I literally don't care. I'm going to Acknowledge My Privilege TM (Hacker News Edition) and again state that these types of expenses aren't worth my time to worry about. I pay an accountant to worry about book-keeping and taxes, well worth the $400 a year to cover both my business and personal taxes.
I'm not going to adjust tens of thousands of dollars of capital assets because the management fee moved 0.05%... Who do you think I am, Elon Musk? I'm glad you enjoy using your time to do track these kind of things, but I gladly choose not to learn my accountant's job.
It sounds like you're paying the accountant only to do your taxes? If so, your finances are probably not complicated, and you could probably do your own taxes in 1-4 hours. Of course, how much that is worth to you is up to you.
If you're paying an accountant only for taxes, and not general finances, chances are your financial life and investments are very simple. Either that or you're not managing them well :-)
Some people have multiple investments - some liquid (stocks), some illiquid (properties). They have side businesses (e.g. rental income). They have to allocate money for repairs on their rental properties. They have to set money aside for vacancies and property taxes, etc. You're likely not going to find an accountant who'll do this for a mere $400/yr.
If you have rental income and are not managing this, sooner or later you'll lose a lot of money. I guarantee it. Also, most people who have properties do not make that much net profit (typical is $100-200/month per unit), so paying, say, $2000 to an accountant could wipe away the net profit from one unit for a whole year.
No one is trying to tell you that you should use these tools. Many high income folks do fine without them. But if you have side businesses, you either need to spend a lot more on an accountant or get more disciplined. Most people will choose the former if they can afford it (which is probably a good idea).
Okay, I can clarify here. I meant to say, my accountant fees range from about $1200 - 2800 a year. $400 was an off the cuff estimate and admittedly way off. You got me ;) I would still happily pay $3500 to not spend hours a year entering innocuous expenses into a fucking text editor.
> I would still happily pay $3500 to not spend hours a year entering innocuous expenses into a fucking text editor.
Fair enough. If your expenses are at the level of mine, I'd gladly take your $3500/year to do it for you. :-)
And given that several commenters have said they spend about an hour a month on it, after all automation is in place, I'm sure many would take that money from you. It comes to about $300/hour. Certainly some people are earning a lot more than I am, and paying $300/hour is worth it to them.
I'm not a hard core ledger user, but I have a simple solution: I don't enter anything into a text editor. I enter it into a fairly nice money management SW (using a GUI), that autofills a lot of stuff for me, and lets me import from my bank/CC. And then I simply run a script to convert its data format to ledger. I'm sure I spend more than an hour a month, though. I haven't automated most of my data sources.
I'm not going to adjust tens of thousands of dollars of capital assets because the management fee moved 0.05%... Who do you think I am, Elon Musk? I'm glad you enjoy using your time to do track these kind of things, but I gladly choose not to learn my accountant's job.