The inline rule prompt

The fastest way to create a rule is to let LedgerBear offer one for you. After you inline-edit a transaction in the transactions table and move on to the next row, a small prompt can appear asking whether you want to turn what you just did into a rule. A single keystroke accepts, dismisses, or permanently suppresses it.

When the prompt appears

After you save a transaction, LedgerBear checks whether the row is a good candidate for a new rule. The prompt appears when all of these are true:

• The transaction has both a payee and a memo. The memo provides the pattern; the payee (and category, if set) is what the rule will apply.
• No existing active rule already matches the memo. If a rule is already handling this pattern, there's nothing to propose.
• A sensible pattern can be extracted from the memo. LedgerBear strips trailing noise (dates, transaction IDs, location codes) the same way it does for Create Rule from a transaction.
• You haven't already been prompted for this transaction, and you haven't told LedgerBear to never prompt for this specific pattern again (see Never below).

The prompt reads something like:

Create rule: "Trader Joe's" (Groceries) for memos containing "TRADER JOES"?

The three options

Yes Y — Creates the rule, with the same memo operator, pattern, payee, and category the prompt proposed. If other rows in the current table also match the pattern and are missing a payee or category, the button reads Yes + apply to N rows — clicking it creates the rule and fills in the blanks on those matching rows in one step. This is what makes the prompt the fastest path to a useful rule: one keystroke categorizes every lookalike transaction you already have.

No N — Dismisses the prompt without creating a rule. You can also press Escape or click outside the prompt; all three do the same thing. LedgerBear won't prompt again for this specific transaction, but it may prompt for other transactions that share the same memo pattern. Use this when the current transaction is a one-off and you don't want to commit either way yet.

Never X — Suppresses this memo pattern for the rest of the session. You won't be prompted again for any transaction whose memo would extract to the same pattern. Use this when the memo pattern is something you actively don't want a rule for — a one-time refund, a transfer that's already handled manually, a memo that happens to overlap with unrelated transactions. The suppression is per-session; closing the tab resets it.

Why use the prompt over the Rules page

• It's the fewest clicks of any rule-creation path: one keystroke, no dialog.
• The pattern is already extracted and validated against a real memo, so you know it will match at least one row.
• It backfills matching rows in the current table automatically when you pick Yes + apply to N rows — you don't have to re-run the rule manually against existing transactions.

When the prompt isn't what you want

Open the Rules page directly (or use Create Rule from a transaction) when you want to:

• Change the operator (the prompt always uses Contains-style matching on the extracted pattern — see Writing a rule for the other operators).
• Tighten or loosen the pattern before saving.
• Scope the rule to a specific account rather than All Accounts.