YNAB You Need A Budget

[chimbleysweep]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but I just cannot get Payee Settings to work at all. Basically, all I want to do is rename the transaction (usually from UPPER CASE to Title Case) and automatically categorize the transaction upon import. I went through and renamed/categorized transactions in the Payee Settings screen (which is uncharacteristically confounding!), but nothing seems to take. Has anyone gotten this feature to work? I have to say: I adore YNAB. The fit and finish on this app are superb, and this is the first time I've ever had any shred of doubt about it. Hopefully a solution will come quickly, because once that spore of doubt digs in, it's hard to snuff out.

A suggestion: What if there was a command that, when you are in the register clearing transactions (which is where you end up renaming and categorizing them anyway), you could choose to apply the settings to all future and past transactions. That creates the rule. I'm pretty sure Mint has this simple feature if you want to see it in action.

Matt

[lautzu]

Matt,

I've had great success with Payee settings, that's too bad it isn't working for you. I would fear, based on other issues with importing that folks have had, that it is quite likely the issue isn't to do with YNAB, but the way your bank organizes its OFX imports - seems to cause a lot of problems for folks. Have you tried importing in a different format?

[chrish]

I know there was a previous issue with changing just case when updating some fields. Try using the payee settings window to rename your UPPER CASE to UPPER CASE1 (add a character) then rename to Title Case (case you want and remove the character). If that works, you can use that as a workaround, and file a bug so it gets fixed properly for the future.

[chimbleysweep]

Okay, I think I've gotten renaming to work, but not categorization.

- I downloaded a month of transactions (in order to get all the Payees to appear in the Payee screen).
- In the Payee screen, I clicked on each Payee, gave them a category, renamed the Payee, and then YNAB automatically renamed all Payees like it.
- I also had "category" checked in the Auto-Fill dialog at the bottom of the screen.
- YNAB did not, however, categorize all the transactions when it renamed all of them. It sort of made me feel like all my work was for not. I tried to edit a transaction, by retyping in the name, but that didn't add the category either.

Is this a bug? Any ideas?

Thanks.

[battle]

Hi! Great question! Has anyone figured out how to make payee settings automatically categorize when a payee setting name is changed?

[funkyjiblets]

I havent been able to get the software to auto catagorize existing transactions, which would be nice. It seems that you need to catagorize your payees and then that catagory will only be auto completed when importing new files containing those payees.
Unless I'm missing something?

It would be nice if it would apply the payee catagory to all existing transactions - not just new import files.

-David

[Taytay]

Auto-applying payee settings to existing payees isn't in there yet, but it will be in a forthcoming release!