It's common to buy things at places like Amazon or Wallmart for all the things and since I have expenses:food:groceries to track them, I don't feel so sure about having, let's say, a razor in there.
Do you go through recipt and categorize them on your own? Or you just don't bother and have expenses:groceries?
I absolutely don't bother splitting a receipt.
If the subtotal is big enough, I will just put a note in the heading (or a comment) with — say — “25€ for toothbrushes”, so I can recall later.
I time ago found a very personal solution. When I go to supermarket, I buy very different products (groceries, cleaning products, ...) and do not want to split the bill in different categories. I realized that when I buy at supermarket, the 99% of my purchases are consumible items. Although sometime I buy long-term items (TV, mattress..). So i have two main categories:
expenses:consumibles:... for supermarket items but also brews, notebooks, pens...expenses:buy:... for long-term item such as clothes, electronics... something that is long-term but not an assest such as a car or a house.The 99% of time I do not need to split the bill of the supermarket. But, this is a very personal approach.
I do go through big multi-category receipts, and mentally tally up each category, adding a proportionate amount of the tax to each - roughly, no need for precision here. First I'll copy an old transaction and prepare the two or three postings I'll need, ready for entering the amounts (and seeing how they balance, in flycheck's error window).
Interesting. One of the main reason I use hledger is to get a glimps of my expenses and possibly find some ways to improve running-cost-wise. Is it that you try to keep less categories possible?
I think this is pretty much what I need. Simple yet still informative!
I feel there ought to be a balance between detail, how easy it is to record transactions (cash especially), and usefulness of the aggregate data.
It is always nice to share we keep our books — like we did in this thread. So many ways of doing it, every one tailored to specific needs.