For the next little while I’m going to be highlighting some key differences (read: improvements) between YNAB 3 and the now retired YNAB Pro. Today, we’re talking about the improvements we made to the workflow of imported transactions.

This first video shows the old method.

This second video shows the new method. The difference is simple, but saves keystrokes, and that’s what we’re all about.

This contest is over. Thanks for all the entries!

The launch of YNAB 3 is now in Open Beta, so we’ve found our winners here, here, here, here, and here.

(I admit, that was cruel how I announced that, but with the beta launch in full swing, I’ve left my inbox now for about 15 minutes and am extremely far behind now. Time is a hot commodity around here!)

Winners, please contact me with the same email address you used when posting and we’ll get you all set up!

Five lucky people will win a copy of YNAB 3

How You Enter the Contest
Simply leave a comment below singing praises to YNAB ;)

How You Increase Your Chances of Winning
Leaving a comment below will earn you one entry into our random drawing. Doing any of the following things to help us spread the word will give you even more entries:

Where	What	Bonus Entries
	Mention YNAB 3 on Facebook (+1), and while you’re on Facebook, become a fan of YNAB (if you’re already a fan, no need to do anything here).	+1
	Tweet about YNAB 3	+1
	Write a blog post about YNAB 3, linking to the YNAB 3 page.	+3
	Make a 30-second YouTube video describing why you like YNAB and/or why you’re excited about YNAB 3. (Tag it with “ynab 3″ so we can find it!)	+7

Entry Deadline: the day before we launch into public beta (hint: don’t procrastinate entering the contest. We haven’t announced it yet, but we’re getting oh so close!)

What You’ll Win: On the launch date of our public beta, you’ll be sent a download link to YNAB 3, and also be given a YNAB 3 license key. The license key will unlock all of YNAB 3’s goodness for you to use to your heart’s content.

Rules: For bonus entries to count, your comment needs to link to your tweet, status update, youtube video, blog post, etc. Of course there’s no purchase necessary :)

How You’ll Be Notified: We’ll announce it here on the blog, and send an email to the YNAB 3 list with the winners announced. If you aren’t yet on the YNAB 3 list (which will also give you an early-bird discount), you should sign up below.:

Got it! Please check your inbox for a confirmation email.

Taylor and I have been working closely with an absolutely phenomenal design shop, Artua, to develop some phenomenal icons for YNAB 3 (which will be phenomenal).

Artua exceeded our expectations at every turn. They were responsive to (what little) feedback we had, and delivered stunning icons with a turnaround you’d expect with your breakfast order at Wafflehouse — not with such high-caliber design!

The Accounts, Budget, and Reports icons:

How do these phenomenally (4th time in this post I’ve used that word) stunning icons look in the app? Phenom–Fantastic:

To outline all of the reasoning behind the gorgeous details in these icons would be like my 10th grade English teacher breaking Hamlet down formulaically. You just shouldn’t do that with art.

Hat tip (no pun intended) to Max Ernst (1891-1976) for the inspiration on this post title.

Alright, we’ve done a lot since I last showed a sneak peek of YNAB 3. Here are a few more:

Reports (spending, net worth)

Register (search, optional columns)

When will we release?
All I can say is that we’re tracking well for a 2009 release. Private beta will begin shortly, and after a bit in there, we’ll move to Public beta where you can purchase YNAB 3 at a discount and start using the software. By the time we move to public beta, the software will be in excellent shape, so no worries there!

For more info on YNAB 3, please check out the YNAB 3 page!

Something about seeing the installer this morning made things start to feel more…official.

Hopefully later today I can send out a sneak peek video. It’s been a while since we had one of those.

Hey everyone! Taylor finally let me show you guys a sneak peek of the YNAB 3 Budget…pretty cool stuff.

The change in look, categories, and notes

The Spent tooltip on steroids, and Rule Four

Make sure to click the “Full Size” button to see it at its best quality.

Happy to hear any comments you may have!

I tweeted this yesterday:

re: YNAB 3 (http://tinyurl.com/mnlyxm). This week we went from 2 FT devs to 5. Here’s hoping we maintain a scorching development pace.

A scorching development pace = a scorching burn rate of cash.

For years I’ve operated with YNAB always in the black. Always. Even when the black was approximately $42 (February of 2005).

The other day I looked at what the developers would cost weekly, revenue projections, and money saved and realize we’re going to be deep in the red until YNAB 3 launches. Based on our burn rate, and the cash we’ve saved (operating on a budget, afterall) I think we’ll be just fine.

But it’s going to be a lot closer to the edge than I’ve been with the business (or personally) for years. The closest feeling I can get is when I did YNAB full-time during the summer of 2006 while I was studying for the CPA exam (that was when YNAB Pro was being developed!) and waiting to start my “real” job several months later.

In light of the cash flow projections, and the resulting knapp (German) feeling I was experiencing, I did what any good husband would do. I called Julie to let her know.

Jesse: Hey Julie. I was running the numbers for how much development we still have left to go, how much we’re going to be bringing in, and how much we have saved in the business to tide us over and…things are going to be tight for the next while.

Julie: How tight?

Jesse: Well, you know how your birthday is in a few days?

Jesse: We just need to tighten the belt as much as possible and put off all discretionary purchases. I don’t want to have to tap our emergency fund (an aside: because it took us so LONG to get it!).

Julie: I don’t either. What about groceries?

Jesse: Yeah, we probably should feed the kids less.

Jesse: Just avoid discretionary stuff.

Julie: Okay.

And THAT is why I love my wife.

But this is the real story.

Since that discussion, I have been loving life (even more; I’m a natural life-lover). I feel like we’re back to the Good Old Days of simplicity. Decisions are already made. No, we’re not eating out. No, we’re not going out. No, we’re not buying that. This is easy. It’s like I’ve rediscovered my discipline from my college-poor days.

How can I keep this feeling indefinitely?

I’m not sure. All I know is that it’s a welcomed feeling of control over my money. It is just money after all. And I feel like I’ve rediscovered a part of me, and a part of our relationship, that was stifled by the List to Make the House Awesome (It’s separate from the Budget where we were throwing extra money, working our way down the list of prioritized things we want for our house to be awesome. I believe there are 18 items and we’ve managed to cross off two.), social events, etc.

Someone please point me to this post once the finances return to normal.

Takeaways:

You don’t need that. Don’t buy it.

Go home to eat dinner.

Repair that. Don’t replace it.

Increase memories and decrease stuff.

Simplify.

(An aside after re-reading this and debating about even posting it: The message in this is the Good Old Days of simplicity a la Joe Dominguez’ Your Money or Your Life — not our temporary cash flow crunch a la [insert bank name here]. We’re fine. You really think I’d do things any other way than to be extremely certain that everything will be okay? No. We’re not offering the option of pre-paying for YNAB 3. Though I’m flattered at the offer.)

For all you people waiting to be able to run YNAB Pro on your Mac (and Linux)…

Taylor sent me a screenshot today of the first looks of the Register in an AIR App. I became giddy. Sure, only a few things work on it, but you could navigate from the Register to the Budget…

Everything’s still subject to visual change…

The back-end programming is all very much in there. We just have to put a pretty face on it. I wouldn’t say it’s the equivalent of practicing and practicing for your play and then just having to apply the stage makeup…there’s more to it than that. But we’re getting there.