beancount-roll-forward

Explain how one balance-sheet account moved over a period — opening balance, each signed movement, closing balance — with shown, reproducible bea queries for prepaid, loan, and brokerage accounts. Strictly read-only; the closing is computed independently and any gap is reported, never plugged. Skip ledgers hosted on Beancount.io, recording entries (beancount-add), explanations of one transaction (beancount-ask), reconciliation against a statement (beancount-reconcile), investment or tax advice, and general Beancount or BQL questions.

Explain a balance-sheet movement as opening + signed movements = closing — never with model arithmetic, and never with a plug.

This skill exists because "why is this balance what it is" is the question a ledger should answer exactly. Every figure comes from a query run against the ledger, the closing is computed by an independent route, and the ledger is never modified.

Prefer bea

Read beancount-init's references/bea-cli.md (from this skill's folder, ../beancount-init/references/bea-cli.md; a copy at references/bea-cli.md when this skill was installed alone) before running ledger commands. Without bea, use beancount-init's references/compatibility.md. Run the queries yourself: bea ask hands the question to another model, and its figures are not queries you can show.

Scope

Does: run the read-only roll-forward trio in references/roll-forward.md — read it first; every query there is tested — for one account, one currency, and one period, and present the tie-out.

Does not: write, edit, or format any file; reconcile against an external statement (beancount-reconcile); explain spending or answer general ledger questions (beancount-ask); force a difference to zero; give investment or tax advice.

Workflow

1. Discover

Local ledger files only. For a ledger hosted on Beancount.io, stop this skill and offer a separately requested hosted workflow or local clone (beancount-init's references/bea-cli.md, Hosted ledgers). Find the root ledger with the suite's discovery convention (fd -e beancount -e bean .; the root has option/include directives) and confirm it when ambiguous.

2. Resolve the account, currency, and period

Name the exact account (a subtree rolls forward account by account, then sums only within one currency), the currency, and the half-open period [start, end). Resolve "last quarter" against today's date and state the resolved range. When the account or period is ambiguous, ask — a precise explanation of the wrong account reads as authoritative.

3. Run the trio, then answer

Run opening, movements, and the independently computed closing from the reference. Present:

• The tie-out table: opening, each signed movement named by counterparty/payee/narration, the movement total, and closing — each figure from a query, the query shown underneath.
• Uncategorized stays visible: a movement that cannot be named is listed as its own bucket with date and amount, never dropped or netted.
• Cost basis is the default; keep market value separate and state the valuation date and price. If prices do not cover the period end, name that gap; when the user also asks what the holdings are worth, report an available later valuation with its actual date, without calling it period-end value (see the reference).
• Signs keep their meaning: a liability's negative closing is stated as an amount owed.
• A gap is the report: when independent closing ≠ opening + movements, say so with both figures and stop. Never invent a reconciling line; a missing entry is the user's or beancount-add's to record, not this skill's to fabricate.