Colbert

Colbert is not about this douche Stephen Colbert. It is serious matter.

The name is a tribute to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Minister of Finances of France in the 17th century also known for being the father of the modern accountancy.

Installation

pip install Colbert

Functionalities

Colbert helps you to manage your accountancy with a unique constraint: get your Livre Journal (the book where you are supposed to daily register the financial operations) up-to-date. That's it.

From that file it produce the annual reports (Bilan, Compte de résultat etc). There are also some utilities to check your Livre-journal against the bank reports, to generate invoices, activity report from iCalendar etc.

Disclaimer(s)

This software has not been written by and /or with the help of an accountant (and no accountant has been hurt during the process).

The concepts

Background

I am running a small business since 2011 and from the start I decided to not outsource the accountancy nor to use a commercial software.

Maybe I should have given Gnucash but I decided to be cheap on the technology side and to build a collection of utilities on the fly as I was facing formalities.

Colbert is that very collection of tools working over organized and formated text files (reStructuredText and JSON). These tools produce other text files. Combined with LaTex (inside Makefile for automation) you can produce beautiful documents.

:

colbert-scripts
file-A.txt, ----------------->  file-C.txt
file-B.json                        -
-                             |
|                             |
| LaTex, etc.                 | LaTeX, etc.
|                             |
v                             v
file-A.tex                       file-C.tex
file-A.pdf
file-A.ps

The core of accountancy is le livre-journal. This is our database where every single operation occuring in your business is recorded. Each operation must be balanced: the sum of the entries must be balanced by one or more output of the same amount.

In large compagnies, this book is usualy splitted in several ones to regroup operations by type.

The scaffold I use is the following:

+ MyBusiness/   +-- accountancy/    +-- livre-journal/  +-- livre-journal.txt
                                    |                   |
                                    |                   +-- Makefile
                                    |
                                    +-- 2011/   +-- grand-livre/
                                    |           |
                                    |           +-- releves-bancaires/
                                    |           |
                                    |           +-- factures/
                                    |           |
                                    |           +-- balance-des-comptes/
                                    |           |
                                    |           +-- bilan/
                                    |           |
                                    |           +-- compte-de-resultat/
                                    |           |
                                    |           +-- TVA/
                                    |           |
                                    |           +-- ecritures-de-cloture/
                                    |
                                    +-- 2012/   +-- grand-livre/
                                    |           |
                                    |           +-- releves-bancaires/
                                                ...

Le livre-journal is a never-ending story, this is the reason for keeping it at the root level. In accountancy, a main concept is l'indépendance des exercices comptables which is why I have broken down my organization by year (I am opening my accounts on Junary the 1st and closing them on December, 31th, every year).

In each year directory reside sub-directories named with the tasks, books or documents you have to deal with and produce all along the financial/fiscal year.

Almost every sub-directory should contain a Makefile to automatically call some Colbert or LaTeX routines to update your files from the source (which may be the livre-journal, the Grand-livre or the Balance des comptes).

In a nutshell, a typical usage at the end of a fiscal year is:

1. having a Livre-journal up-to-date and accurate ;
2. check your relevés bancaires (bank statement) against the Livre-journal. Go back to (1) if it is not the case ;
3. generate the Grand-livre as JSON from the Livre-journal ;
4. generate the Balance des comptes from the grand_livre.json file ;
5. compute the Bilan from the balance_des_comptes.json file ;
6. compute the Compte de résultat from the balance_des_comptes.json file ;
7. compute the écritures de clôture from the balance_des_comptes.json file and write them back to the Livre-journal.

Note : each JSON file can be converted in a reStructuredText format with a colbert_*_to_rst script.

Le Livre-journal

The Livre-journal is a diary or a book where every flow of money is logged. There is a tight legislation concerning those books in general and you must refer yourself to the legislation of your country or juridiction.

In Colbert, this is a reStructuredText file meeting the french administration requirements (the columns' width had been reduced to fit properly in this document):

==================
MyBusiness S.A.R.L
==================

-------------
Livre-Journal
-------------

+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------+
| Date        |  N°compte débit | N°compte crédit |   Intitulé / nom du compte                      | Débit en €| Crédit en |
+=============+=================+=================+=================================================+===========+===========+
| *Mars 2011*                                                                                                               |
+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------+
|| 18/03/2011 ||                ||                || Frais de constitution de la société CFE Paris. ||          ||          |
||            ||    6227        ||                || Achats - Frais d'actes et de contentieux       ||  80.00   ||          |
||            ||    44566       ||                || T.V.A. déductible sur autres biens et services ||  10.45   ||          |
||            ||                ||     455        ||     Associés - Comptes courants                ||          ||    90.45 |
+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------+
|| 18/03/2011 ||                ||                || Frais de constitution de la société - Annonce  ||          ||          |
||            ||    6227        ||                || Achats - Frais d'actes et de contentieux       ||  80.00   ||          |
||            ||    44566       ||                || T.V.A. déductible sur autres biens et services ||  19.00   ||          |
||            ||                ||     455        ||     Associés - Comptes courants                ||          ||    99.00 |
+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------+
|| 31/03/2011 ||                ||                || Facture 2011-01 MyClient1                      ||          ||          |
||            ||                ||                ||       Prestation MyClient1 mars 2011           ||          ||          |
||            ||    4111-CL1    ||                ||     Clients - ventes de biens ou prestations   ||  980.00  ||          |
||            ||                ||    706         ||      Produits - prestations de services        ||          ||  5 000.00|
||            ||                ||    44587       ||      Taxes sur le CA sur factures à établir    ||          ||  980.00  |
+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------+
| *Avril 2011*                                                                                                              |
+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------+
|| 01/04/2011 ||                ||                || Résultat arrêté compte                         ||          ||          |
||            ||    6278-LCL    ||                || Autres frais de commission sur prestations     ||  48.00   ||          |
||            ||                ||     512        ||     Banques                                    ||          ||   48.00  |
+-------------+-----------------+-----------------+-------------------------------------------------+-----------+-----------+

Each entry is a multiline row in the table.

I use Line Blocks to get a descent formatting in the multiline cells. Trying to right-align the content of the two last columns was a failure. In fact for a reason I don't get, if those values are not left-aligned, the LaTeX conversion sucks.

The optional thousand separator cannot be anything else than a space character at the moment. This is on the TODO list.

Adding entries

Editing the file can became cumbersome. To speed up this task you can use the colbert_livre_journal.py script to duplicate an entry:

$ python colbert_livre_journal.py search cojean -l path/to/livre-journal.txt
$ python colbert_livre_journal.py add -l path/to/livre-journal.txt -f cojean -d 14/09/2014 -a 13.50

Checking the Livre-journal

A first script allows you to check the entries balance of the book:

$ colbert_check_livre_journal.py my_livre_journal.txt

My Makefile in the Livre-journal directory being:

FILENAME="livre-journal"

all:    pdf

pdf:    tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @colbert_check_livre_journal.py $(FILENAME).txt

tex:
    @rst2latex.py $(FILENAME).txt > $(FILENAME).tex

purge:  clean
    @for ext in ".pdf" ".tex" ".txt"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

clean:
    @for ext in ".out" ".aux" ".log" ".tex.tmp"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

Computing VAT

The colbert_solder_tva.py script compute the flow of money on the VAT-related accounts for a period of time and produce an JSON-entry to counter-balance these entries. Then you (manually) copy/paste this entry in the Livre-journal. Obviously, the JSON-entry need to be converted first in the reStructuredText format of the Livre-journal with the colbert_ecritures_to_livre_journal.py utility.

This is something you have to do every month or every quarter in France.

In the TVA directory:

$ colbert_solder_tva ../../livre-journal/livre-journal.txt -d 01/03/2011 -f 30/9/2011 > solde-tva-sept-2011.json
$ colbert_ecritures_to_livre_journal solde-tva-sept-2011.json > solde-tva-sept-2011.txt

Le Grand-livre

In that book are gathered the entries of the Livre-journal by account number for a period of time (a fiscal year). One table for every single account.

Every account should start with the report à nouveau (the balance) of the previous fiscal year.

To generate the Grand-livre, run the following:

$ @colbert_grand_livre.py ../../livre-journal/livre-journal.txt --label="MyBusiness - Grand-Livre 2011" -d 1/1/2011 -f 31/12/2011 > grand-livre_2011.json

And then in reStructuredText:

$ colbert_grand_livre_to_rst.py grand-livre_2011.json > grand-livre_2011.txt

Or in a Makefile:

FILENAME="grand_livre-2011"
DATE_DEBUT="18/03/2011"
DATE_FIN="31/12/2011"

all:    pdf

pdf:    tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex

tex:    rst
    @rst2latex.py --table-style=booktabs $(FILENAME).txt >  $(FILENAME).tex.tmp
    @sed -E -f fix_table.sed < $(FILENAME).tex.tmp > $(FILENAME).tex

rst:    json
    @echo "Conversion du grand livre au format reStructuredText..."
    @colbert_grand_livre_to_rst.py $(FILENAME).json > $(FILENAME).txt

json:
    @echo "calcul du Grand-Livre..."
    @colbert_grand_livre.py ../../livre-journal/livre-journal.txt --label="MyBusiness - Grand-Livre 2011" -d $(DATE_DEBUT) -f $(DATE_FIN) > $(FILENAME).json

purge:  clean
    @for ext in ".pdf" ".tex" ".txt"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

clean:
    @for ext in ".out" ".aux" ".log" ".tex.tmp"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

The fix_table.sed in the TeX conversion rule is a Sed script managing the right-alignment of the money columns:

s/\\begin{longtable\*}.*/\\newcolumntype{x}[1]{% \
>{\\raggedleft\\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}% \
\\newcolumntype{y}[1]{% \
>{\\raggedright\\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}% \
\\begin{longtable*}[c]{y{2cm}y{7.5cm}x{2cm}|y{2cm}y{7.5cm}x{2cm}}/
s/&[[:space:]]+\\\\/\& \\tabularnewline/
s/[[:space:]]+\\\\$/\\tabularnewline/

Here an example of the reStructuredText output:

================
Grand-Livre 2011
================


-----------------------------------
Période du 01/03/2011 au 31/12/2011
-----------------------------------



100 - *Capital et compte de l'exploitant*
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''


+------------+---------------------------------+-------------+------------+---------------------------------------+---------+
| Date       | Libellé                         | Débit       | Date       | Libellé                               | Crédit  |
+============+=================================+=============+============+=======================================+=========+
|            |                                 |             | 02/04/2011 | Capital initial Dépôt de 1500 € par...| 1500.00 |
+------------+---------------------------------+-------------+------------+---------------------------------------+---------+
|            | *Solde créditeur au 31/12/2011* | **1500.00** |            |                                       |         |
+------------+---------------------------------+-------------+------------+---------------------------------------+---------+

.. raw:: latex

    \newpage


4111-CL1 - *Clients - ventes de biens ou prestations de services*
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''


+------------+---------------------------------+----------+------------+-----------------------------------------+----------+
| Date       | Libellé                         | Débit    | Date       | Libellé                                 | Crédit   |
+============+=================================+==========+============+=========================================+==========+
| 31/03/2011 | Facture 2011-01 MyClient1 ...   | 5980.00  | 02/09/2011 | Virement MyClient1 ZZZZZZZZZZZ Facture..| 5980.00  |
+------------+---------------------------------+----------+------------+-----------------------------------------+----------+
| 28/09/2011 | Facture 2011-04 MyClient1 ...   | 13156.00 | 01/12/2011 | Virement MyClient1 WWWWWWWWWW Facture...| 18538.00 |
+------------+---------------------------------+----------+------------+-----------------------------------------+----------+
| 01/11/2011 | Facture 2011-05 MyClient1 ...   | 5382.00  |            |                                         |          |
+------------+---------------------------------+----------+------------+-----------------------------------------+----------+
|            | *Compte soldé au 31/12/2011.*   |          |            | *Compte soldé au 31/12/2011.*           |          |
+------------+---------------------------------+----------+------------+-----------------------------------------+----------+

.. raw:: latex

N+1 years

When you start a new year there are two things to keep in mind for the Grand-Livre:

• to start with the Report à nouveau of the account of the previous year ;
• to include the entries of the previous year that have not been included in the Grand-Livre.

Colbert does it for you. All you have to do is to provide the path of the previous one (as JSON):

$ @colbert_grand_livre.py ../../livre-journal/livre-journal.txt --label="MyBusiness - Grand-Livre 2012" \
    -d 1/1/2012 -f 31/12/2012 -p ../../2011/grand-livre/grand-livre_2011.json > grand-livre_2012.json

La balance des comptes

The next financial piece is a single table regrouping the balance of the accounts. It is computed from the Grand-livre for the sake of simplicity.

Again, you first generate a JSON file and then a reStructuredText file:

$ colbert_balance_des_comptes.py ../grand-livre/grand_livre-2011.json \
    --label="MyBusiness - Balance des comptes 2011 en €"  > $balance-des-comptes.json
$ colbert_balance_des_comptes_to_rst.py balance-des-comptes.json > balance-des-comptes.txt

And again, you should use this Makefile:

FILENAME="balance_des_comptes-2011"

all:    pdf

pdf:    tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex

tex:    rst
    @rst2latex.py --table-style=booktabs $(FILENAME).txt >  $(FILENAME).tex.tmp
    @sed -E -f fix_table.sed < $(FILENAME).tex.tmp > $(FILENAME).tex

rst:    json
    @echo "Conversion de la balance des comptes au format reStructuredText..."
    @colbert_balance_des_comptes_to_rst.py $(FILENAME).json > $(FILENAME).txt

json:
    @echo "calcul de la balance des comptes..."
    @colbert_balance_des_comptes.py ../grand-livre/grand_livre-2011.json --label="MyBusiness - Balance des comptes 2011 en €"  > $(FILENAME).json

purge:  clean
    @for ext in ".pdf" ".tex" ".txt"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

clean:
    @for ext in ".out" ".aux" ".log" ".tex.tmp"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

With the Sed fix:

s/\\begin{longtable\*}.*/\\newcolumntype{x}[1]{% \
>{\\raggedleft\\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}% \
\\newcolumntype{y}[1]{% \
>{\\raggedright\\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}% \
\\begin{longtable*}[c]{y{2cm}y{8.5cm}x{2.2cm}x{2.2cm}x{2.2cm}x{2.2cm}}/
s/} \\\\/} \\tabularnewline/
s/&[[:space:]]+\\\\/\& \\tabularnewline/
s/[[:space:]]+\\\\$/\\tabularnewline/

And here a example of the reStructuredText output (again, the table width had been reduced here to fit well):

=====================================
Balance des comptes 2011 - MyBusiness
=====================================


-----------------------------------
Période du 01/03/2011 au 31/12/2011
-----------------------------------


+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| N°           | Libellé                                           | Total débit | Total crédit | Solde débit | Solde crédit|
+==============+===================================================+=============+==============+=============+=============+
| 100          | Capital et compte de l'exploitant                 |             | 1500.00      |             | 1500.00     |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 4111-CL1     | Clients - ventes de biens ou prestations de ser...| 24518.00    | 24518.00     |             |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 4111-CL2     | Clients - ventes de biens ou prestations de ser...| 1794.00     | 1794.00      |             |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 4111-CL3     | Clients - ventes de biens ou prestations de ser...| 8372.00     |              | 8372.00     |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 4181         | Clients - Factures à établir                      | 13156.00    |              | 13156.00    |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 44551        | TVA à décaisser                                   | 1240.00     | 4278.00      |             | 3038.00     |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 44566        | T.V.A. déductible sur autres biens et services    | 33.66       | 33.66        |             |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 44571        | T.V.A. Collectée                                  | 4312.00     | 4312.00      |             |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 44587        | Taxes sur le CA sur factures à établir            | 4312.00     | 7840.00      |             | 3528.00     |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 455          | Associés - Comptes courants                       |             | 189.45       |             | 189.45      |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 512          | Banques                                           | 27812.00    | 5132.65      | 22679.35    |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 60225        | Achats - Fournitures de bureau                    | 21.44       |              | 21.44       |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 6227         | Achats - Frais d'actes et de contentieux          | 160.00      |              | 160.00      |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 6278-LCL     | Autres frais de commission sur prestations de s...| 72.00       |              | 72.00       |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 6411         | Charges - Salaires et appointements               | 3000.00     |              | 3000.00     |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 6411-RSI     | Charges - cotisations RSI                         | 393.00      |              | 393.00      |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 6411-URSF1   | Charges - cotisations URSSAF - Allocations famil..| 161.80      |              | 161.80      |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 6411-URSF2   | Charges - cotisations URSSAF - CSG/RDS déducti... | 153.31      |              | 153.31      |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 6411-URSF3   | Charges - cotisations URSSAF - CSG/RDS non-dédu...| 86.89       |              | 86.89       |             |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 706          | Produits - prestations de services                |             | 40000.00     |             | 40000.00    |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
| 758          | Produits divers de gestion courante               |             | 0.34         |             | 0.34        |
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+
|              | **Totaux**                                        | **89598.10**| **89598.10** | **48255.79**| **48255.79**|
+--------------+---------------------------------------------------+-------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+

Le Bilan

This document is a résumé or a «picture» of your business. It is generated from the Balance des comptes:

$ colbert_bilan.py ../balance-des-comptes/balance_des_comptes-2011.json \
    --label="MyBusiness - Bilan 2011 en €" > bilan.json
$ colbert_bilan_to_rst.py bilan.json > bilan.txt

A Makefile to automatically do all the work:

FILENAME="bilan-2011"

all:    pdf

pdf:    tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex

tex:    rst
    @rst2latex.py --table-style=booktabs --output-encoding=utf-8 $(FILENAME).txt >  $(FILENAME).tex.tmp
    @sed -E -f fix_table.sed < $(FILENAME).tex.tmp > $(FILENAME).tex

rst:    json
    @echo "Conversion du bilan au format reStructuredText..."
    @colbert_bilan_to_rst.py $(FILENAME).json > $(FILENAME).txt

json:
    @echo "calcul de la bilan..."
    @colbert_bilan.py ../balance-des-comptes/balance_des_comptes-2011.json \
        --label="MyBusiness - Bilan 2011 en €"  > $(FILENAME).json

purge:  clean
    @for ext in ".pdf" ".tex" ".txt"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

clean:
    @for ext in ".out" ".aux" ".log" ".tex.tmp"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

And the Sed script:

s/\\setlength{\\DUtablewidth}{\\linewidth}/\\setlength{\\tabcolsep}{25pt} \\setlength{\\extrarowheight}{4.5pt}/
s/\\begin{longtable\*}.*/\\begin{longtable*}[c]{lrrr|lr}/

The reStructuredText output:

=======================
Bilan 2011 - MyBusiness
=======================


-----------------------------------
Période du 01/04/2011 au 31/12/2011
-----------------------------------


+------------------------------+------------------+----------------+---------------+-----------------------+---------------+
| Actif                        | Brut             | Amortissement  | Net           | Passif                | Montant       |
+==============================+==================+================+===============+=======================+===============+
| **Actif_circulant**          |                  |                |               | **Capitaux_propres**  |               |
+------------------------------+------------------+----------------+---------------+-----------------------+---------------+
| Client_et_comptes_rattaches  | 11960.00         |                | 11960.00      | Resultat              | 9922.65       |
+------------------------------+------------------+----------------+---------------+-----------------------+---------------+
| Autres_creances              | 4.21             |                | 4.21          | **Dettes**            |               |
+------------------------------+------------------+----------------+---------------+-----------------------+---------------+
|                              |                  |                |               | Autres_dettes         | 2041.56       |
+------------------------------+------------------+----------------+---------------+-----------------------+---------------+
| *Total*                      | *11964.21*       | *0.00*         | **11964.21**  | *Total*               | **11964.21**  |
+------------------------------+------------------+----------------+---------------+-----------------------+---------------+

Le compte de résultat

The purpose of this last document is to give an idea of your activity during the fiscal year:

$ colbert_compte_de_resultat.py ../balance-des-comptes/balance_des_comptes-2011.json \
    --label="MyBusiness - Compte de résultat 2011 en €"  > compte-de-resultat.json
$ colbert_compte_de_resultat_to_rst.py compte-de-resultat.json > compte-de-resultat.txt

In a Makefile:

FILENAME="compte_de_resultat-2011"

all:    pdf

pdf:    tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex
    @pdflatex $(FILENAME).tex

tex:    rst
    @rst2latex.py --table-style=booktabs --output-encoding=utf-8 $(FILENAME).txt > $(FILENAME).tex.tmp
    @sed -E -f fix_table.sed < $(FILENAME).tex.tmp > $(FILENAME).tex

rst:    json
    @echo "Conversion du compte de résultat au format reStructuredText..."
    @colbert_compte_de_resultat_to_rst.py $(FILENAME).json > $(FILENAME).txt

json:
    @echo "calcul du compte de résultat..."
    @colbert_compte_de_resultat.py ../balance-des-comptes/balance_des_comptes-2011.json \
        --label="MyBusiness - Compte de résultat 2011 en €"  > $(FILENAME).json

purge:  clean
    @for ext in ".pdf" ".tex" ".txt"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

clean:
    @for ext in ".out" ".aux" ".log" ".tex.tmp"; do\
        [ -e $(FILENAME)$${ext} ] && rm $(FILENAME)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

The Sed script:

s/\\begin{longtable\*}.*/\\newcolumntype{x}[1]{% \
>{\\raggedleft\\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}% \
\\newcolumntype{y}[1]{% \
>{\\raggedright\\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}% \
\\begin{longtable*}[c]{y{8.5cm}x{2.2cm}|y{8.5cm}x{2.2cm}}/
s/} \\\\/} \\tabularnewline/
s/&[[:space:]]+\\\\/\& \\tabularnewline/
s/[[:space:]]+\\\\$/\\tabularnewline/

The reStructuredText output:

====================================
Compte de résultat 2011 - MyBusiness
====================================


-----------------------------------
Période du 01/03/2011 au 31/12/2011
-----------------------------------


+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
| Charges                         | Montant   | Produits                                         | Montant          |
+=================================+===========+==================================================+==================+
| *Charges d'exploitation*        |           | *Produits d'exploitation*                        |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
| Rémunérations du personnel      | 3795.00   | Prestations de services                          | 40000.00         |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
| Fournitures non stockables      | 21.44     | Autres produits de gestion courante              | 0.34             |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
|                                 |           |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
| Autres services extérieurs      | 232.00    |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
|                                 |           |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
|                                 |           |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
|                                 |           |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
| *Charges financières*           |           | *Produits financiers*                            |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
|                                 |           |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
|                                 |           |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
| *Charges exceptionnelles*       |           | *Produits exceptionnels*                         |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
|                                 |           |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
|                                 |           |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
| **Sous-total charges**          | 4048.44   | **Sous-total produits**                          | 40000.34         |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+
| **Résultat (bénéfice)**         | 35951.90  |                                                  |                  |
+---------------------------------+-----------+--------------------------------------------------+------------------+

Managing the transition between 2 fiscal years

When you have closed your fiscal year (say 2011) you have to create a new one (2012). In Colbert, you create a new directory, 2012, aside 2011. You can simply make a cp 2011 2012, then run the make purge rules in each subdirectories and replace the dates and the filenames at the top of each Makefile.

This may looks a bit awkward but this occurs only once a year!

Les écritures de clôture

When a fiscal year is closed and when your documents and books are up-to-date (Grand-livre, Balance des comptes, Bilan and Compte de résultat) you have to insert in the Livre-journal the écritures de clôture (accounts closing entries). The purpose of these entries is:

1. to reset the comptes de résultat (in France, it is those having a number in 6xx and 7xx) ;
2. transfert the gain or the lost registred at the end of the fiscal year on the comptes de bilan.

Colbert comes with a script to compute such entries:

$ colbert_ecritures_de_cloture.py ../balance-des-comptes/balance_des_comptes-2011.json > ecritures-de-cloture.json
$ colbert_ecritures_to_livre_journal.py --label="Ecriture de cloture a reporter au Livre-journal" \
    ecritures-de-cloture.json > ecritures-de-cloture.txt

And copy/paste the body of ecritures-de-cloture.txt into the Livre-journal at the right place.

Checking your account statements against the Livre-journal

There must be reciprocity between your account statements from your bank and the entries in your Livre-journal.

Colbert is able to generate account statements for a bank account (say 512) and to check the balance against a JSON file representing the balances of each account statement received from the bank establishment. Write such a file with your text editor:

[
    {
        'numero_compte': "512",
        'journaux': [
            {
                'label': "Avril 2011",
                'date_debut': "01/04/2011",
                'date_fin': "02/05/2011",
                'debit_initial': "0.00",
                'credit_initial': "0.00",
                'debit_final': "1485.93",
                'credit_final': "0.00",
            },
            {
                'label': "Mai 2011",
                'date_debut': "03/05/2011",
                'date_fin': "01/06/2011",
                'debit_initial': "1485.93",
                'credit_initial': "0.00",
                'debit_final': "1461.94",
                'credit_final': "0.00",
            },
        ]
    }
]

And run colbert_solde_de_compte.py ../../../livre-journal/livre-journal.txt solde.json which outputs:

=====================
Compte n°512 en Euros
=====================


Avril 2011
''''''''''
+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------------+----------------+
| Date       | Libellé                                               | Débit  | Crédit     | Solde débiteur| Solde créditeur|
+============+=======================================================+========+============+===============+================+
| 01/04/2011 | Report à nouveau                                      |        |            |               |                |
+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------------+----------------+
| 01/04/2011 | Résultat arrêté compte                                |        | 48.00      |               | 48.00          |
+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------------+----------------+
| 02/04/2011 | Capital initial Dépôt de 1500 € par Stanislas Guerra a| 1500.00|            | 1452.00       |                |
+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------------+----------------+
| 28/04/2011 | Cotisation Option PRO  LCL                            |        | 15.00      | 1437.00       |                |
+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------------+----------------+
| 02/05/2011 | Abonnement LCL Access                                 |        | 3.00       | 1434.00       |                |
+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------+------------+---------------+----------------+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Solde final calculé (*1434.00*, débiteur) *différent* du solde final attendu (*1485.93*, débiteur)                        |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

.. raw:: latex

    \newpage

Mai 2011
''''''''
+------------+-------------------------------------------------------+------+------------+----------------+-----------------+
| Date       | Libellé                                               | Débit| Crédit     | Solde débiteur | Solde créditeur |
+============+=======================================================+======+============+================+=================+
| 03/05/2011 | Report à nouveau                                      |      |            | 1485.93        |                 |
+============+=======================================================+======+============+================+=================+
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Solde final calculé (*1485.93*, débiteur) *différent* du solde final attendu (*1461.94*, débiteur)                        |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

.. raw:: latex

    \newpage

Making invoices

Colbert can assist you to compute invoices, generate TeX/PDF outputs and the Livre-journal entries from them. You start with a JSON file like the one below and use the script colbert_calculer_facture.py to fill it out:

{
    "client": {
        "nom": "MyClient#1",
            "adresse": "1, Infinite Loop",
            "code_postal": "11222",
            "ville": "Cupertino",
            "numero_compte": "4111-CL1",
            "nom_compte": "Clients - ventes de biens ou prestations de services",
            "reference_commande": "XXXXX"
    },
    "numero_facture": "YYYYYYY",
    "date_facture": "10/05/2011",
    "nb_jours_payable_fin_de_mois": "60",
    "taux_penalites": "11",
    "date_debut_execution": "10/04/2011",
    "date_fin_execution": "30/04/2011",
    "devise": "Euro",
    "symbole_devise": "€",
    "nom_compte": "Produits - prestations de services",
    "numero_compte": "706",
    "detail": [
        {
            "reference": "ref-A",
            "description": "Prestation A.",
            "prix_unitaire_ht": "100.00",
            "unite": "jours",
            "taux_tva": "19.6",
            "quantite": "4"
        },
        {
            "reference": "ref-B",
            "description": "Prestation B.",
            "prix_unitaire_ht": "450.99",
            "unite": "jours",
            "taux_tva": "19.6",
            "quantite": "11"
        }
    ],
    "deja_paye": "0.00"
}

$ colbert_calculer_facture.py my_invoice.json

Produce the following:

{
    "date_facture": "10/05/2011",
    "symbole_devise": "\u20ac",
    "deja_paye": "0.00",
    "taux_penalites": "11",
    "montant_ht": "5360.89",
    "date_fin_execution": "30/04/2011",
    "detail": [
        {
            "quantite": "4",
            "description": "Prestation A.",
            "reference": "ref-A",
            "montant_ht": "400.00",
            "prix_unitaire_ht": "100.00",
            "unite": "jours",
            "taux_tva": "19.6"
        },
        {
            "quantite": "11",
            "description": "Prestation B.",
            "reference": "ref-B",
            "montant_ht": "4960.89",
            "prix_unitaire_ht": "450.99",
            "unite": "jours",
            "taux_tva": "19.6"
        }
    ],
    "numero_facture": "YYYYYYY",
    "devise": "Euro",
    "nom_compte": "Produits - prestations de services",
    "numero_compte": "706",
    "client": {
        "ville": "Cupertino",
        "code_postal": "11222",
        "nom": "MyClient#1",
        "adresse": "1, Infinite Loop",
        "reference_commande": "XXXXX",
        "nom_compte": "Clients - ventes de biens ou prestations de services",
        "numero_compte": "4111-CL1"
    },
    "montant_ttc": "6411.62",
    "date_debut_execution": "10/04/2011",
    "reste_a_payer": "6411.62",
    "nb_jours_payable_fin_de_mois": "60",
    "date_debut_penalites": "01/08/2011",
    "tva": {
        "19.6": "1050.73"
    },
    "date_reglement": "31/07/2011"
}

You should redirect the output to a new file, say my_invoice_ok.json and use it to generate a LaTeX output:

$ colbert_facture_to_tex.py my_invoice_ok.json my_invoice_template.tex > my_invoice.tex
$ xelatex my_invoice.tex

The parameter my_invoice_template.tex is a TeX file having placeholder for Python string formatting with keyword arguments. There is an example of such template in the tests/regressiontests/ folder.

Livre-journal entry

Having an invoice filled-in you can now generate the entry for the Livre-journal:

$ colbert_ecriture_facture.py my_invoice_ok.json > my_invoice_entry.json
$ colbert_ecritures_to_livre_journal.py --label="Entry to report" my_invoice_entry.json > my_invoice_entry.txt

Workflow

My method is to use a directory for each invoice with the following Makefile in it:

filename = facture-2012-003
filename_calcule = $(filename)_calculee
filename_ecriture = $(filename)_ecriture

pdf:    tex
    @xelatex --papersize=a4 $(filename).tex
    @xelatex --papersize=a4 $(filename).tex
    @xelatex --papersize=a4 $(filename).tex

tex:    json
    @export LC_ALL="fr_FR.UTF-8" ; export LC_LANG="fr_FR.UTF-8" ; \
    colbert_facture_to_tex.py $(filename_calcule).json ../../modele_facture.tex > $(filename).tex

json:
    @colbert_calculer_facture.py $(filename).json > $(filename_calcule).json
    @colbert_ecriture_facture.py $(filename_calcule).json > $(filename_ecriture).json
    @colbert_ecritures_to_livre_journal.py --label="Ecriture a reporter au Livre-journal" \
        $(filename_ecriture).json > $(filename_ecriture).txt

clean:
    @for ext in ".out" ".aux" ".log" ".tns"; do\
        [ -e $(filename)$${ext} ] && rm $(filename)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

Activity report from iCal

There is a template of LaTeX class in the tex directory. Again, I use a Makefile (the same to generate the invoice associated with):

month = Juin
month_index = 007
year = 2012
date_debut = 01/06/2012
date_fin = 30/06/2012

ref_facture = $(year)-$(month_index)

filename = facture-$(ref_facture)
filename_calcule = $(filename)_calculee
filename_ecriture = $(filename)_ecriture

rac_template = "rapport_activite-template.tex"
rac_filename = rac-$(ref_facture)
rac_label = "Rapport d'activité - $(month) $(year)"
calendar = MyCalendar.ics

all:    rac_pdf facture_pdf

facture_pdf:    facture_tex
    @xelatex --papersize=a4 $(filename).tex
    @xelatex --papersize=a4 $(filename).tex
    @xelatex --papersize=a4 $(filename).tex

facture_tex:    facture_json
    @export LC_ALL="fr_FR.UTF-8" ; export LC_LANG="fr_FR.UTF-8" ; \
        colbert_facture_to_tex.py $(filename_calcule).json ../../modele_facture.tex > $(filename).tex

facture_json:
    @colbert_calculer_facture.py $(filename).json > $(filename_calcule).json
    @colbert_ecriture_facture.py $(filename_calcule).json > $(filename_ecriture).json
    @colbert_ecritures_to_livre_journal.py --label="Ecriture a reporter au Livre-journal" \
        $(filename_ecriture).json > $(filename_ecriture).txt

rac_pdf:    rac_tex
    @xelatex --papersize=a4 $(rac_filename).tex
    @xelatex --papersize=a4 $(rac_filename).tex
    @xelatex --papersize=a4 $(rac_filename).tex

rac_tex:    rac_json
    @colbert_rapport_activite_to_tex.py $(rac_filename).json $(rac_template) > $(rac_filename).tex

rac_json:
    @colbert_rapport_activite.py $(calendar) -d $(date_debut) -f $(date_fin) \
        -l $(rac_label) -r "$(ref_facture)" > $(rac_filename).json

purge:  clean
    @for ext in ".tex" ".pdf" ; do\
        [ -e $(filename)$${ext} ] && rm $(filename)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
        [ -e $(rac_filename)$${ext} ] && rm $(rac_filename)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

clean:
    @for ext in ".out" ".aux" ".log" ".tns"; do\
        [ -e $(filename)$${ext} ] && rm $(filename)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
        [ -e $(rac_filename)$${ext} ] && rm $(rac_filename)$${ext} || [ 1 ] ;\
    done

You should take a look in the tests/regressiontests directory to grab the LaTeX template.

Working with LaTeX

I convert my reStructuredText files using docutils' rst2latex.py with the --table-style=booktabs option except for the Livre-journal.

Aside each Makefile in each directory (like TVA or grand-livre) there is a docutils configuration file docutils.conf and a LaTeX stylesheet docutils.tex.

Because I want to right-align some columns and because docutils does not handle that, I process the LaTeX outputs with a bit of Sed before the PDF conversion.

The docutils.conf file

Always the same:

[latex2e writer]
documentclass: article
documentoptions: 11pt,a4paper,landscape
output-encoding: utf-8
stylesheet: docutils.tex

The docutils.tex stylesheet

Almost always:

\usepackage{fullpage}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{array}

If the LaTeX compiler complains about utf-8 you may add the ucs package.

You may want to precisely control the header and the footer with fancyhdr package:

\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\fancyhf{}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\lhead{\large{MyBusiness S.A.R.L.}\\
\normalsize my address\\
zipcode City}
\cfoot{Société à responsabilité limité au capital de XXXX Euros - YYY YYY YYY R.C.S. Paris}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0.4pt}

The Sed script

The idea is to change the table(s) declaration(s) to get columns with managed width and alignment.

In the Makefile it looks like that:

tex:    rst
    @rst2latex.py --table-style=booktabs $(FILENAME).txt >  $(FILENAME).tex.tmp
    @sed -E -f fix_table.sed < $(FILENAME).tex.tmp > $(FILENAME).tex

The Sed script depends of the TeX file. Here an example:

s/\\begin{longtable\*}.*/\\newcolumntype{x}[1]{% \
>{\\raggedleft\\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}% \
\\newcolumntype{y}[1]{% \
>{\\raggedright\\hspace{0pt}}p{#1}}% \
\\begin{longtable*}[c]{y{2cm}y{7.5cm}x{2cm}|y{2cm}y{7.5cm}x{2cm}}/
s/\\\\/\\tabularnewline/

And to force the pagestyle for the first one I sometimes add:

s/\\maketitle/\\maketitle\
\\thispagestyle{fancy}/

Tests

cd tests
python runtests.py

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• pytz
• Python Icalendar ()
• Docutils (SVN)
• a LaTex suite if you want to render the reStructuredText in PDF
• Make
• Sed