I’m receiving requests by some users to be able to “reconcile” in YNAB. So, I’m throwing it back at you: what exactly do you do when you reconcile? What is the process from start to finish?
I need to get my head around the process people are expecting before I can incorporate it (or attempt to debunk it!)
Please leave any comments you have below.
We need to be able to reconcile like Quicken reconciles. Check off everything that cleared from your monthly statement, choose reconcile, enter your ending balance and see if it zero’s out. If so you’re right on track. If not you can find out what you missed because a list of cleared and uncleared items show up side by side.
The system is useless for me if I cannot reconcile like I could in Quicken. I was $500 off but had no way to figure out why. In quicken I will know immediately.
As a new convert to YNAB from MSMoney, I am very pleased with the tool.
However, the ability to reconcile one’s account with the monthly paper statement is a must for any personal finance software.
I see this post originated in 2006.
When can we expect to see this request addressed?
I purchased this software after I purchased an iphone, because I thought I could save myself time and input transactions while on the go. Then I’m able to conveniently sync them when I am home. However, I just went to reconcile, which I am two months overdue, and could not find out how. Realizing now that YNAB does not have this feature, I’m not sure what I am going to do. I stopped using Quicken when I transferred to YNAB and so now I am not in agreement with what my online totals are for my bank account. The only way to make sure what you have and what the bank says you have is to reconcile your account with the paper statement. My husband didn’t feel that this was a necessary purchase, now I have to break this news to him…
I am a bit baffled by the fact that YNAB does not have a reconcile function. The original conversation is framed “what exactly do you do when you reconcile? ” Well, I compare my records with the banks and periodically ensure I have the same balances as the bank does. Relevant features include identifying which transactions have or have not cleared (showed up on the banks ledger) at the time I compare records. The process ensures I do not have a running error in my records.
For an electronic record, this may be a bit less relevant since the records can be downloaded from the bank – Oh, but not in YNAB. There is no download of bank transactions. Another big shortcoming in the software.
What is the process?
1. You get a paper statement from the bank with the months beginning and ending balances a list of transactions.
2. You reconcile or verify each transaction by matching the month’s downloaded activity against the statement amounts. In Money or Quicken if everything balances out there is $0.00 difference. If you made an entry in Money for $12.05 when in reality you wrote the check for $21.05 you are going to realize there is a mistake somewhere because there is going to be a $9.00 difference.
3. I can see by the posts that this isn’t an easy fix for YNAB or that you have another explanation of how to do the same thing.
At any rate I’ll be getting my bank statement in a week and will be wondering what to do or what the procedure is. I don’t see anything on-line that answers the question.
I do see why people would need to reconcile. Looks like this conversation has been going on for a while with no real response. It seems that all the pieces are already there a field for identifying cleared transactions. If a value was added to change that to and r for reconciled, and added some background calculations. I would add even more value to YNAB an already extremely useful tool
I am also a Quicken and Pocket Quicken convert (now YNAB
and iPhone). The reconcile function is very important to me as
stated by other comments you have received plus….the first months
when you start it would be extremely important (crucial) to be able
to zero out on paper the account versus the paper copy from the
bank of Credit Card company as a data accuracy test. Not sure what
the C in YNAB does for us now.
just in case you care. I am a Money user looking for new software. I want it on my desktop and my main concern is my budget. YNAB looked perfect and had wonderful reviews. I was ready to buy until I saw I could not do reconciliations. I have 6 bank accounts and 4 credit cards and I will not use software that will not let me reconcile these accounts. The reasons I want this function is stated by others above.
Hi Jesse,
I’ve got to throw this one back at you. Can you explain why you think it’s NOT important to reconcile statements every month?
I do think it’s important–just not as important to have a separate reconciliation wizard and all of that. I’m changing my tune though. I’m starting to see that, in this instance, a well-designed workflow will save people time.
I am new to YNAB and I too was looking for a way to reconcile. I’m in disagreement with my bank’s statement at the moment, and trying to find out where I made the mistake is hard without the reconcile function.
I’m considering YNAB for purchase but waiting for an auto reconcile function. YNAB need to reconcile by comparing a set of downloaded bank transactions with what is entered in the YNAB register and if the transactions hasn’t been entered yet by the user add it to the register. This is what Quicken does.
Consider, in the past I would get a paper bank statement at the end of the month, go through my register checking off the transactions, do a little math and come up with a balanced register. It looks like nothing has changed with YNAB except for the math calculating. Please add a auto reconcile function.
Jesse, I love YNAB, and I really love the Iphone App. but it drives me crazy that I can’t reconcile my bank statement conveniently and quickly with a YNAB tool. I’m glad to hear that you are changing your tune about reconciliation. Keep up the good work.
Yeah, we’ll get it in there and you’ll like it :)
Delighted to hear this is on the way — I came to the site to search for a discussion of this amid several hours of work that YNAB is costing me that wouldn’t be necessary if I was still on Quicken.
I had someone misunderstand YNAB’s “C” feature several months ago and now need to find their error(s) and get YNAB back in sync — nightmare! and wouldn’t be if there were checkpoints like Quicken gives.
Jesse,
I too came to YNAB after MS Money went kerplunk (with a very sudden, loud thud) a couple years ago. I love YNAB, but am VERY interested in seeing some improvement in YNAB’s statement reconciliation process.
It was a cool time-saving feature of MS Money, but I don’t think it has to be as complicated as a reconciliation wizard (at least at first). It could be as simple as providing an option to _not_ mark downloaded transactions as Cleared. This would allow the user to manually Clear transactions from the monthly statement and use the existing Cleared Balance as the amount to reconcile to the statement.
MS Money transactions 4 had different statuses as I recall: (U)ncleared, (E)lectronic Cleared, (C)leared, (R)econciled.
Transactions were entered as (U)ncleared (similar to YNAB today). Electronically downloaded (e.g. OSX in YNAB) transactions were marked as E. At reconciliation time, the application presented every transaction that _wasn’t_ in a (R)econciled status and allowed you to (C)lear each one (changing U’s and E’s to C’s). It provided some helpful sorts of these transactions that match statement grouping (e.g. “Deposits by Date, Checks by Check Number, then Transactions by Date”) to ease this process further.
When/if the manually (C)leared transactions matched the ending statement amount, you hit finish or something like that and all those C’s now become R’s.
The nicety about this then is you can have a filter based on “show me only unreconciled transactions” in your account view (in addition to) a filter by month(s). Which would also be very great side-benefit/feature.
I’m c# myself and I don’t know AIR, but would consult or do whatever to see this make a future (soon) release. In the meantime, keep up the good work and congrats on all the recent publicity. It’s been well earned.
P.S. Another helpful feature in MS Money was the cash-flow graph (based on account balances and scheduled credits/debits and category budgeted items and/or spending trends from that account)… I found it helpful in visualizing future impact of decisions you make with purchases today… good especially for people that live on edge of overdraft. Of course it can work the other way too (help some people see future income and how you can pay back decisions today with income in the future). In the end it probably doesn’t align well with the YNAB philosophy, but just some more random thoughts from a prior MS Money user.