YNAB You Need A Budget

[rollercoaster]

I'm not operating a small business yet, but I do hope to be 'self-employed' in the future. I'm starting early and examining my options.

For those who are operating a small business using YNAB, do you have separate personal and business budget files, or are you just using Payee and Budget Categories within your main file?

[kwonset]

I'm using two separate budgets. I'm new to YNAB but have been running my business for decades. It's awkward to switch between budgets,(although not really a big deal), but I felt I wanted to see clearly the bottom line of the business and of my personal spending, as separate things. I am sure this can be done in one budget by selecting what categories and accounts to look at, but as I said, I'm new at this and wanted to keep it simple.

I am having a problem as neither budget is buffered, and money I have "paid" myself sometimes has to go back into the business to keep it afloat that week. I've gotten helpful hints and think I have it working (The recent thread on categorizing helped. http://www.youneedabudget.com/forum/ynab-f38/budgeting-headache-t9155.html. I didn't want it to be seen as income twice for the business, or as income in the personal budget when I no longer had it.)

[ishtar]

For the last 3 years, my money has all been combined.

I started tutoring in January 2007, when I'd been unemployed for a long time.

I needed every penny I was making to pay for real life issues immediately.

Now, I'm starting to make this little side thing more formal.

I just applied for a business license, and once I have that, I can open up separate business accounts at my credit union.

I'm trying to tease apart the business and personal stuff right now. Once I have the business acct, I'll keep it separate, and pay myself a portion of the income.

In true YNAB fashion, I'm not worrying about the past, just starting to set something up going foward.

Since I started YNAB, I have tracked my business expenses as business expenses, though. I've also used my Payee column as a way of keeping my business income separate from my job income, and I keep copies of receipts from when my clients pay me.

Mapster: what kind of business are you looking at?

[jjean02]

I maintain a separate budget file for my business and personal. I, too, have to put money in to float the business, as my business has not funded buffer yet. I have created an "other" category in personal to record moneys out that float, I have no amount budgeted to my "other" account because my intention is for it to be paid back.
In my business budget I record the float in the "payroll" category, so that I can keep track of how much the business needs to pay myself, with payroll and "loan" combined. I roll the balances to the next month, so that it continues to accumulate. Each month, I am able to chip off a little more of that "overspent" red number and it helps to keep my motivated and see it, as this is not the situation that I want but I can't determine how much I will be able to pay each month.

I hope this is helpful.

[MackayRippey]

I've decided to use separate files for home and my acupuncture business. Although it's a pain to switch files to transfer money, it just seems easier.

Maybe in the future there will be tabs or some other feature where you can have more than one budget in a file.

[rollercoaster]

.

Mapster: what kind of business are you looking at?

Most likely: Natural Healing using neuromuscular feedback and massage.

[nackulous]

I too want something like this (all in the same budget file)...to be clear, I don't want to intermingle my business with personal, but I do want to avoid having to restart YNAB to simply view the details of another account. Is there no way to do this?

If not, any chance of this being added in a future release? I would love to purchase the product, but this is a huge deal breaker to me since I currently have 2 businesses plus my personal finances to manage.

[WairereRose]

I've decided to use separate files for home and my acupuncture business. Although it's a pain to switch files to transfer money, it just seems easier.

Maybe in the future there will be tabs or some other feature where you can have more than one budget in a file.

That would be superb. I ended up deciding to keep all mine in one file for various reasons but mostly so that I could enter transactions for both into the iPod Touch while out and about because it can't handle two files.

[debtbuster]

I just opened up a separate small business file which we are going to try to use with my DH's home business starting Jan 1. I agree that it would be great if you could have different tabs for different budgets. I think it's very important to keep business separate from home budget. His business is also in a separate account, and I like the clean lines that the register reflects the bank account. I suppose I could keep it all in one budget as another option. My YNAB Pro opens automatically our home budget even though I changed the setting for it not to do that. It's a bit cumbersome to have to close that budget and open up the business one.

[ckain]

I've been using YNAB for my business for quite a while -- even before Jesse suggested it. I have a separate budget for my home expenses and my business expenses. Keeping them separate is helpful at the end of the year when I export my business budget and expenses into an spreadsheet and create a Profit Loss Statement for my accountant. It's a relatively easy process since the business expenses are all in one place.