Let’s say you have a checking account with the following statement for June 2025:

Date	Description	Amount	Balance
Jun 19, 2025	McTacos	-$10.00	$690.00
Jun 13, 2025	THAT ONE JOB DIRECT DEP	$400.00	$700.00

Create a new file named main.augrfinance. We’ll start by defining USD as a currency and “opening” a checking account.

currency USD 2

open Assets:Checking 2025-06-01

Now let’s add the two transactions from the bank statement into the main.augrfinance file.

currency USD 2

open Assets:Checking 2025-06-01

transaction 2025-06-13 [ # Paycheck
	[Assets:Checking 400.00 USD]
]

transaction 2025-06-19 [ # Got some fast food
	[Assets:Checking -10.00 USD]
]

Making sure you have augr installed, run augr finance status and you should be greeted with the following output:

> augr finance status ./main.augrfinance
# Finance.Transaction.Id(0): NonZero; 1 SUM currencies: 400.00 USD
transaction 2025-06-13T00:00:00Z [
	[Assets:Checking	400.00	USD]
]
# Finance.Transaction.Id(1): NonZero; 1 SUM currencies: -10.00 USD
transaction 2025-06-19T00:00:00Z [
	[Assets:Checking	-10.00	USD]
]
0 unassociated OFX transactions
transactions: 2 errors, 2 total
balance assertions: 0 failed, 0 total
delta assertions: 0 failed, 0 total
>

augr finance tells us that it detected two transaction errors; in this case it is two transactions whose postings don’t sum to zero. This is not allowed in Double-Entry Accounting. To fix that, we’ll open two more accounts and add another posting to each transaction.

--- main0.augrfinance
+++ main1.augrfinance
@@ -1,11 +1,15 @@
 currency USD 2
 
 open Assets:Checking 2025-06-01
+open Income:ThatOneJob 2025-06-01
+open Expenses:Food 2025-06-01
 
 transaction 2025-06-13 [ # Paycheck
 	[Assets:Checking 400.00 USD]
+	[Income:ThatOneJob -400.00 USD]
 ]
 
 transaction 2025-06-19 [ # Got some fast food
 	[Assets:Checking -10.00 USD]
+	[Expenses:Food 10.00 USD]
 ]

augr finance status will now report that there are no errors.

> augr finance status ./main.augrfinance
0 unassociated OFX transactions
transactions: 0 errors, 2 total
balance assertions: 0 failed, 0 total
delta assertions: 0 failed, 0 total
>

Let’s check our balance.

(By the way, I’m using nushell to get the nice ascii-art table)

> augr finance balance ./main.augrfinance | from tsv
╭───┬───────────────────┬──────────┬─────────┬──────────╮
│ # │   account_name    │ subtotal │  total  │ currency │
├───┼───────────────────┼──────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ 0 │ Assets            │          │  390.00 │ USD      │
│ 1 │ Assets:Checking   │   390.00 │  390.00 │ USD      │
│ 2 │ Expenses          │          │   10.00 │ USD      │
│ 3 │ Expenses:Food     │    10.00 │   10.00 │ USD      │
│ 4 │ Income            │          │ -400.00 │ USD      │
│ 5 │ Income:ThatOneJob │  -400.00 │ -400.00 │ USD      │
╰───┴───────────────────┴──────────┴─────────┴──────────╯
>

augr finance is telling me that I have 390.00 USD in my checking account, however I know that’s wrong because my bank is telling me that I have 690.00 USD. To assist you in discovering and tracking down these kind of issues, augr finance has the assert_balance directive:

--- main1.augrfinance
+++ main2.augrfinance
@@ -13,3 +13,5 @@
 	[Assets:Checking -10.00 USD]
 	[Expenses:Food 10.00 USD]
 ]
+
+assert_balance 2025-06-20 Assets:Checking 690.00 USD

Running augr finance status again:

> augr finance status ./main.augrfinance
2025-06-20T00:00:00 Assets:Checking expected 690.00 USD, found 390.00 USD (found - expected = 300.00 USD)
0 unassociated OFX transactions
transactions: 0 errors, 2 total
balance assertions: 1 failed, 1 total
delta assertions: 0 failed, 0 total

Now augr will let us know that our assertions aren’t matching reality, and we need to go find out where the problem is. In this case I know the problem: there was more money in the account before we started tracking it using augr. To fix it, we’ll use the simplest solution: add money to the account from a “starting balance” and only track things going forward.

--- main2.augrfinance	2025-06-20 19:28:05.339702580 -0600
+++ main3.augrfinance	2025-06-20 19:54:50.754877438 -0600
@@ -15,3 +15,10 @@
 ]
 
 assert_balance 2025-06-20 Assets:Checking 690.00 USD
+
+open StartingBalance 2025-06-01
+transaction 2025-06-01 [ # only tracking things since 2025-06-01
+	[Assets:Checking 300.00 USD]
+	[StartingBalance -300.00 USD]
+]
+

Our assertion now passes:

> augr finance status ./main.augrfinance
0 unassociated OFX transactions
transactions: 0 errors, 3 total
balance assertions: 0 failed, 1 total
delta assertions: 0 failed, 0 total

And the balance is correct:

> augr finance balance ./main.augrfinance | from tsv
╭───┬───────────────────┬──────────┬─────────┬──────────╮
│ # │   account_name    │ subtotal │  total  │ currency │
├───┼───────────────────┼──────────┼─────────┼──────────┤
│ 0 │ Assets            │          │  690.00 │ USD      │
│ 1 │ Assets:Checking   │   690.00 │  690.00 │ USD      │
│ 2 │ Expenses          │          │   10.00 │ USD      │
│ 3 │ Expenses:Food     │    10.00 │   10.00 │ USD      │
│ 4 │ Income            │          │ -400.00 │ USD      │
│ 5 │ Income:ThatOneJob │  -400.00 │ -400.00 │ USD      │
│ 6 │ StartingBalance   │  -300.00 │ -300.00 │ USD      │
╰───┴───────────────────┴──────────┴─────────┴──────────╯

From here, check out the reference manual or follow the OFX file tutorial.