YNAB You Need A Budget

[glwc]

I have only been using the Mac version for about 2 weeks, but I am very impressed and saving a lot of time over Quicken, which I have used since it first came out. One thing I would really use is search across accounts when I am trying to find an error or omission. The search works beautifully in a single register. The interface is so intuitive and easy to understand ... you've done a GREAT job!

Gloria

[lizaoreo]

I agree, this would be nice. I find myself accidently entering stuff in the wrong account sometimes and being able to search account-wide would be nice to track down such things when I notice something on my bank account statement I can't account for because I accidently put it on the CC account for YNAB.

[schaller2003]

I think this would be handy aswell. Another use would be, if I want to see all my transactions that have been tagged in the "gas" category for the last 3 months. Right now I'd have to do a search in each account.

[mtu snow]

I agree. A search across accounts would be nice or an enhancement to the reports could give the same end result. One case where I see this being especially useful is when looking at Charitable donations for the year. It would be nice to see these all in one place as separate line items. Another case would be if I want to look into my income and see what portion is my salary, my spouse's salary, interest, etc.

Right now the existing methods all fall short.

1 REPORTS:
- the time period can be set
- totals shown for time period and broken down to monthly totals too
- can be print or export
- CAN'T see individual line items
2 BUDGET:
- can hover over an amount and see line items for that particular month
- CAN'T set the time period, need to look at on month at a time - time consuming
- CAN'T print or export the list with the individual line items, which would make it hard to create a custom report in excel with exported data
3 SEARCH in a specific ACCOUNT:
- can see individual line items
- can print or export list
- CAN'T set a time period (for example if I'm doing a search and it is March I can't get it to show just the previous year)
- CAN'T see all items at once if they are in multiple accounts, each account needs to be searched separately
- ISSUE with splits - it shows the whole transaction, so if you were searching for Groceries, but some of your transactions were in splits you would get a bunch of additional information that you don't need. So for example if the transaction was for $60 and $40 was for Groceries and $20 for Toiletries, you would get the added Toiletries information when you do the search.

[chrish]

SEARCH in a specific ACCOUNT:
- can see individual line items
- can print or export list
- CAN'T set a time period (for example if I'm doing taxes in March I can't get it to show just the previous year)
- CAN'T see all items at once if they are in multiple accounts, each account needs to be searched seperately
- ISSUE with splits - it shows the whole transaction, so if you were searching for Groceries, but some of your transactions were in splits you would get a bunch of additional information that you don't need. So for example if the transaction was for $60 and $40 was for Groceries and $20 for Toiletries, you would get the added Toiletries information when you do the search.

Just a couple of notes...
You can set a specific time period in a search, just use after day X and before day Y as 2 additional search criteria.
Searching across all accounts is planned, but it is currently behind the speed enhancements.

[mtu snow]

You can set a specific time period in a search, just use after day X and before day Y as 2 additional search criteria.
Searching across all accounts is planned, but it is currently behind the speed enhancements.

Thanks for the info; I didn't realize you could put in multiple criteria. I just tried it with:
Category: Food : Groceries, After: 01/01/09, Before: 12/31/09

[jj]

Thank you, I was excited to see this; I too had not figured out setting the date string in that way was possible. I had to play around with getting the spaces right in the entry and taking out a "/" in one of my categories, but it finally worked. And now that I also recently discovered the text at the bottom of the search that gives the total dollar amount of the items searched, that has made my day much easier!
(Jesse, I will stop complaining about the reports now for the time being.)

[ckresge]

Just another strong vote for searching across accounts, for the reasons mentioned above.

[mastermoe]

I add my vote to having a search feature across mutliple accounts.... Please!!

[satkinson]

Somewhat duplicate of prior posts, but here is my need:

You want to find when/how you purchased something, but you don't know if you paid for it via check, cash, savings account, Visa, Amex, brokerage account, etc.

I also like being able to pull up "all payments to Costco" for example-- Or, a doctor might say "you still owe this bill", and I want to look up their name to see if I paid them anything, when, and how (without having to search each different account).

I also find the need when I see an amount on our statement that I don't recognize or is not in my register. By entering the $$ amount in a global search, I can then find out if I accidentally entered it in the Visa instead of the Checking account (thereby cleaning it up really quickly).

Hope it comes out soon.

[timjb]

I would also like to cast my vote for the ability to search across accounts.

I recently downloaded the trial version and I do like it very much. I love the budgeting window and its integration with everything else. I feel the budgeting capabilities of YNAB are way better then Quicken.

That being said, there are two big issues that I have:
1. Speed.
I know this is being worked on. I do have the most recent version (not the beta), but it still seems kind of slow to load. Once I've clicked on all three main windows (accounts, budget, reports), speed isn't so much of an issue, but the initial load time of these windows is slow.

2. Searching across accounts.
This is really big for me. If I am looking at my budget or my reports and notice that a particular category is over-budgeted, I'm immediately going to want to see all of the transactions for that category so I can understand why its expense total is so high. The current searching capabilities within an account are very good, but since my purchases could come from different accounts, it is cumbersome to get the information that I need.

[malisab]

I would also like to cast my vote for the ability to search across accounts.

I agree. I hope this is getting near the top of the heap.

I recently downloaded the trial version and I do like it very much. I love the budgeting window and its integration with everything else. I feel the budgeting capabilities of YNAB are way better then Quicken.

That being said, there are two big issues that I have:
1. Speed.
I know this is being worked on. I do have the most recent version (not the beta), but it still seems kind of slow to load. Once I've clicked on all three main windows (accounts, budget, reports), speed isn't so much of an issue, but the initial load time of these windows is slow.

Are you running the Air beta? That generally makes a significant difference. But if you're new, you shouldn't have a lot of data and unless you've got an elderly machine, it should still be pretty darn fast. Did you by chance import a bunch of past something-or-other? Size does seem to matter.

2. Searching across accounts.
This is really big for me. If I am looking at my budget or my reports and notice that a particular category is over-budgeted, I'm immediately going to want to see all of the transactions for that category so I can understand why its expense total is so high. The current searching capabilities within an account are very good, but since my purchases could come from different accounts, it is cumbersome to get the information that I need.

As I said, I think being able to search across accounts will be awesome. But I want to make sure you know that this is available now. On the budget screen, click on an amount in the outflow column and you'll get a pop-up of all the transactions that comprise that number. If you click on the transaction in the pop-up, it'll take you to that transaction in the appropriate register. Pretty sweet in itself.

[timjb]

Are you running the Air beta? That generally makes a significant difference. But if you're new, you shouldn't have a lot of data and unless you've got an elderly machine, it should still be pretty darn fast. Did you by chance import a bunch of past something-or-other? Size does seem to matter.

I have not yet tried the Air Beta, I did read that that helps. But, as you surmise, I'm new, so I don't have much data; I've only downloaded two of my accounts, and only one month's worth of transactions at that, since I'm just playing around with the trial version. I'm a little concerned what's going to happen when I get 6 months of data from my accounts loaded in. My machine is a few years old however, and I'm sure that contributes somewhat to the slowdown.

As I said, I think being able to search across accounts will be awesome. But I want to make sure you know that this is available now. On the budget screen, click on an amount in the outflow column and you'll get a pop-up of all the transactions that comprise that number. If you click on the transaction in the pop-up, it'll take you to that transaction in the appropriate register. Pretty sweet in itself.

Thanks for pointing that out; I didn't notice that. That does a lot of what I need.

Thanks a bunch for the tips.

[chrish]

A lot of the initial load time is the UI. If you make YNAB open in a smaller window it will load faster.