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Version: 2.5.1

Account Aliases

An alias is a word or phrase from your bank statements that points to an account in your ledger, like Uber for Expenses:Transport or CRED Club for Liabilities:CreditCard. When you import a statement, ACCOUNT WHERE and ALIAS WHERE formulas look for these aliases in each row's text to choose its account.

📝 How Aliases Are Stored​

Aliases are plain Beancount metadata on the account's open directive, separated by |:

2020-01-01 open Expenses:Transport
  aliases: "Uber|Ola|Metro card"

2020-01-01 open Liabilities:CreditCard
  aliases: "CRED Club"

Matching ignores case and extra spaces. With CONTAINS ALIAS, an alias matches as whole words anywhere in the text, so cred matches UPI/CRED/… but not CREDIT INTEREST; when several aliases match, the longest wins. Only open accounts are used.

You can edit the aliases: line by hand, or use the window below.

🗂️ Managing Aliases​

Run "Beancount Ledger: Manage account aliases" from the Command Palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P), or click Manage aliases on the Aliases tab of the importer's mapping page.

The Account aliases window lists every open account with its aliases:

  • Search finds accounts by name or alias; Only accounts with aliases hides the rest.
  • Add an alias by typing it in the account's + alias box and pressing Enter.
  • Remove an alias with the × on its chip.
  • An alias can belong to only one account. Adding one that another account already has is refused; remove it there first.

Changes stay in the window until you click Save: changed accounts are marked on the left, and new aliases are outlined. Save writes every changed account's aliases: line at once (backing up the files first, if backups are on). An account's line is added after its other metadata, updated in place, or removed when its last alias goes; everything else in the file stays as written. Closing the window with unsaved changes asks before discarding them.

When you open this window from the importer, the importer picks up your saved aliases as soon as you close it, so the mapping page's preview updates straight away.