What reminders are for

A reminder represents something that will happen on a predictable schedule — your paycheck on the 15th and the 30th, your rent on the 1st, your Netflix subscription on the 22nd, the insurance premium in March and September. LedgerBear uses reminders to project your balance forward, so you can see things like "will I have enough in checking to cover rent on the 1st?" before it actually happens.

Where they live

Reminders are attached to individual accounts. Open an account (Checking, Savings, or Cash) and click the Reminders tab. You'll see the full list of reminders tied to that account, and can create new ones with the Create button in the top-right.

Credit-card accounts don't have a Reminders tab. Instead, a reminder on a checking or savings account can be linked to a credit-card account — that's how the card's balance enters the forecast. See Linked accounts for credit-card payoffs.

What they drive

Two places in LedgerBear consume reminders:

• The Forecast tab on each checking/savings/cash account — a chart projecting the account's balance forward, with a table of upcoming reminder occurrences.
• The Projected column on the Cashflow dashboard — the projected net-worth position at the end of each future month.

If you don't have any reminders, the Forecast tab is empty and the Projected column shows dashes. The forecast doesn't try to guess based on past transactions.

What reminders are not

A reminder is not a calendar notification. LedgerBear doesn't email you or push-notify you when a reminder's date comes up. The name is about reminding the forecast, not reminding you. If you need an actual "pay this bill" alert, use a calendar app or your bank's bill-pay feature.

A reminder also doesn't create real transactions. The occurrences it projects are purely hypothetical; they exist in the forecast, not in your transactions list. When the real transaction lands (from a CSV import or manual entry), it's a separate record, and the forecast automatically stops counting that particular occurrence of the reminder.

Practical advice

• Add a reminder for every recurring inflow (paychecks, interest) and every recurring outflow (rent, mortgage, utilities, subscriptions) that's big enough to matter.
• Don't bother adding reminders for small variable expenses (groceries, gas). Those are what the forecast's "unreminded spending" band is for — see The Forecast tab.
• When a bill's amount changes (e.g., your electric bill), just edit the reminder. You don't need to delete and recreate.