YNAB You Need A Budget

[IsaacBern]

I'm not sure if this is possible with YNAB. I receive grants and contracts as my income source for my small business. Each account has to have a separate budget, although ideally I'd like to be able to transfer funds between accounts/budgets (therefore I don't want to have multiple YNAB files). Is there a way to handle this within YNAB? If not, is there any other software that someone might recommend?

Thanks!

[Bee&Bea]

Hi Isaac!
I think it's in the works. It's been often requested. You might try contacting customer service and see what they have to say.

[WairereRose]

I have in the past used a main Category Header to divide different budgets within one file, but this can become complex when calculating figures. It does make it easy to transfer funds between accounts though, but if you are wanting those transfers to also adjust the budgeted amounts then you will need to categorise them on both sides of the transfer (or make the budget changes manually for each transfer on the budget page itself.)

[MiloKat]

I'd suggest creating a master category for each grant area. Then enter grant money as an inflow* against a category, rather than as income available this month. When you want to spend grant money, enter a negative figure in the budget for that amount, then budget the same positive amount it into other sub categories as needed. The total budgeted amount for a category should equal 0. If you don't allocated all your money e.g ($1100), you will see the unbudgeted and available to spend amount at the top the YNAB budget screen.

E.g.

Budget screen

Master category - Environmental Grants. Budgeted. Outflows. Category Balance
Grants Received -1100. 2000*. 900
Field Expenses. 400. -100. 300
Payment for my time. 700. -700. 0


*2000 = grant income

[Joel]

This is what I would do:

I'd suggest creating a master category for each grant area. Then enter grant money as an inflow* against a category, rather than as income available this month. When you want to spend grant money, enter a negative figure in the budget for that amount, then budget the same positive amount it into other sub categories as needed. The total budgeted amount for a category should equal 0. If you don't allocated all your money e.g ($1100), you will see the unbudgeted and available to spend amount at the top the YNAB budget screen.

E.g.

Budget screen

Master category - Environmental Grants. Budgeted. Outflows. Category Balance
Grants Received -1100. 2000*. 900
Field Expenses. 400. -100. 300
Payment for my time. 700. -700. 0


*2000 = grant income