YNAB You Need A Budget

[DONNAB]

I paid my dentist with Visa, then I got a direct deposit from my insurance company which I used to make the eqivalent payment to Visa. But, it looks like I actually spent the money in my budget. Are you supposed to put the amount in the budgeted column?

There are three transactions showing in the pop up when I click on the outflow; (1) the dentist charge to Visa, (2) the insurance payout to my checking account and (3) my payment to Visa from the checking account. So it looks like I spent the amount showing, but it is actually a wash.

How should this handled in YNAB?

[ginger]

Since you posted in the YNAB4 section I'll assume that's what you're using. If you are, that means error checking is turned on in YNAB automatically.

Are you getting any error or warning messages on your transactions? If your credit card and checking are both on-budget accounts you should not put a category on the transfer when you pay your VISA. Check to see if there is a warning on that transaction in your checking. The original charge to your VISA should have a category, and so should the deposit to your checking, but the transfer from checking to VISA should not.

[brad]

Just to clarify: you don't have to budget for it since it's a wash, but you do have to categorize it.

So, as ginger says:

1. For the Visa charge from your dentist, you categorize that in your Visa account transactions as "Dentist" or something like that.

2. For the direct deposit to your checking account, you enter that as a deposit and categorize it as "Dentist." This will zero out that category on your budget screen.

3. For the payment to Visa, it's just an uncategorized transfer from your checking account to your Visa account.

[DONNAB]

Removing the category from the Visa payment cured it!

Thanks for the help.