Ledger Register
Turn a ledger-cli or hledger journal into the register view: one row per matching posting, with date, description, account, amount and a running total. Filter by account, payee, status or date range, then export as text, CSV, JSON or Markdown. Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
About this tool
Ledger Register runs the posting-by-posting register report for a ledger-cli or hledger plain-text journal. It is the checkbook view: each matching posting is shown with its date, transaction description, account, amount, and a running total in the final column.
The register is the detailed companion to a balance report. Use it when you want to answer questions like “why did Checking end at $1,950?” or “which postings in February affected Coffee expenses?” Everything runs locally in your browser via WebAssembly; the journal you paste is not uploaded.
What the parser understands
- Dated transactions with optional
*cleared /!pending flags,(code)and a payee or description. - Indented postings where the account and amount are separated by two or more spaces or a tab.
- One amount-less posting per transaction, inferred so the transaction balances.
- Multiple commodities (
$,USD,AAPL,"my fund") and both1,234.56and1.234,56number styles. @and@@price annotations, with an option to show postings at cost basis.- Virtual postings in
(…)or[…], balance assertions (= $100.00), and theaccount,alias,commodity,D,Y,P,apply accountandcommentdirectives.
include FILE lines are skipped and reported in the notes because a browser
page and sandboxed command-line tool cannot read your local include tree.
Worked example
Input:
2024-01-05 * Groceries
Expenses:Food:Groceries $45.20
Assets:Bank:Checking
2024-01-10 Salary
Assets:Bank:Checking $2,000.00
Income:Salary $-2,000.00
2024-02-01 ! Coffee
Expenses:Food:Coffee $4.80
Assets:Bank:Checking $-4.80
With Account filter set to checking, output is:
2024-01-05 Groceries Assets:Bank:Checking $-45.20 $-45.20
2024-01-10 Salary Assets:Bank:Checking $2000.00 $1954.80
2024-02-01 Coffee Assets:Bank:Checking $-4.80 $1950.00
The last running total is the same number the balance tool reports for the same account. Set Running total mode to historical when a date range starts in the middle of the journal and you want the total to carry in the earlier balance.
Useful options
- Account filter and Payee filter accept comma-separated, case-insensitive
substrings. Prefix a term with
not:or-to exclude it. - Start date is inclusive; End date is exclusive, matching the CLI tools'
-b/-ebehavior. - Related accounts shows the other side of transactions touching the filtered account, which is handy for bank-account spending reports.
- Invert signs flips income, liability or bank-account signs for friendlier reading.
- Output format switches between aligned text, CSV, JSON and Markdown.
Limits
Up to 5,000 transactions per run. The account depth control accepts 0–10 levels, row limit accepts 0–10,000, and text width accepts 40–400 columns. Periodic summary registers, custom format strings, market-value conversion, expression filters, and balance-assertion checking are out of scope for this posting-level report.
FAQ
How is this different from Ledger Balance?
Ledger Balance totals postings by account and shows one balance per account. Ledger Register keeps the individual postings and adds a running total, so you can trace how an account moved from one balance to the next. Use Balance for a summary; use Register to inspect the transactions behind that summary.
Why is the end date exclusive?
Both ledger-cli and hledger treat the end date as the first date after the
report. To see January only, use start 2024-01-01 and end 2024-02-01. That
also makes month and quarter ranges chain together without overlapping a day.
What does related accounts do?
When an account filter matches one side of a transaction, related mode prints the other side. For a bank account, that turns a checkbook register into a category register: Groceries, Rent, Salary and the other accounts that explain where the money came from or went.
What does historical running total mean?
Period mode starts the running total at zero at the beginning of the report. Historical mode first totals matching postings before the start date and carries that balance into the first visible row, so a February-only bank register still ends at the account's true current balance.
Are my books uploaded anywhere?
No. The parser and report run locally in your browser through WebAssembly. The same core also powers the command-line tool, so the output is deterministic and nothing has to leave your machine.
Developer & Automation Access
Run it from the terminal
Same engine as this page, headless — via the gizza CLI:
gizza tool ledger-register '2024-01-05 * Groceries
Expenses:Food:Groceries $45.20
Assets:Bank:Checking
2024-01-10 Salary
Assets:Bank:Checking $2,000.00
Income:Salary $-2,000.00'New to the CLI? Get gizza →
Open it by URL
Pre-fill and auto-run this tool with query parameters — the names match the API/CLI:
https://gizza.ai/tools/ledger-register/?journal=2024-01-05%20%2A%20Groceries%0A%20%20%20%20Expenses%3AFood%3AGroceries%20%20%20%2445.20%0A%20%20%20%20Assets%3ABank%3AChecking%0A%0A2024-01-10%20Salary%0A%20%20%20%20Assets%3ABank%3AChecking%20%20%20%20%20%20%242%2C000.00%0A%20%20%20%20Income%3ASalary%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%24-2%2C000.00&account_filter=checking&payee_filter=coffee%2C%20not%3Arefund&begin=2024-01-01&end=2024-03-01&status=all&depth=0&running_total=period&related=true&invert=true&real_only=true&cost_basis=true&sort=date&limit=0&limit_from=first&width=80&output_format=textMachine-readable descriptor: tool.json — title + parameters JSON Schema for agents.