---
name: "pem"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "pem"
version: "0.7.9-6"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pem"
---

# pem(1)

GNU personal expenses manager

## NAME

**pem** - GNU personal expenses manager

## SYNOPSIS

- **pem** \[**OPTIONS**\] \[\<description\> \<amount\> ...\]

  ## DESCRIPTION

**GNU Pem** is a handy tool to help you keep track of your personal income
 and expenses. Needless to say, using **pem** is extremely simple and easy.
 A command of the following form is all it takes
\
     $ pem "Bus ticket" 10.75
\
     $ pem -f myexpenses.txt Breakfast 20
 **Pem** stores these details in a CSV file, named after the current month,
 and placed in the \`~/.pem' directory under your $HOME directory. You may
 specify some other file using the \`-f' option. Also, each amount is considered
 as an expenditure unless indicated otherwise by \`-e'.

Tags/Categories:
 ================
 From version 0.7.4, **pem** introduced support for tags & categories of
 records. You can tag an income and/or expense record as
\
     $ pem -c bills "Cell phone bill" 830.50
\
     $ pem -c 'travel fun leisure' "Trip to Goa" 4500
 These are saved with the tags 'bills' & 'travel fun leisure' respectively.
 Later, you can see very useful reports showing your category wise expense
 traits. Now **pem** also facilitates filtering of records using tags and
 description. Note that, while filtering records, **pem** first looks into
 the tags and when they don't match, goes for the description field.
 Ex. To see all your expenses on \`travel', you can say
\
     $ pem -s travel
\
     $ pem -m travel
 While the first will list all your \`travel' expenses in a month; The later
 will show the cumulative results for each month till date. Other than this,
 **pem** supports these following options

## OPTIONS

**-b --bare**
\
  show unformatted report
 **-c --category \<name\>**
\
  categorise/tag your expenses
 **-e --earned**
\
  indicates income
 **-f --file \<name\>**
\
  specify file name
 **-s \[n\]**
\
  show daily report with total after \[n\] days
 **-m \[n\]**
\
  show monthly report with total after \[n\] months
 **-C**
\
  show category/tag-wise report
 **-t --total**
 shows just the total when used it with -s
 **-M \<mm\>**
\
  select the start month (01 \<= mm \<= 12)
 **-N \<mm\>**
\
  select an end month (01 \<= mm \<= 12)
 **-Y \<yy\>**
\
  select an year (00 \<= yy \<= 99)
 **-h --help**
\
  show this help
 **-v --version**
 show version information

## ENVIRONMENT

PEMTIME
 **Pem** recognizes the PEMTIME environment variable. PEMTIME defines the
 format in which you want the \`Date & Time' to be displayed. For example,
 if you export PEMTIME="%F", the date "May 31 2007" will be displayed as
 2007-05-31. For more information/options please see [strftime(3)](/strftime/3.md).

## REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to \<pj.pandit@yahoo.co.in\>

## AUTHOR

Written by Prasad J Pandit

Initial category patch: John Westlund