Most of you have already downloaded YNAB 4.1, but I wanted to call out some of the cool stuff we threw in there (besides the 63 small fixes and 15 improvements).
I made a four-minute video highlighting the changes:
Income Breakdown in the Budget
Expand the budget header (click on the Available number at the top) and you’ll see how that number is derived. If you want to see which transactions make up your Income, click on that number.
Yes, that was a feature in YNAB 3 and we pulled it for YNAB 4. It was brought back because it was used way more than we had anticipated. :)
Use the ‘c’ key to clear or unclear transactions
Clearing and unclearing transactions was the only common transaction action that required the mouse. No longer. Just hit the ‘c’ key and it’ll toggle the cleared status of a transaction. You can do this in bulk as well.
Search for ‘Unreconciled’ transactions
There is now a search available, “is:Unreconciled” which will show you…well, your unreconciled transactions. Handy if you want to have reconciled transactions be out of sight and out of mind.
Miscellaneous
We made a whole slew of changes you can read about in the release notes of the software. If you haven’t yet upgraded to YNAB 4.1, start up YNAB 4 and go to Help -> Check for Updates and it’ll prompt you.
If you’re still using YNAB 3, and would like to upgrade to YNAB 4, enter the email you used to purchase in our upgrade tool, and it will take care of the rest!
Roadmap & Feature Requests
We’re already well underway with new features and improvements for the next update! Keep in mind that this is a free update and there will be many more minor version updates to come (with cool features we couldn’t hold back), before we release a major paid upgrade to YNAB 5 :)
Thank you for adding the ‘Unreconciled’ search option!!
I love the ‘c’ to clear. It’s good that you’re adding more keyboard shortcuts.
Can we get some more? Like ‘a’ to approve?
Also, it would be great if there were a quick way to jump between sides of a transfer.
I’d love to select a transfer transaction and press ‘j’ to jump to the transaction in the other account.
There’s no way to use the keyboard, but you can click the little -><- arrow icon to jump to the other side of it.
And yeah, we plan on adding more keyboard shortcuts.
Just wanted to say that how great YNAB4 is. I liked version 3 but 4 is miles ahead.
Thank you for bringing back the Income Breakdown
+1. I would like to plus one million. I really missed this feature and was very excited to see that it was brought back so quickly!
+another 1 :)
I like the look of the new version but you eliminated the memo line which I used all the time or maybe I can’t see it on the new version. I want it back!
Memo line is still there. Is your column hidden? You can adjust column headings by clicking the ‘+’ button at the top-right of each register.
Any idea when YNAB 5 will be released?
Hilarious. :)
Really?
January 2014. A little bird told me.
The little birdy lied.
If there’s one thing that Jesse learned from past product launches, then it is to never announce a future release date in advance ever again.
What you’re not going to switch to the Chrome / Firefox versioning scheme where you have a new “major” number release every two months ;-)
So glad the income breakdown is back, I really missed it!
I’ll second the “thank-you” for adding the ‘Unreconciled’ search option. It’s a huge step in the right direction. I’d like to ask for two additional tweaks related to it.
First, can you make it persistent so that whenever I close and re-open YNAB, it by default, only shows unreconciled transactions? I should never want to deal with reconciled transactions unless I’m explicitly searching for them and taking action – otherwise, they should be out of sight, out of mind (in my opinion).
And, second, when I’m showing all transactions (reconciled and unreconciled), my totals at the bottom (cleared + uncleared = working) are accurate. i.e. they match exactly what my bank says. However, when I search for only ‘Unreconciled’ transactions, those go all out of whack because it’s only factoring in what’s currently showing (Unreconciled). I’d like to think that filtering down to ‘Unreconciled’ shouldn’t change how those numbers are calculated at the bottom. I should be able to see only my ‘Unreconciled’ transactions and still match up to what my real account balance is. Am I missing something?
I agree. It always throws me when I filter transactions and the balance is all wrong. For me it’s more often transactions from the last week or month or something, but it makes no sense to have the wrong balance showing.
When you search, it’s no longer showing a balance. It’s showing the search totals. Maybe we need to re-think the purpose of that box.
No, it’s fine!
Please do. This feature is so close to perfection.
A persistent view or toggle would be very helpful in seeing what is still relevant on the accounts whereas the reconciled stuff I would like out of the way, an archive in a sense. Having the calculations done based on the total at the time of the last reconciliation and using the unreconciled to bring the calculation current makes sense for ongoing reconciliation otherwise they dont match.
Thanks for adding these changes in YNAB 4, they were at the top of my list for things to see in the next version of YNAB and you guys delivered!
I really like the search totals when filtering transactions – please don’t get rid of it!! It especially helps when I have to use to my personal credit card for work travel purposes so I know how much I’m expecting back from the company.
I prefer the old method. You can still click the checkbox at the top to select all found items and this way get the total of the searched items.
“First, can you make it persistent so that whenever I close and re-open YNAB, it by default, only shows unreconciled transactions? I should never want to deal with reconciled transactions unless I’m explicitly searching for them and taking action – otherwise, they should be out of sight, out of mind (in my opinion). ”
++ to that. I was thinking that “Unreconciled Only” could be an option in the date filter dropdown, which settings are persistent. Of course ‘unreconciled’ isn’t a date…
My wife and I base our budgeting and bill pay patterns on pay periods: (2) per month. I understand that YNAB is for budgeting, but..it would be nice to be able to break our monthly income into multiple periods and build budgets based on bi-monthly or semi-monthly paydays; this would let us use YNAB for out bill-pay strategy as well. What we do now is use a spreadsheet for each (2) week period, track amounts and payments, and monitor extra per period. This allows us to quickly identify all due amounts and days and pay bills. Right now, we are trying to move to YNAB for a better planning solution, but seem to need to continue using our spreadsheet for regular payment monitoring. Am I making any sense? Does anyone else need to break up their budgeting time frames? Just a rookie here…
I second this… A lot of expenditures are planned on a weekly basis, groceries being the first example coming to mind. I would love the ability to chose the budgeting period being weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly etc.
I agree — it would be helpful to have the monthly broken down by pay period.
I’d prefer to look at my budget by 2 wk intervals than monthly, at least until I get to the stage of living on last month’s money. Right now, it’d be a major accomplishment to be living on my last PAYCHECK!! I really do wish there was a way to tweak YNAB to a custom budget cycle.
I used to use a spreadsheet as you are discussing as well. If you pre-load all your bills for auto entry into the YNAB register, you don’t have to do that. If you know how much, (or at least approximately how much) your income will be bi-monthly, (you can make adjustments as needed), you can have everything load as it is due, and deposit your income as your pay date arrives. You approve all into your register and it goes into your budget at the same time. If you have the option for bill pay with your bank or credit union, set it up to pay your bills based on your pay dates/amounts. Hope this makes sense. It just makes life easier due to knowing when/approx how much you will be paying out and how much / when you will get paid. YNAB does more than just help with your budget.
“Am I making any sense? Does anyone else need to break up their budgeting time frames? ”
YES!!! I understand that the goal is to save a one-month buffer so that we are no longer constrained by bi-weekly pay period scheduling, but for most of us, that will take some time. In the mean time, I am reduced to maintaining YNAB and the spreadsheet to keep track of when the payments need to be made and from which paycheck the payments will come. Supreme hassle. I would give up the spreadsheet in a second if there was an easy, integrated method (integrated, not a work-around) for tracking payment due dates and multiple paychecks in a single month. Instead, we’re just told that we are wrong for wanting this from our software (rather than an acknowledgment that the software does not fully meet our needs). I’m a religious checkbook-balancer and budgeter, so the main purpose of YNAB is right up my alley, but I just don’t have time to maintain the two formats. So for the time being, even though I’ve paid for the software and am still saving toward my buffer, I’ve stopped using YNAB because frankly it’s just too much effort to have to maintain the spreadsheet and YNAB.
HI I know that the goal is to have a minimum 1 month buffer. However I am not there.
In the meantime I would looove a report on cash flow forecast that goes down to day-by-day taking account all scheduled inflows and outflows
This would benefit me enormously.
I have no means to generate it at the moment beside duplicating all the transactions into something else.
I know this goes against principle where your budget is separate to your bank account spread and the 1 month money buffer,
HOWEVER if you can do that report there is nothing wrong with posting a ! message at top of the report reminding you should be aiming for the 1 month buffer and not to use this report as a habit.
It would help me get up and going working towards the 1 month buffer!
Thankyou!
Cheers
Anthony
Yes!! I do the same thing and also use a spreadsheet to allocate the spending.
Yes! My husband and I divide up every paycheck into different categories (and not always the same ones). I would LOVE to see this feature! Also would love to see the ability to group accounts listed on the left of the screen and have group totals, and all the group totals together in the grand total on the left as well. Hope I explained it clearly…
Oh sorry, should’ve added that I’d like to see “budgeted” and “unbudgeted” accounts able to sub-group, where each group has a total, and all the groups together equal the “budgeted” or “unbudgeted” totals.
Never mind on the grouping ideas… Ive got someone on the support team working on it…
See Rule 4 – living on last month’s income means that you won’t have to time paying bills based on this month’s paychecks. Getting to that point is the goal. To do this, you can either not assign every dollar each month and roll the unassigned money into the next month, or you can put in a little bit more in each category that has monthly outlays. I think it is easier to visualize your goal with the latter approach. In a way, the former approach violates the 1st rule of giving every dollar a job. If you put 20% more than usual in each category, in 5 months you will have the one month buffer. It may take longer than 5 months before you have the one month buffer in every category that needs it, and you may need to tighten the belt or try to find extra income to get there. The “extra pay” you get twice each year on a biweekly salary can go towards that buffer too – pretend that the extra pay is a windfall to put aside, rather than counting on it for just the months in which it occurs. Tracking every dollar of spending will make you reconsider buying some things (do you really need that latte every morning?), and you will end up spending less, and putting more toward the buffer.
Remember that this rule doesn’t operate by itself – the other three have to be in place as well for the system to work smoothly. The rainy day categories will need some money each month, for instance, so that you aren’t hit with a big outlay once or twice a year.
I would love to see the budget period allows for every two weeks instead of just monthly. I’m new to YNAB so still trying to figure out how to set monthly budget base on two weeks income period.
What my husband & I do is have notes on each bill for what the monthly total is going to be for that bill and only actually budget (ie type into the software) what bills are covered by which paycheck.
Example: Rent is due today, and the car is due after our next pay cycle so I budget for rent and put any left over towards the car (even if its only a dollar or two) and then leave the car portion empty until we get our next paychecks then I budget for that.
And for groceries/gas I take our monthly goal and divide it in half (and keep it the notes so I’m not constantly doing math) and plug that in for the month. And if we can’t afford that, I adjust it accordingly.
Hope this novel helps somebody! haha.
This is something I would also like to see, and not because I don’t want to follow the YNAB principles….I very much do. We have been working very hard to save up one month’s buffer so we can stop living paycheck to paycheck, as well as abiding by the other 3 principles, but until we get there (which probably will take us a bit longer than the average 4 or 5 months), it would be really great if the software had the flexibility to manage budget on a bi-weekly basis and then “flip the switch” to monthly when you have your buffer saved up and can start living on last month’s income. I would love to use YNAB exclusively for my budgeting rather than several other tracking methods for my bills.
Either way, thanks for all the hard work!
I agree with this. I get paid on the 15th and last day of each month and my husband gets paid on the 16th and the 1st of each month. I know what we will bring home, and I can put that number in, but doing so, gives me a false sense of security. If I only put in the amount of income at the time that we get paid, say at the end/beginning of the month, it’s going to show me that I don’t have enough income to pay everything. For example – my monthly expenses right now are just a tab over $5200.00, I get half our paid at the end/beginning of the month, so I add that in. It will show that I don’t have enough income to meet my expenses. The only way to do that is to add the income for the entire amount. So, I do and then I have to keep reminding myself and my husband that we really don’t have that much. It also makes it a pain in the you know what when balancing with the bank. So, yeah, if there could be someway to create a budget for bi-weekly or two pays a pay, that would be awesome!
In response to the inquiries about bi-monthly paychecks: I am an independent contractor and receive money at various intervals during the month, as well as a regular part- time work salary received in two pay periods per month (1st & 15th). One of the things I absolutely love about YNAB is that I can completely customize this budget to work with all the irregularities of my income flow. I’ve only been using YNAB for about a month and a half and already have accrued more money in place for my expenses (monthly, rainy day & wish list) than I ever have based on the low income level I have been living at…. and its been easy!
I read the tips on the YNAB website relating to variable income and setting up your budget. It gave me the ideas I now use in conjunction with a few of my own for my budget set-up such as:
- a “Monthly Expenses” category which lists all my monthly bills. Each bill line item has 3 things: the date of the month its due, the name of the bill and the amount that’s due. I write it like this: 1st/ Rent/ $890. Then the bills are put in order by date due. This is easy to do by dragging them into the preferred order. I even add another note that says “debit” for the ones that are auto paid from my bank account. (Note: For households with more than one income, you could even add the initial of the one who’s paycheck is designated for a particular bill.) I then have all the info I need to know what bill gets paid when and all under one category.
- When I get my paycheck for the 1st of the month, I enter the income transaction in my account. I then enter the budgeted amounts into my budget for all the items with dates due within that pay period, ie the 1st to the15th. As those bills are paid as expense transactions in my account, I can see immediately where I’m at when I look at my budget. All the bills for that pay period are grouped together by date. Then when I am paid for the second half of the month, I do the same for the next group of bills on the budget. Additional money I earn during the month goes toward rainy day, wish list or added to bill budget for my eventual one month buffer income goal.
- I think the key here is to either: only add the budgeted amounts when the money to pay for them is available OR be okay with adding unpayable budgeted amounts and having negative balances until the next income can compensate.
Once I really get this under my belt, I’m gonna spread the word about YNAB to all my friends who are artists, entrepreneurs and independent contractors who struggle with budgeting with variable incomes. This has been a lifelong problem for me which appears to be resolved with this great program. I truly love all the help given by YNAB and its users so that we can SUCCEED at this!
Soooo happy to have the income breakdown back! Thanks for listening guys!!
I almost asked for a refund…without this, it is no good to me…I schedule future checks that sometimes show as a duplicate, and I needed to see why my balances were HUGE!!! Glad you brought it back!
I like that you’re setting expectations very clear. :)
It’s tricky though. These days, whether it’s video games or budgets, people don’t expect that software is ever a finished product. They continually want feature improvements.
I personally think YNAB 4 is great where it’s at. I think you’re right in that the best decisions you make are what features to leave out – but if there is a feature that SIMPLIFIES and makes things easier and require less manual work, then those seem like features to include. A few that quickly come to mind:
1) Instead of having to search “is:unreconciled”, simply add a button next to the date filter that quickly filters out reconciled (or cleared) items.
2) On reports, have the year-to-date report ACTUALLY be year-to-date. Currently it goes up to where you have entered any budgeted amounts. I will often project out and type in future month’s budget – and so my reports go through those dates.
3) Bring back a trendline for expenses in addition to the pie graph. These graphs have different uses and both would be a good improvement to reporting.
yes I missed the trendline for expenses immediately upon upgrading to ynab 4 — PLEASE BRING IT BACK!!!!
My understanding is they are bringing back the graph that shows expenses over time. That’s the only report I have ever used in YNAB, since the budget itself is the primary report and the most relevant report.
When you think about it, YNAB is built for budgeting and you only need to know a few things to create your next month’s budget: How much do I have, and what’s my spending trend been over the past X months?
Anyway, looking forward to that coming back.
Yes, please bring back the trend line…..I just noticed that it was no longer there when I started to track a certain payee over time…..
but really enjoying YNAB 4
Great upgrade!
I only mis an option for left over budget (underspending) in one category : lift over to the next month or add to next month s budget. The same as for the overspending…
Loving 4.1!
How likely is it that YNAB will be able to handle accounts in different currencies? I have money in the UK and NZ and I’d LOVE to be able to have all my accounts in YNAB. I’d be happy entering a manual exchange rate (or even better if YNAB could pull a daily value from somewhere online!) so that I just see an overall budget total/accounts total in British Pounds. Possible? Planned?
It’s possible. It’s not currently planned (on a short-term roadmap). It’d be a big undertaking, to be honest. Because we’re talking about reconciling a master budget in some master currency, and then questioning what we do with the currency fluctuations. So far there have always been things that took precedent.
The way I dealt with multi-currency in MS-Money is this: I had my usual accts in $Aud, but if I needed to transfer $ to another acct in a different currency, eg Euros (which would already have been set up in Money) from an $Aud acct, a dialogue box would come up, I would enter the Fx rate for $Aud to Euros, to match the amount taken out of the $Aud acct in $Aud vs. the amount in Euros going into the Euros acct. So the Euros acct would have the transaction amounts & totals in Euros, and the $Aud accts obviously had the transaction amounts & totals in $Aud. All the different currency accounts are in the same MS-Money file, I don’t have to get out of the $Aud budget file and into a different budget file to access the Euro accts (or accts in other foreign currencies). It would be really great if YNAB could work in the same way as MS-Money does for multi-currencies! :)
My wife and I are enthusiastic users, but I have a key question. When are you moving to enable an automatic download capability? The manual import process is a bit old-school. It would really vault this product to the next level to have it connect directly to your financial institutions for downloads.
Thanks!
We’re pretty happy with the behavior change our users experience NOT having direct connect to banks. Adding that feature is not in our plans at the moment. It comes down to a philosophical difference, not really a technical challenge (obviously, since it’s basically standard fare with most of our competitors).
I would not want automatic download of transactions. I want to see the transactions as they come in, for sure.
I agree, I don’t want automatic download either…..I feel I stay on top of things better (watching my spending based on my budget more closely) if I have to enter the transactions manually. Since YNAB’s chief purpose is budgeting first, spending later, I feel that automatic download somewhat can defeat that purpose…..
I agree about this being a purely philosophical difference. When I first started using YNAB 3, I thought the auto import being missing was dumb. But now after having to change my habits and do things manually as far as entering transactions I feel like I have gotten far better at handling my budget. I can say that I have a far better grasp on how much income and debt I have on hand at anytime and have been able to use that knowledge to make smarter decisions regarding my finances. If they ever add an automatic import feature, please make it optional.
Actually I have tried using software that automatically downloads info from my banks and credit cards. Three problems – first is that it is a security issue when you have to give your passwords to another piece of software to enable it to automatically access and download your financial information. But I got over that because I wanted convenience… but it still is a risk. Second – the automatic feature alienated me from my spending and budget. I did not enter my transactions as they occurred because they would happen automatically later. This meant that I ignored my spending until later … bad for managing finances proactively. And thirdly (and this was the deal breaker for me) was that my institutions keep requiring new security or they would upgrade this or that and then the automatic download stopped working and I’d have to call to get it fixed and then it would double up transactions but I would never get a chance to see that the entry was made both manually and automatically. So I spent more time trying to keep the thing working for all my accounts than I do simply entering the information as I spend in YNAB. And YNAB does the best job I’ve seen of identifying possible double entries. Plus the downloads using YNAB and the direct connect feature have never failed to work for me. So believe me, the automatic downloading is over-rated. The previous software I’m talking about is Quicken 2011 home and business (used Quicken for ~ 10 years), and mvelopes (used for 4 months). I’ve been using YNAB for 3 months and I’m not looking back!
I agree. Do not add automatic download from banks. I have used other products that use this feature and I did not like it. I was so happy when I found YNAB as not having this feature. This is the main reason I bought YNAB. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
I agree, I’m fine with entering transactions manually.
thanks for bringing back the income breakdown!!
Your program is very good. But It does have one big flaw for me. My bank is a credit union. You do not have any way that I can connect to my credit union and download a particular month’s transactions directly from the credit union. Once you change your mind and add that, I would be a customer.
I bank at a Credit Union and download directly from them just fine. Do they offer any kind of PC banking? You may find that they do indeed allow downloads.
I’m with a credit union too. Check your online banking site.
Doesn’t your credit union have online banking? If it does, it should let you download the transactions as a QFX file. If it doesn’t, that’s a problem with your credit union.
It’s not as automatic as it could be, but on my bank it only takes a few clicks and it works great for bill payments that happen automatically, etc
Income breakdown link in budget header rules as far as 4.1 goes in my book. Thanks! Was really looking for this in YNAB 4.
A plea from the more technically challenged
As you start adding ‘features’ please remember it is supposed to be a simple basic Budgeting program that appeals to the masses
If you want a full blown accounting program go buy one but please don’t turn YNAB into one .
For programs like Microsoft Office it becomes almost a full time job trying to understand and keep up with all the new ‘features’ 99% of which you will have no real need for ever
Thanks
I think we’re pretty aware of our target user. So the improvements we’re going to add will still hit that sweet spot. Accountants can do their double-entry elsewhere. No offense to you accountants. Remember, I was once just like you. ;)
Jesse,
Are there plans for adding a password for security purposes to the program? I love the program, but I’m a little concerned about other people seeing my finances if they get on my computer. Thanks!
We don’t currently have that one on the roadmap, but I like to ask clarifying questions when I get this request. Would you wanting data encryption as well, or just a “simple” gate preventing opening YNAB? Would every budget have its own password, or would it be for the app? Would the password be recoverable? Or if a customer lost their password, would they lose their data?
I’d love to hear your thoughts there.
Two things I’d like to see:
1. Just encode the contents of the files you’re storing (something like base64 encode) to make it more difficult to read without some technical knowledge. This would be super simple from a developer’s standpoint as you just base64 encode and decode, functionality that is standard with most frameworks.
2. Add a “simple gatekeeper” password.
That would work for most people’s needs. Obviously, not really “secure”, but then nothing you do would be totally secure.
Also, you could put a “password reset” function that sends an email with a code to put in the software.
AES 128 or preferably 256 is the minimum to call it “secured”. Anything less is wasted effort and provides a false sense of security. I would like to use the password at the budget level. Love YNAB, better than sliced bread :-)
Speaking for myself:
Currently there’s no password protection, which is fine. There’s only two reasons you’d want to add it: 1) keeping info away from prying eyes on a shared computer, or 2) protecting the data itself from theft.
I think #2 has become especially salient now that a lot of your users will be storing their data in the cloud (i.e. on Dropbox). I think adding a per-budget password used to encrypt/decrypt the data would be a good idea. Password recovery is nice but usually compromises the security of the data enough to make it useless to use encryption to begin with.
I’d rather see a different route than Jamon. I would also like to see a password, but I would prefer it to be more than a simple gatekeeper. I think encryption is a must, especially with the move to dropbox for cloud storage now and the future cloud storage plans that have been discussed in the past.
The only ways to make the password recoverable involve weakening the protection, so I do not think it should be.
I know that represents a challenge for support though. Perhaps the encryption should be optional? Users that don’t care can avoid the risk. I think the overhead of making encryption recoverable or not recoverable as an option is probably too expensive. I believe that people that want encryption would not want it to be weakened by the options that would make the data recoverable (that defeats the whole point of protecting it), so the effort to implement encryption would be less valuable if you planned to only implement it in a way that would allow the data to be recovered in case of a lost password.
On the other hand, a lost password is probably less likely with YNAB than it could be for other applications. YNAB’s model encourages users to stay on top of their transactions and to use the software on a frequent basis to enter and track their spending and budget progress. That means they are using their passwords more often, and so are less likely to forget them. :)
I’d like to have the full meal deal too. I just don’t think that’s realistic with the level of complexity that brings. That’s why I at least want base64 encoding and a simple (recoverable) password — it’s better than plain text and no password.
With the cloud option of Dropbox now I think encryption is going to be a must along with password protection at the budget level. Open a budget, enter the password (which for many people I would think is when they open the software anyway as it opens your most recent budget automatically).
I’m not that concerned with data encryption because I don’t store anything other than my budget (no account numbers). I would like a simple gate preventing opening YNAB from prying eyes. Personally, I only have one budget for my household, so only a password for the app, but other people might use several budgets and want a password for each. A recoverable password would be great. I don’t think that a customer should lose their data if they lose their password (that’s why I like the idea of a password to open the app only). Thanks for replying to my post.
Just a thought for those who share a computer: you can purchase an external stand alone hard drive (mine can hold up to 2 terabytes) to load your YNAB software on. Connect it to your computer when you use it. And if you don’t want anyone to see your info, disconnect it. Also prevents loss of info should your computer hard drive fail. Excellent back up option for those who prefer NOT to use the cloud w/o a password or encryption.
It’s a bad new that you don’t have the password / encryption feature in your road map despite people asking for it each and every time you have an announcement!!!!. I would say you can just give an optional password protection feature initially though the DB will not be encrypted. Later you can work on the encryption part.. may be in your next major release. The password protection feature should be optional so that the guys who doesn’t need the feature can still use it the same way as they do it today. Once I click on the “enable password protection” button, you can give a warning message that if the password is lost, the data will be unusable and cannot be recovered. Password reset via email is something I believe will not be possible until you have a web interface.
I think when you talk about passwords and protecting data you have to draw a line at where the software/company’s responsibility lies and where the end user’s responsibility lies. If you are concerned about a shared computer, create a basic guest user account on your computer. By default they can’t access another user’s data unless you let them (speaking for Windows, not a Mac person). Your personal computer security is not the responsibility of another software vendor. If the product moves to a web based version then that responsibility then falls back on the software.
YNAB’s responsibility lies with how easily your data is to access from the outside. As long as transactions via DropBox are safe and encrypted between mobile devices and/or the person’s computer then they have done their part to make sure your data is secure. At best if someone did get a hold of your YNAB data they shouldn’t have your account numbers unless you named your accounts by their account number which is bad security practice in general. All this being said I do have the simple pin password enabled on my iPhone app because it is available as an extra layer of security albeit not very strong but it works.
So my personal opinion is if it isn’t broke and it’s not putting your data out on the net in clear text they are doing their part to keep your data secure, it’s up to you to make sure you are doing the same.
Jesse,
Lack of encryption also concerned me while evaluating YNAB so I simply placed the data file on my encrypted USB. (https://www.ironkey.com/files/datasheets/ironkey-personal-s200.pdf)
With the advent of YNAB4, my wife and I would like to try the iphone app but would be unhappy about placing the full unencrypted data in the cloud. Also, I think you should concentrate on supporting the YNAB methodology and not risk the man traps of computer security.
While we have only been using YNAB for four months, I have noticed that over 90% of our transactions either come from the scheduler or are associated with our ‘Everyday Spending’ master category. I would therefore like to propose a solution which would allow your more paranoid customers only to place what they feel happy with in the cloud:
Sub-Budgets
In outline, I would envisage this working along the following lines:
1. The desktop program would have a menu item ‘Create Sub-Budget’. This would prompt:
a) for which on-budget accounts to include in the Sub-Budget. (eg We have two checking accounts, Main and Card. We would only want to include Card in the Sub-Budget as this account is used for debit card transactions and withdrawing cash at ATMs.)
b) for which categories to include in the Sub-Budget. (We would mark our ‘Everyday Spending’ categories.)
c) where to save the Sub-Budget – presumably on the Dropbox drive.
2. YNAB would then create the Sub-Budget with all the payees but only the accounts and categories specified. The account balances and Available to Spend could be set to zero and Income Available this Month could be the sum of the category balances. No transactions would be copied. (Only the category balances would be in anyway reliable in a Sub-Budget.)
3. As the Sub-Budget would have exactly the same data structure as any other budget, all the YNAB programs, including the iphone app, could add transactions without alteration.
4. The desktop program would also have a menu item ‘Sync Sub-Budget’. This would:
a) prompt for the path of the Sub-Budget.
b) add any new payees, categories and transactions to the main budget
c) clear down the transactions and re-set the balances in the Sub-Budget.
This idea should enable the paranoid to add most of their transactions using the iphone app.
(Are they likely to care if the world knows how much they spend on groceries or pizza? Probably not. Are they likely to remember a car repair bill when they next use the desktop program? Yes.)
There are some obvious dangers to this approach so the details would need to be carefully thought through. This may be something to consider for YNAB5 or maybe it should just be consigned to the recycle bin!
I do have to say that I love my ironkey. Great for a grab ‘n go emergency of all our important docs.
There is the option of storing your budget file in an encrypted container like “TrueCrypt” or the likes for those who are very concerned about security. However, I don’t believe this works with the Cloud functionality built into YNAB. I used to have my budget file in a TrueCrypt container stored on Dropbox, and have since moved my budget file outside of the TrueCrypt container and store it directly on Dropbox. To me, it was worth much more to have the Cloud sync functionality than it was to encrypt my budget file which stored nothing more than my spending habits. YNAB doesn’t store account numbers and other highly sensitive information. If someone really wants to steal my budget file so they can see how much I spend on groceries each month, more power to them.
Thank you SO much for adding the “c” feature to clear transactions. Makes clearing transactions so much easier!!
I know you can’t make a zillion changes all at once, but I hope that sometime in the (near) future, you make the font size a little more adjustable for those of us who have a bit of a struggle reading the current size font.
All in all, thank you, thank you, thank you for YNAB. It’s such a great software. It’s really helped my family reach its goals.
I’ll admit to a little “remorse” with the upgrade, but that’s long gone now.
I would like to see one feature added: In YNAB3 I could click on the downloaded file from the bank and it would automatically open YNAB and set it up to import. In YNAB4, as far as I can tell, YNAB must be open already in order to do this.
Kudos to you and the team Jesse!
This is a bug we’re actively looking into. The behavior should have been the same from 3 to 4 and we messed something up there.
Thank you for adding the ‘Unreconciled’ search option!!
I really liked that you added the feature of reconciling the accounts. This was a needed feature. Thanks so much. I use this budget regularly and it works well both for personal and business use.
I like the reconciliation option, but is there a way to de-reconcile an entry? Say, I tried reconciling my accounts and it just didn’t balance out the way it should so I added a Manual Balance Adjustment. Is there a way to remove the ‘Reconciled’ icon so I can remember to go back and fix it?
Hey Jesse! Love what you do with YNAB! my only question is: are you working on a better mobile (as in iPad) version? I really use my iPad way more than my Mac and would love to have full version of YNAB on my iPad to do it all from there, not just things like add transactions and whatnot
Because of the many questions surrounding an iPad app for YNAB, I wrote a fairly lengthy post over in our forums. There’s where you’ll find pretty much every question answered (at least I hope!):
http://www.youneedabudget.com/forum/ynab-f96/ynab-for-ipad-t16812.html
I love the improvements in YNAB 4. You know something I’d really find handy? Support for mouse-wheel scrolling! I’ve been using YNAB for 9 months, and I still find myself using the mouse-wheel before I remember YNAB doesn’t do that…
Hrm, I use my mouse-wheel all the time… you may be dealing with a bug of some sort. I’d send in your system info, version, etc. to bugs@youneedabudget.com.
Forum users indicate this is a common problem with a wireless MS mouse in particular. Suggested fix is to update the mouse drivers, and this was successful in a number of cases. Failing that I have no problem scrolling in YNAB with a Logitech mouse, so you could try one of their models.
You might also consider automatic feeds from my electronic accounts – reconciled against my mobile & manual updates . Other software I have, like PageOnce, already does this and would be an awesome feature to avoid having to manually import QIF files.
You can thank my fiancé for this request!
Way to go guys!
As you just said… “Sometimes the simplest thing are the better” the c keyboard shortcut was my favorite.
I’d like to have the ability to hide the decimals since in my country, as many others, we don’t use them. Or maybe is an option that I was unable to find…
As for the future… I’d ask for a big one… Multiple Currencies
You can change to use your currency in File -> Budget Properties. I think we support 98% of currencies, or something like that. It would/should handle the decimals in a way that would be standard for that currency.
Hey Jesse,
For multiple currencies I ment being able to handle more than one at the same time. I travel a lot, and my credit card has two statements, one in Chilean Pesos and one in Dollars. Once a month I pay the Dollar one with a rate given by the bank.
The ideal feature (for me at least) would be to have a temporary exchange rate during the month, and fix it after the debt is paid…. This way you could be able to register the transactions in the original currency, and have a reference of the amount expended in the local currency.
It’s just a suggestion that would make a big difference for me.
Thanks!
Vicente
Thank you for bringing back the Income Breakdown- We use it very often and missed it!
YNAB is so far beyond Quicken for our family. But I miss only ONE shortcut…being able to press “n” to automatically insert the next sequential check number automatically. (but I can live without it if needs be.)
Try Ctrl-N (might be cmd+n if you are on a mac) while editing the check number…
Would it be possible to change the quick budget feature from “Total scheduled outflows this month” to “Total scheduled this month” (so that scheduled inflows that have been allocated a category also show up in the budget)
I have a YNAB budget to make handle my flat account, and schedule my flatmates inbound payments directly to categories for each person, so I can make sure they paid the right amount of rent.
I adore the redesign in YNAB 4. It’s clean, crisp and not too over-bearing. I always felt uncomfortable using YNAB 3 after using Pro for years; I always put that down to feeling overloaded whilst looking at the budget screen.
I would like to submit a suggestion regarding new features/improvments. This issue has caused to me to fall off the YNAB wagon a few times in the past to my financial detriment. The problem is paying in foreign currencies. The issue is that I know how much the transaction was in euros, kroners, zlotys or whatever; but I need to wait until the transaction appears on my statement to know the rate the bank charged for that transaction. I’m sure that we can all appreciate that waiting for transactions to appear on statements for several days will result in losing grip on your financial reality. I have to resort to looking at the current balance and thinking-through the hotel bill, the taxi bill, the restaurant bill, etc. to know what my financial position is.
Unfortunately, it gets even more complicated. What happens if part of the bill is partly refundable as a business expense and the other part isn’t? For instance, a hotel bill that includes both accommodation and food costs. The result is basically, for lack of a better word, a mess; I call it budget gymnastics.
That’s my two cents. So, I hope there’s something of value in here. Keep up the excellent work chaps. I’m looking forward to the next update.
Lover the icloud reconciliation. I stopped using the iPhone app for a bit because I didnt like the old synching process. Now I enter a receipt and Im done with it.
Nice feature
I know it’s just a technicality, but YNAB does NOT use iCloud (Apples’s implementation) – they are using Dropbox, which is much, much better than iCloud!
I love YNAB but find it so frustrating that reports don’t retain a user’s chosen filters on saving a file, for example selected payees, categories etc. So every time I load YNAB I have to go through each report and input my standard filters in order to get my preferred info. Surely it would be much more intuitive to assume as default that a user would want to view reports with the same filters each time?
You’re right. That should be the default behavior.
Perhaps the ability to save filter sets and give them names, to later be picked out of a list?
I am also glad you brought the income breakdown back.
YNAB Crew,
The Dropbox feature with automatic sync to multiple devices has made my life so much easier. My wife is more into YNAB now than at any other point in the 3 years we’ve been using it. All of these new update features are just icing on the cake. Thank you for helping us learn to live by the YNAB 4 Agreements (one of my favorite books)! Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the update.
One feature that i would love is an save as. I like to forecast out and your really love to be able to easily save my base budget and then do it. the geek in me likes to look back at the changes i have made and where i thought i was going to be month to month.
I know i can copy it from dropbox but to do within the budget would be so much better.
On the iPhone apps, what about breaking up the Accounts link on on the main screen to show total budget and then non-budget accounts? The actual budget, budget accounts, and non-budget accounts would be shown. When there is 3 checking accounts and one credit card, there would be a benefit to see the checking accounts amounts total.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the new update. Working on my review post right now! Can’t wait to tell everyone about it.
Though.. it looks like the SAVE AS option is gone. I like saving my work as a backup on a thumb drive and now I have to export it. Am I missing something??
We’ll get the Save a Copy functionality in there.
Income Categories.
Please!
I use it for business and Personal and having that one thing would make it much easier to see where my income is coming from without the workarounds that are currently suggested.
I love YNAB4. My only but is still with my Android app which is what I use when I’m out and about. Please, please – I need to be able to split my transactions. In a way YNAB4 has made it worse. When I used the manual sync, it was way easier for me to notice what needed splitting. I am still leaving myself a note in the memo field but now I really need to remember to look for it.
It’s the #1 priority for Android for us. Beyond any urgent fixes obviously :)
Jesse,
I still waiting to buy YNAB 4 until you get splits in the Android app. The cloud sync feature is not useful until this feature is added to this app.
While I am looking forward to splits in the app, the cloud sync feature is useful, even though it doesn’t have this feature. I just mark split transactions as red and make notes in the comment.
Still wondering if YNAB will ever be made accessible for the visually impaired. The adobe air platform has matured enough to make this possible. I inquired about this in YNAB 3 to Taylor and thought this would be worked on but it still has not happened; and now we have YNAB 4. Just wondering if it will be addressed this time?
Jessie,
Thanks for the cloud sync, it made YNAB work for my wife and I.
One feature that I feel is sorely missing is to be able to add tags to transactions. To be able to say that certain transactions were ‘work’ or ‘tax’ related would be super useful. Currently I have to use another package along with YNAB, and I would love to dump them. Is this in the road map?
Tags are not in the roadmap. Being able to name the flag colors is.
Hey Jesse, -
great update. Quick question though – is there a way to change the account using keyboard when I’m entering a new transaction in “All Accounts” view? For me, using “All Accounts” for entering new transactions means “think which account did you make the transaction from”, yet when I enter a new transaction from All Accounts view, it selects last used account by default (I’d rather it was a first focus field upon Cmd/Ctrl+N) and won’t let it change easily using keyboard.
Cheers,
Aurimas
Amen to this one! I’d love to be able to select an account using the keyboard, instead of the mouse, when entering a new transaction in “All Accounts” view.
Haven’t yet used YNAB4.1 yet, but am looking forward to tonight and tomorrow. Couple thoughts on the comments above:
Automatic import – I would like to see this option included. With the ability to reconcile items, the auto import doesn’t mean any less visibility into transaction, just a quicker, more simple way to get the imports done, and still need to go thru them before reconciling.
Encryption/password – Like the idea as an option, not a requirement. I think encryption should be required when using the cloud sync/drop box option. If you go this route, I think a password would be required for each budget. Instead of ability to send a forgotten password, would it be possible to have a series of challenge questions to allow a reset? A second (not completely thought through idea) would be to somehow treat it like the keys for YNAB?
For those that are concerned about prying eyes… shouldn’t you be able to reduce this risk through user permissions (only your user has access to the file), and ensuring you have some type of password to get into your account?
Hi Jesse,
I’m new to ynab so im kind of still trying to sort my finances out :) but well on my way thanks to ynab. i have a question though – are you planning on doing a mobile version for windows mobile anytime soon? i want to capture my transactions on the go but i dont have an android or iphone. i only have an ipod and here you dont get wifi everywhere so i tried ynab lite but because i cant sync my transactions on the go it loses value and i own a windows mobile – lumia and there is no mobile version for it. if i could at least have it on my mobile then i cant sync as i go. i dont want to have to buy an android phone to have the functionality. please consider this :).
Also – might be asking for too much but i would like something of a “debt management” facility. so i added all my pre ynab debt and created accounts to reflect my credit cards etc but its more like a “read only” kind of thing – i put it in quotes because even though i can add new transactions etc – it doesnt help me with forecasting based on current payments + interest etc when i can be debt free etc. i dont know maybe it goes beyond ynab but i would like to be able to say mmmm i owe R7000 at 24% interest. i want my monthly payments to be 700 rand a month and it can schedule a new transaction and every month and i can see my debt going down. and know how much to budget for it or if i have extra money pay it to my debt and see it recalculate my new balance and i can move money around like that – i dont know. let me know your thoughts on it. currently i use a different debt free app and ynab for my budget so i was thinking whether this can be consolidated into one.
Thanks
Christine
I really love YNAB and try to convert as many people who will listen to me sing its praises!
My enhancement request is to be able to increase/decrease budgeted amounts while still preserving the original amount budgeted at the beginning of the month. I would like to be able to track changes I’ve made and compare to a budget baseline per category. Maybe a +/- input field in a separate column?
Thanks and keep up the great work!
Since upgrading to the most recent release (4.1), I noticed that when I have YNAB open in the background, it slows Safari down substantially – it keeps freezing. I’m on Mac OS X 10.6.8. Any ideas? Thanks!
Great work Jesse and YNAB team :-)
Just downloaded the latest update today, so haven’t played with added features yet…..I am loving the reconciliation feature in YNAB4…..managed to reconcile all past statements since starting with YNAB3 back in Feb last year without any errors occurring – yay, plus I’m so pleased I activated error check in YNAB3 on day one (I’m anal when it comes to my finances always balancing) because the upgrade to YNAB4 went so smoothly and no errors to deal with, nice!
A couple of things to mention in YNAB4 though.
1. I would love a light coloured vertical line separation between cell columns, miss
that now?
2. My column widths won’t stay where I’ve set them after closing YNAB,
particulaly when collapsing schedules transactions and exiting program?
When I re enter YNAB and open this area, the columns have reverted back to
the default spacing? This didn’t happen in YNAB3.
I would also prefer a password and encryption especially for dropbox, asked for this feature just after downloading YNAB3….
I can’t wait for the iPad app in the future….spend way more time on this than my laptop…..this will make my YNAB happiness complete LOL :-)
Recently went back to Linux. I run YNAB 3 from wine but I would like to have a Linux native app. Any future plans? Is it possible to get the old spreadsheet? I’d like to stop using Windows software altogether but I find YNAB extremely valuable.
No plans for a native app on Linux. I actually do have plans for a spreadsheet though :)
Really like the new look and graphics. Fresh and Clean.
One thing though I really notice from a UI perspective is the missing vertical lines in the register view. I have to work a lot harder to visually distinguish between Date, Payee, Category, Memo etc. Even if the lines were faint it would help. Its a small but significant thing as I use the register daily.
Along those lines. It would also be helpful to have some horizontal ones to hlep distinguish the Checking accounts.
Love the new Reports. NIce Colors. Really like that they are easily printable and easy to read on screen and print. Thanks for YNAB 4!
Having restarted I am now a happier bunny! Having the income back is a real plus, and the ability to filter out cleared transactions a bonus.
keep up the good work.
charles
ps I would still like to able to run my euro accounts alongside my pound uk under a single budget! maybe one day
This was a nice update YNAB team! Keep up the good work. One feature I began wishing was in YNAB is the ability to set goals for specific categories. So, while some categories are sort of ebb and flow categories (lots of ins and outs, monitoring the balance month-to-month), other categories are more savings oriented. It would be nice to have a “goal” value to be able to set for the category. For now, I’ve simply renamed the category to include in it’s name the goal amount (ie, “Vacation” became “Vacation $2,000″).
Thanks!
Jesse,
Great job to the team on the upgrade to YNAB v4! Love the new look, the enhancements, the reports & the DropBox syncing.
We loved the performance too … until we upgraded to 4.1. Prior to the upgrade, it ran like a charm. Now, when YNAB is open, the system overall is slow to respond (running applications; loading web pages) and we’re seeing the “spinning pinwheel” frequently and for longer periods than previously.
Ironically, the release notes indicate that issues were fixed that we weren’t experiencing before, but seem to be now: “Ensured that the application can’t get stuck at a high framerate, which might have caused YNAB to use too much CPU on Macs sometimes.”
Any insights? Thanks!
LOVE the upgrades in YNAB4! Can’t believe no one mentioned the seamless syncing feature you added. (At least not that I saw.) Finally my husband and I are on the same page ALL of the time! Thank you!!
Something I would like to add to your bucket list of improvements -
My wife and I just recently purchased the mobile app for both of our Android phones and are using Dropbox to keep things in sync between all the machines (this is working brilliantly by the way).
The one thing we would like to see added is the ability to have splits for category entry AND/OR the ability to leave the category blank and fill it in later.
Is there anyway to do a copy/paste of a transaction within the register without adding it as a recurring charge? Could this be added as a new feature?
Hi Jesse,
I’m loving the new YNAB 4 (actually, I’m quite new to YNAB anyway) – it’s a great thing you’re doing here.
I do have a very real request for you, though, and it will make entering items into the account register a whole lot nicer, easier, and more streamlined.
It’s about entering dates. I’m sorry to be referencing MS Money, but it’s the only program I know that does this way of date entering (and, after all, I’m dating YNAB now anyway, so it’s like talking about my ex :)
The way a date is CURRENTLY entered is, as I’m sure you know, through dropdown menu, or by manually entering the date yourself. I’d like you to take the automation one step further.
When you add a transaction in YNAB, the line item pops up with the date box and today’s date already highlighted – brilliant! We’re more than halfway there.
What I would like to see is where I could key in, say, a “1″ (for yesterday’s date), and then TAB. When hitting TAB, then the current month, day, and year would be added in. Although seemingly small, this one little “make your life easier” programming feature would be a life-saver. After entering my 1, I could rip off the next 5 entries for the 1st of August because I charged a bunch on my AMEX on that particular day.
If I typed in “25″ to do a string of purchases made on the 25th of July, that would be so helpful, too, because once I “25/TAB/New Transaction”, there it would already be for me, 7/25/12 for my next set of entries for the day I went debit-crazy.
Sorry to have brought up MS Money, but that would give you an instant understanding of what I’m asking you to do here. I hope you’ll consider it.
Many thanks, and I look forward to hearing back from you! Have a great day!
Tim
The +/- keys help with date entry as well. Just in case you didn’t know about those :)
NICE! That’s a useful little gem, and I’ll be using that from now on. Thanks!
Oh, and I hope you will still consider my original idea. Thanks!
As an old MS Money user (for a decade) I have to say how much I love YNAB. It works the way I think of budgeting and saves me SO much time. And Version 4 filled all the gaps I experienced in my switch from from MS Money (like reconcile – nice).
One change I’d like to see is the ability to LOCK a budgeted amount so it can’t accidentally be changed. I usually start each month copying last month’s budget. I’m afraid that I might end up changing the budget amount for a category like Taxes, which I get billed for once a year. If that goes unnoticed for any length of time I could end up way short when that bill comes. Ouch.
I know what must be put away each month and have entered that into a comment – but I’d feel safer if the Category Setup had a ‘Lock’ checkbox to protect me.
Thanks for really great software.
I have just found your website and I it looks like you have a good program. I am trying the trial program but have not received the password on my phone so I can’t get into the program. Can you please help. Sorry I am contacting you through the blog.
Regards
John
This is a help question! I love version 4, but I can’t figure out why my budget is locked and the budgeted amounts won’t carry through to August. All the little green ‘c’s’ have changed to padlocks, the header for the month of August is green and everything is zero’d out.
How do I unlock this and get my budget back?
Thanks,
GSA
Hi Gail, it sounds like you reconciled your transactions, so you’re seeing the little reconciled lock. You’ll need to roll back to a prior version if you want to undo the reconciliation.
Any chance v 5 will come in an Linux version?
No. Adobe isn’t supporting Linux with AIR anymore and 5 would be on AIR I’d imagine.
Does this new version YNAB enable the user to print category totals lets say for a given tax year, for income tax purposes?
Yes.
Hi, just a question. Before I installed the latest version 4 update (4.1.127, I think), I was able to view two months’ budgets side-by-side and have my account balances visible in the side bar. Now, if I want to view two months’ budgets, I can’t see my account balances in the sidebar. Any chance you can fix this, or tell me what setting I need to change to be able to see my balances?
Pressing “C” in YNAB doesn’t mark the transaction as cleared after the latest update. Is this feature removed??
I’m having the same problem. I thought maybe the “C” shortcut just didn’t work on my Mac.
Hi Jesse… are you coming up with a fix for the “C” shortcut issue please? and any improvement on the password/encryption feature?? sorry…. I keep asking this too often :-(