# Tagging pay-period with inclusive date-range
**URL:** https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/tagging-pay-period-with-inclusive-date-range/855
**Category:** General
**Tags:** hledger
**Created:** [July 22, 2026, 2:56pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/tagging-pay-period-with-inclusive-date-range/855 "2026-07-22T14:56:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ivan](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/ivan)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2026, 2:56pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/tagging-pay-period-with-inclusive-date-range/855/1 "2026-07-22T14:56:29Z")
I'm entering payslips into my hledger journal, and I'd like to record the pay period that each one covers. My first thought was to use a tag like:
```auto
pay-period:2025-01-01..2025-01-15
```
Each payslip explicitly lists its pay period start and end dates, but I'm concerned this notation is misleading, since hledger uses `start..end` to denote a date span that excludes the end date, whereas a pay period includes both dates.
How do others represent pay periods in their journals? Is there a concise, unambiguous convention?
---
### Author:  [@simonmic](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/simonmic)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2026, 3:31pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/tagging-pay-period-with-inclusive-date-range/855/2 "2026-07-22T15:31:12Z")
That tag value is just informational for you, so the exact syntax probably doesn't matter too much.
You could use range notation from mathematics: `[2025-01-01..2025-01-15]`
This will work but might look too much like hledger's bracketed-virtual posting syntax - but you probably don't use those, so no problem there.
I record the billing period, or rather the invoice id (`YYYYMMab`), as a subaccount rather than a tag: `assets:receivable:CLIENT:INVOICE`, so I can report unpaid balances.
---
### Author:  [@ivan](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/u/ivan)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2026, 5:28pm UTC](https://forum.plaintextaccounting.org/t/tagging-pay-period-with-inclusive-date-range/855/3 "2026-07-22T17:28:54Z")
Cool, thanks for the suggestions (and for hledger!).
The subaccount approach is something I hadn't even considered. It's not quite what I'm after in this case, but definitely something I'll keep in mind for future uses.
I like the bracketed range notation. I was briefly tempted by `[2025-01-01,2025-01-15]`, but then remembered that tag values can't contain commas. 🙂
I think I'm actually leaning towards `2025-01-01/2025-01-15`. After a bit more thought, I realized that my main goal is just to record the endpoint dates shown on the document, without expressing any particular inclusion semantics.