((name (org-trim bucket))
         (bname (concat "'^" prefix name "'"))
         (ledger "ledger -f ~/Documents/Org/mescomptes.ledger")
         (parg (when period (concat " -p '" period "'")))
         (cutcmd "tail -1 | cut -d ' ' -f 2")
         (cmd 
          (concat ledger " -J " parg " " lcmd " " bname " | " cutcmd))
         (res (org-trim (shell-command-to-string cmd))))
    (if (equal res "") 0 res))
#+end_src

#+name: monthly_average_since
#+begin_src emacs-lisp :var start-date="2014-03-01" :var amount=100
  (let ((nbdays (- (time-to-days (current-time))
                   (time-to-days (org-read-date nil t start-date)))))
    (calc-eval "round($ / (12 * ($$ / 365.25)), 2)" nil amount nbdays))
#+end_src

#+name: monthly_average
#+begin_src emacs-lisp :var starty=2014 :var startm=3 :var amount=100 
  (let* ((tm (decode-time))
         (cmonth (nth 4 tm))
         (cyear (nth 5 tm))
         (nbmonths (+ (* 12 (- cyear starty)) (- cmonth startm))))
    (calc-eval "round($ / $$, 2)" nil amount nbmonths))
#+end_src

#+name: ledger_average
#+begin_src emacs-lisp :var b="Quotidien" :var sy=2014 :var sm=3  :var sd="2014-03-01" :var p="Expenses:"
  (let* ((per (format "from %d-%d-01 to this month" sy sm))
         (a (org-sbe call_ledger (bucket (eval b)) (prefix (eval p)) (period (eval per)))))
    (org-sbe monthly_average (amount (eval a)) (starty (eval sy)) (startm (eval sm))))
#+end_src

#+name: ledger_budget
#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :results output :var table=budget :var year=2014 :var month=04
  (princ (format "%d-%02d-01 * Budget %d %02d\n" year month year month))
  (mapcar
   (lambda (tuple)
     (princ (format "    Bucket:Expenses:%s    %d €\n" (car tuple) (cadr tuple))))
   (butlast (cdr table) 1))
  (princ "    Bucket:Unallocated:EUR\n")
#+END_SRC
#+end_src

The table looks like this now

#+begin_src org
#+name: budget
| Bucket | Planned | Remaining | This Month | Last Month | Average |
|--------+---------+-----------+------------+------------+---------|
| Name   | …       | …         | …          | …          | …       |
|--------+---------+-----------+------------+------------+---------|
| Total  | …       | …         | …          | …          | …       |
#+TBLFM: @2$3..@>>$3='(org-sbe call_ledger (bucket (concat "\"" $1 "\"")) (prefix "\"Bucket:Expenses:\""))
#+TBLFM: @2$4..@>>$4='(org-sbe call_ledger (bucket (concat "\"" $1 "\"")) (period "\"this month\""))
#+TBLFM: @2$5..@>>$5='(org-sbe call_ledger (bucket (concat "\"" $1 "\"")) (period "\"last month\""))
#+TBLFM: @2$6..@>>$6='(org-sbe ledger_average (b (concat "\"" $1 "\"")))
#+TBLFM: @>$2..@>$6=vsum(@2..@-1)
#+end_src

Best,

Alan

-- 
OpenPGP Key ID : 040D0A3B4ED2E5C7

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Re: Org and ledger

[Sharon Kimble]

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Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:

Thanks Alan for this. Ledger is something that I would dearly love to be
using, but I can't find a good tutorial [by which I mean, it works in
small steps which build on the previous steps]. I've looked at

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-04/msg00727.html
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/weaving-a-budget.html
http://hledger.org/step-by-step

The last one looked the most promising until I tried "ledger add" which
replied -

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
ledger add -f ~/.emacs.d/ledger/ledger.journal
Error: Unrecognized command 'add'
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

So now I'm stumped!

Sharon.

> On 2014-10-31 12:32, Vikas Rawal <vikaslists@agrarianresearch.org> writes:
<snip>.
>
> I generate reports and deal with my budget using org. I describe my
> setup here:
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-04/msg00727.html
>
> Since then, I've slightly refined these functions, here is the current
> version:
>
> #+begin_src org
> #+name: call_ledger
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp :var lcmd="bal" :var bucket="Quotidien" :var prefix="Expenses:" :var period=()
>   (let* ((name (org-trim bucket))
>          (bname (concat "'^" prefix name "'"))
>          (ledger "ledger -f ~/Documents/Org/mescomptes.ledger")
>          (parg (when period (concat " -p '" period "'")))
>          (cutcmd "tail -1 | cut -d ' ' -f 2")
>          (cmd 
>           (concat ledger " -J " parg " " lcmd " " bname " | " cutcmd))
>          (res (org-trim (shell-command-to-string cmd))))
>     (if (equal res "") 0 res))
> #+end_src
> #+name: monthly_average_since
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp :var start-date="2014-03-01" :var amount=100
>   (let ((nbdays (- (time-to-days (current-time))
>                    (time-to-days (org-read-date nil t start-date)))))
>     (calc-eval "round($ / (12 * ($$ / 365.25)), 2)" nil amount nbdays))
> #+end_src
>
> #+name: monthly_average
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp :var starty=2014 :var startm=3 :var amount=100 
>   (let* ((tm (decode-time))
>          (cmonth (nth 4 tm))
>          (cyear (nth 5 tm))
>          (nbmonths (+ (* 12 (- cyear starty)) (- cmonth startm))))
>     (calc-eval "round($ / $$, 2)" nil amount nbmonths))
> #+end_src
>
> #+name: ledger_average
> #+begin_src emacs-lisp :var b="Quotidien" :var sy=2014 :var sm=3  :var sd="2014-03-01" :var p="Expenses:"
>   (let* ((per (format "from %d-%d-01 to this month" sy sm))
>          (a (org-sbe call_ledger (bucket (eval b)) (prefix (eval p)) (period (eval per)))))
>     (org-sbe monthly_average (amount (eval a)) (starty (eval sy)) (startm (eval sm))))
> #+end_src
>
> #+name: ledger_budget
> #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :results output :var table=budget :var year=2014 :var month=04
>   (princ (format "%d-%02d-01 * Budget %d %02d\n" year month year month))
>   (mapcar
>    (lambda (tuple)
>      (princ (format "    Bucket:Expenses:%s    %d €\n" (car tuple) (cadr tuple))))
>    (butlast (cdr table) 1))
>   (princ "    Bucket:Unallocated:EUR\n")
> #+END_SRC
> #+end_src
>
> The table looks like this now
>
> #+begin_src org
> #+name: budget
> | Bucket | Planned | Remaining | This Month | Last Month | Average |
> |--------+---------+-----------+------------+------------+---------|
> | Name   | &       | &         | &          | &          | &       |
> |--------+---------+-----------+------------+------------+---------|
> | Total  | &       | &         | &          | &          | &       |
> #+TBLFM: @2$3..@>>$3='(org-sbe call_ledger (bucket (concat "\"" $1 "\"")) (prefix "\"Bucket:Expenses:\""))
> #+TBLFM: @2$4..@>>$4='(org-sbe call_ledger (bucket (concat "\"" $1 "\"")) (period "\"this month\""))
> #+TBLFM: @2$5..@>>$5='(org-sbe call_ledger (bucket (concat "\"" $1 "\"")) (period "\"last month\""))
> #+TBLFM: @2$6..@>>$6='(org-sbe ledger_average (b (concat "\"" $1 "\"")))
> #+TBLFM: @>$2..@>$6=vsum(@2..@-1)
> #+end_src
>
> Best,
>
> Alan

-- 
A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
my git repo = https://bitbucket.org/boudiccas/dots
TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
Debian testing, fluxbox 1.3.5, emacs 24.4.1.0

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Re: Org and ledger

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Sharon Kimble <boudiccas@skimble.plus.com> writes:

> Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:
>
> Thanks Alan for this. Ledger is something that I would dearly love to be
> using, but I can't find a good tutorial [by which I mean, it works in
> small steps which build on the previous steps]. I've looked at
>
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-04/msg00727.html
> http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/weaving-a-budget.html
> http://hledger.org/step-by-step
>
> The last one looked the most promising until I tried "ledger add" which
> replied -
>
> ledger add -f ~/.emacs.d/ledger/ledger.journal
> Error: Unrecognized command 'add'
>
> So now I'm stumped!

That last link is a tutorial for hledger, which actually isn't the same
as normal ledger -- it's sort of "inspired by" ledger, but has different
commands, as you discovered.

Documentation for ledger is a little spotty. I've found the official
docs to be better than anything else, though they still leave a little
to be desired:

http://www.ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html#Ledger-Tutorial

Re: Org and ledger

[Sharon Kimble]

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Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> Sharon Kimble <boudiccas@skimble.plus.com> writes:
>
>> Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:
>>
>> Thanks Alan for this. Ledger is something that I would dearly love to be
>> using, but I can't find a good tutorial [by which I mean, it works in
>> small steps which build on the previous steps]. I've looked at
>>
>> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-04/msg00727.html
>> http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/weaving-a-budget.html
>> http://hledger.org/step-by-step
>>
>> The last one looked the most promising until I tried "ledger add" which
>> replied -
>>
>> ledger add -f ~/.emacs.d/ledger/ledger.journal
>> Error: Unrecognized command 'add'
>>
>> So now I'm stumped!
>
> That last link is a tutorial for hledger, which actually isn't the same
> as normal ledger -- it's sort of "inspired by" ledger, but has different
> commands, as you discovered.
>
> Documentation for ledger is a little spotty. I've found the official
> docs to be better than anything else, though they still leave a little
> to be desired:
>
> http://www.ledger-cli.org/3.0/doc/ledger3.html#Ledger-Tutorial

Thanks Erik, that looks understandable and comprehensive, so I'll try
having a play with it over the weekend. And I reckon that I will be
keeping my own instruction docs which might be able to be used to setup
another tutorial later on, but lets try walking before running
though! :)

Sharon.
-- 
A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
my git repo = https://bitbucket.org/boudiccas/dots
TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
Debian testing, fluxbox 1.3.5, emacs 24.4.1.0

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Re: Org and ledger

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday,  7 Nov 2014 at 19:53, Sharon Kimble wrote:

[...]

> having a play with it over the weekend. And I reckon that I will be
> keeping my own instruction docs which might be able to be used to setup
> another tutorial later on, but lets try walking before running
> though! :)
>
> Sharon.

Sharon,

I'm online now.  You can find the org tutorial for ledger with a simple
example at 

http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/languages/ob-doc-ledger.html

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 25.0.50.1, Org release_8.3beta-475-g25d50e

Re: Org and ledger

[Eric S Fraga]

Sharon,

a reference to another possibly useful tutorial was posted to the ledger
newsgroup a while ago:

    From: Simon Michael <simon-jbxitMBJ2LLQT0dZR+AlfA@public.gmane.org>
    Subject: Re: ledger basics and habits
    Newsgroups: gmane.comp.finance.ledger.general
    To: ledger-cli-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
    Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 08:28:28 -0700 (20 weeks, 16 hours, 2 minutes ago)

    Thanks!

    The http://matthewturland.com/2014/03/29/ledger-basics-and-habits post
    is the best short-medium intro I've seen yet.

    Now featuring on https://twitter.com/LedgerTips .

I've not had a chance to read the post so cannot say how good it might
be but you may wish to follow this up.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 24.3.1, Org release_8.3beta-372-gdd70cf

Re: Org and ledger

[Eric S Fraga]

On Friday,  7 Nov 2014 at 13:19, Sharon Kimble wrote:
> Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> writes:
>
> Thanks Alan for this. Ledger is something that I would dearly love to be
> using, but I can't find a good tutorial [by which I mean, it works in
> small steps which build on the previous steps]. I've looked at
>
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-04/msg00727.html
> http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/weaving-a-budget.html
> http://hledger.org/step-by-step
>
> The last one looked the most promising until I tried "ledger add" which
> replied -
>
> ledger add -f ~/.emacs.d/ledger/ledger.journal
> Error: Unrecognized command 'add'
>
> So now I'm stumped!

Well, ledger and hledger are different tools that use the same (very
similar) data files.  The invocation of each is different.  org supports
ledger out of the box but not hledger.

The ledger manual is good enough to get started, in my opinion, if you
stick to the simple examples and don't try to customise much.

There is a short org ledger tutorial on Worg.  I'm offline at the moment
so cannot give you the link but it's there!  I wrote it... :)

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 24.3.1, Org release_8.3beta-372-gdd70cf

Re: Org and ledger

[Daniel Clemente]

> Well, ledger and hledger are different tools that use the same (very
> similar) data files.  The invocation of each is different.  org supports
> ledger out of the box but not hledger.
> 
  I prefer beancount (very similar to ledger but stricter): beancount supports org out of the box! My beancount file is an org file (with structure, tasks, priorities, agenda, etc. except :CLOCK:) and it parses correctly as a ledger.
  So I don't use beancount support in org, but the reverse.
  It also includes Emacs mode, fontification, autocomplete, …
  http://furius.ca/beancount/
  

Re: Org and ledger

[Eric S Fraga]

On Sunday,  9 Nov 2014 at 11:34, Daniel Clemente wrote:

[...]

>   I prefer beancount (very similar to ledger but stricter): beancount
> supports org out of the box! My beancount file is an org file (with
> structure, tasks, priorities, agenda, etc. except :CLOCK:) and it
> parses correctly as a ledger.

Interesting.  Could you post an example file?  The documentation you
linked to on Google docs does not mention org anywhere that I could see.

thanks.
-- 
: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 25.0.50.1, Org release_8.3beta-475-g25d50e

Re: Org and ledger

[Bernhard Pröll]

I have been curious too and found this file:

https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/src/tip/examples/tutorial/example.beancount

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> schrieb am Sun, 09. Nov 13:29:
>On Sunday,  9 Nov 2014 at 11:34, Daniel Clemente wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>   I prefer beancount (very similar to ledger but stricter): beancount
>> supports org out of the box! My beancount file is an org file (with
>> structure, tasks, priorities, agenda, etc. except :CLOCK:) and it
>> parses correctly as a ledger.
>
>Interesting.  Could you post an example file?  The documentation you
>linked to on Google docs does not mention org anywhere that I could see.
>
>thanks.
>-- 
>: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 25.0.50.1, Org release_8.3beta-475-g25d50e
>

-- 

mit freundlichen Grüßen

Bernhard Pröll

Re: Org and ledger

[Daniel Clemente]

El Mon, 10 Nov 2014 08:08:51 +0100 Bernhard Pröll va escriure:
> 
> I have been curious too and found this file:
> 
> https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/src/tip/examples/tutorial/example.beancount

Exactly. The first line defines org mode:
;; -*- mode: org; mode: beancount; -*-

[ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Peter Jones]

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All,

I thought I'd share some elisp that I'm using in conjunction with
org-mode for helping me prepare invoices.

The attached file is useful for producing an org mode dblock that groups
headings by date and calculates billing information based on your hourly
rate.  It also has a clean API for other elisp packages to use.

I currently have another elisp file that submits the invoice data to my
private invoicing system, and I'm working on another that submits to
FreshBooks (a web-based accounting package that one of my clients uses).

At some point in the future, if there's enough interest I'll post this
to Worg with a tutorial.

To those org-mode users in the US that are celebrating Thanksgiving,
have a Happy Holidays!


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-- 
Peter Jones, http://pmade.com
pmade inc.  Louisville, CO US

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Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Mark A. Hershberger]

Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> writes:

> I thought I'd share some elisp that I'm using in conjunction with
> org-mode for helping me prepare invoices.

Very nice.  I was looking for something like this.

Now, if I can just figure out how to integrate invoicing and ledger....

Mark.

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Peter Jones]

mah@everybody.org (Mark A. Hershberger) writes:
> Now, if I can just figure out how to integrate invoicing and ledger....

Is ledger an application, or some additional org functionality you want?

-- 
Peter Jones, http://pmade.com
pmade inc.  Louisville, CO US

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Mark A. Hershberger]

Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> writes:

> mah@everybody.org (Mark A. Hershberger) writes:
>> Now, if I can just figure out how to integrate invoicing and ledger....
>
> Is ledger an application, or some additional org functionality you want?

http://www.newartisans.com/software/ledger.html (Thanks, Tim, for the
link.)

A new tax year is starting up and I'm looking at how I do accounting
again — along with all the regrets about the past being less than
perfect.

Adapting my usage of Org for invoicing to work with org-invoice would
help a lot.  Integrating it with ledger would help that much more.

Mark.

Org and Ledger (was: Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0)

[Carsten Dominik]

Hi Mark,

John Wiegley also asked me recently if there would be a path for  
intergating
Org with ledger in some way, because apparently this has been brought  
up on the ledger mailing list.  I have never used ledger, and so I  
have no picture in my head of what would be useful.  Maybe we should  
have a discussion of ideas here?

- Carsten

On Dec 7, 2008, at 9:23 PM, Mark A. Hershberger wrote:

> Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> writes:
>
>> mah@everybody.org (Mark A. Hershberger) writes:
>>> Now, if I can just figure out how to integrate invoicing and  
>>> ledger....
>>
>> Is ledger an application, or some additional org functionality you  
>> want?
>
> http://www.newartisans.com/software/ledger.html (Thanks, Tim, for the
> link.)
>
> A new tax year is starting up and I'm looking at how I do accounting
> again — along with all the regrets about the past being less than
> perfect.
>
> Adapting my usage of Org for invoicing to work with org-invoice would
> help a lot.  Integrating it with ledger would help that much more.
>
> Mark.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

Re: Org and Ledger

[Mark A. Hershberger]

Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:

> I have never used ledger, and so I have no picture in my head of
> what would be useful.  Maybe we should have a discussion of ideas
> here?

I think Russell Adams gives a hint at the problem:

> I'm faced with needing the ability to integrate it into some business
> workflows (ie: expense reporting, invoicing cycles, tax reporting,
> etc) which I'll have to write all of the logic myself. I can use
> Ledger for the data, but I have to code the workflows I require.

With the introduction of org-invoice, I can begin to see my way through
this muddled mess.

Ideally, when I generate an invoice, I could verify that all was correct
and invoke some sort of “send-to-client” function that would make an
entry in ledger's “Accounts Receivable” as well as emailing the invoice
to the client (or updating FreshBooks, or what have you).

Another idea is budgeting: Org and its tables seems like natural fit
for this.  If I could easily tie org to ledger accounts, maybe I could
see when I'm spending more than is budgeted.

Or if I keep track of a “TO BUY” list in org and need to save money for
some big ticket item, maybe I could have Org query ledger to see how
much money I have saved.

Pie-in-the-sky ideas, and my use of ledger as-yet is non-existent, but
this would really help.

Mark.