The ledger

Keyboard-first inline editing, real search, splits, tags, locked history.

The ledger is dense and keyboard-first: every edit happens inline, every action is undoable, and a reconciled row is locked.

Editing at the speed of typing

Inline everything. Click (or keyboard into) any cell, whether that's date, payee, category, memo, or amount, and edit it right there. No edit screens, no popups blocking the page.
Keyboard-first. The ledger has a full shortcut vocabulary, a command palette (⌘K) that jumps to any account, payee, action, or page, and pickers you can drive entirely with arrows and Enter.
Undo, not "are you sure?". Routine edits save with no confirmation step and no banner. Every change is a step you can undo and redo, and deleted rows sit in a recycle bin. A dialog appears only where an action cannot be undone.
Smart pickers. The payee picker learns your habits: choosing a payee pre-fills its usual category. Transfers live in the same picker, so you pick one of your own accounts instead of a payee and the paired entry is created on the other side automatically.

Search that speaks your language

Ledger search is a query grammar, not substring match: multiple terms combine with AND, amounts support operators and ranges (>100, 25..75), and you can scope terms by field, direction, or date range. Type, hit ArrowDown, and you're on the first result.

Splits divide one transaction across categories, with the parts always summing to the whole. That's enforced, not hoped for.
Tags are freeform colored labels you define, attach to any transaction, and filter by (filters combine, so vacation + reimbursable means both).
Related transactions connect entries that belong together, like a purchase and its refund, or an expense and the check that repaid it, so the story stays together.

Cleared, approved, reconciled

Ember uses the classic ledger discipline:

Uncleared → cleared as transactions match what the bank reports.
Approved means you've looked at it. New imports queue for a quick review pass instead of silently entering your books.
Reconciled means you have balanced the account against a statement, and reconciled rows lock. A payee or category fix still lands. A change to the amount, date, or account, or a delete, asks you to confirm first, because it moves a balance you signed off on.

Reconciliation is a guided flow per account: enter the statement balance, check off cleared items, and lock the period. Balance snapshots record the result, so your net-worth history is built on balances you reconciled, not estimates.

Recurring transactions

Rent, salary, subscriptions: define the cadence once and Ember posts them automatically, showing upcoming instances in a Scheduled group before they land. Cadences handle real-world rules (last weekday of the month, every second Friday) rather than just "monthly."

On your phone

Ember detects phones and serves a purpose-built mobile app: net worth and accounts on the home screen, a card-swipe review queue for approving new imports, and a searchable ledger with quick-add. The desktop ledger is one tap away when you need it.