Thanks to Georg, Karin, and Erin for their questions and helpful comments that spurred some behind-the-scenes changes to YNAB 3.0 to bring about 3.1.

• The “Transfer” inflow has been removed. See this post over at the forums for the long answer. The short answer is that it was causing more confusion than it was worth.
• The “Date Format” option that was necessary for International users is now gone. It was annoying me from the get-go and, thanks to a few user tips, I ended up using a slicker way to get the job done. International (dd/mm/yyyy) formats (or any other date format for that matter) will be happy to know that this extra step is gone.
• An outflow category can now use amounts entered as inflows (as in the case of refunds, rebates, or reimbursements). YNAB Pro did this, and I thought it best that YNAB followed suit.
• The inflow column is now the last column in the Register. It’s basically switched places with the Outflow column. Reasoning: there are many more outflows than inflows. This will save you from having to hit an unnecessary extra tab every time you enter an Outflow.
• The percentages as calculated on the Overview sheet were only triggered with Primary income. The denominator was also Primary income as well. This dated back to when I was the sole user of YNAB (and it didn’t have a name, except for ‘the budget’ in our house); I wanted to see what percentage of my Primary income was taken by XYZ expense. This has confused a lot of users who expect the percentages to add to 100% (a fine expectation). Now the category percentages’ denominator is the total expenses.
• Those who do switch to 3.1 will notice a bit of increased Registry entry speed. I had inadvertently specified an unnecessarily large database range for the Register. It needed to be literally one fifth the size. I didn’t know this was affecting performance but it was. Lag time between Registry entries should now go *almost* undetected.
• The Income statement has now changed to a more generic “Inflows” and “Outflows” label. Doing this completely eliminated the need to mark certain categories with asterisks. The additional small bit of value added was not worth the investment on the user’s part.
• No need to mark savings categories with asterisks any more (see above).
• Printing on the budget sheet will now give you a print out of all the categories and their current balances. This will be handy for sticking the list on your fridge periodically.
• Everyone has probably noticed that the balances don’t add across until the end of the year. The reason I don’t do that is because the Budget sheet looks very, very scary when there are numbers flying everywhere. So, to that end, the original YNAB only tallied the new balance once that month had started. That is annoying. Everyone knows that a good budgeter likes to get the budget set up a few days in advance. So, the balances now tally one week prior to the new month starting.
• The prior balance column has been eliminated. It served one purpose, for one time only and wasn’t worth the hassle. From now on, if you do have balances when starting YNAB, you just enter a Supplemental inflow and budget them.
• A default category called Buffer is now included with the rest of the default categories. It will help people transition from a life without Rule #1, to one of bliss and financial peace…really.
• There’s no longer a need to enter a start date. Its sole purpose was to calculate the monthly average on the Overview sheet. The first transaction entered in the Register now determines what the denominator is for computing the average.
• I shaved two pages off the setup guide, and then decided to redo the entire thing, which added about 25 pages to it. I dig into the rules in a lot of depth, discuss savings categories to a great degree, and try and paint the picture that a life without YNAB is a life of…well…less money.
• Added another default 300 or so lines to the Register.

To grab the latest version, shoot me an email and I’ll get you a download link.