Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

YNAB’s Frequently Asked Questions provide answers to questions perhaps not answered in the extensive inline help or in the video tutorials.

All about YNAB

Getting Started

Returns

Troubleshooting

Upgrading

Using YNAB. How Do I…?

Features (requests, roadmap, etc.)

Bug Reports

Other YNAB Products

YNAB & Education (Churches, Schools, Communities, Businesses, etc.)


All about YNAB

What is YNAB? [top ↑]

YNAB (pronounced “Why-NAB”) is an acronym for “You Need A Budget” and is the name of both the software that we sell and the budgeting methodology that it is based upon.

YNAB is a one time purchase (we won’t force you to upgrade), standalone piece of software that will run on Windows, Mac or Linux computers without you having to be online or pay any monthly fees to continue using it to manage your personal finances.

Unlike some other software that you may be familiar with YNAB doesn’t try to do it all for you with lots of bells & whistles, instead it takes 4 simple rules and looks forward instead of backwards to allow you to put a plan in place for your money. Follow that plan and you will gain, perhaps faster than you thought possible!

Will it be easy?
Yes and no.

Yes, because it’s designed to be very easy to work with but no in the sense that it’s not going to do it for you. If you want your money to take care of you then you need to take care of it and YNAB is the best tool going to accomplish that job. Whether you make $1000 a day or are struggling to get by scraping from paycheck-to-paycheck YNAB can help you.

Variable income?
Not a problem!

Never done a budget before?
Again, not a problem! We have an ever growing list of resources to help you get started and keep going and all of the help (short of our one-on-one coaching) is completely FREE!

We want you to succeed and if you’re willing to make an effort and stick to it then we are certain that you will gain.

How is YNAB different than other budgeting software that I may be familiar with? [top ↑]

YNAB’s approach to your money is perhaps best described as a Savings and Spending plan for your money. As such it’s not concerned with what you think you’ll have coming in at all as you may have approached budgeting in the past. It’s only concerned with what you have for money in hand right now (in cash or in the bank) and using that added up number you set a plan in motion to pay for your needs and your wants both for the short term and long term. Bill due tomorrow? Budget for it and pay it! Big payment due in 3 months? Budget for it, let the money build up as you move forward then the money is there when the bill comes due!

You throw the word ‘Budget’ around a lot. What exactly does it mean? [top ↑]

Before YNAB you’ve no doubt heard the word “budget” but since it’s bounced around everywhere from the government to the office to the nightly news, it’s meaning may be a little skewed to you.

Allow me to set the record straight.

In YNAB the word “budget” has only two uses;
As a noun, meaning your actual “Budget” or plan for your money (Noun = Person, place or in this case, a thing)


Or as a Verb: (a call to action!) To “budget” or assign dollars a job by tagging them with a category in the YNAB software.

What’s this I hear about 4 Rules? [top ↑]

The 4 ‘Rules’ of the YNAB way are simply the 4 steps that you follow in the course of doing your budget. A brief list of the benefit of each is below.

1) Give Every Dollar a Job – Never again wonder where your money went, instead tell it where you need and want it to go.

All that Rule 1 is about is simply taking the time to decide where your money needs to be spent instead of just spending money because you have some. It’s really that easy and as long as you follow the plan that you’ve made for your money, you’ll gain. YNAB makes this step almost second nature and you’ll be planning it all out in a matter of minutes.

Does this mean that once it’s in place I can’t change it?


No, not at all! It’s your budget and you can (and perhaps should early on) change it as you need to and as things arise that all but force you to adjust. Doing so is as easy as changing the amount you already typed into one category to something less to free up money for another category that needs it.


2) Save for a Rainy Day – Easily set aside money for long term goals as well as the unexpected events that can break normal budgets.


You know that the insurance bill is due in a few months and setting that money aside in YNAB is simple. Just budget a portion of the total bill due into a category and as long as you don’t spend it whatever you add to it each month will simply add to the pot and be ready for you when the bill comes due!


3) Roll with the Punches – Overspend a little more than what you planned? Not a problem! YNAB allows you to absorb overspending with ease.

This is where the power of the software kicks in and helps you get over those money mistakes! If you overspend in any category YNAB simply subtracts that overspending from the amount that you have available to budget with next month thus spreading the overage across your entire budget. This allows you to continue without sinking under the weight of a ‘broken’ budget.


4) Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck (AKA the “Buffer”) – Work your way up to where you have a full month’s worth of cash built up to budget with and forever eliminate the guesswork involved with variable income or having to live at the edge of a financial cliff just one paycheck away from disaster.


Rule 4 is the ultimate goal in your new money plan and one that we urge you to strive toward.


Imagine if you will that instead of receiving a paycheck once a week or every other (or whatever odd frequency) that instead you received a check on the first day of the month that equaled all of the paychecks that you would normally get in a month? If you take that as a good thing then consider what it would be like to sit down on the afternoon of the 1st day of each month and write out all of the checks, authorize all of the electronic payments and otherwise pay all of your bills in one sitting, one day a month. After that you would set aside enough money to float you through the month to pay for groceries, gasoline and entertainment with enough left over for short and long range plans as well. That in a nutshell is the magic of the “Buffer”

For more on the buffer you’ll want to make sure you go through YNAB U, specifically Day Three: Oh, the Insanity!. Also, our Buffer video tutorial is very comprehensive.

To get there you just need to save money, and cut expenses until you can make it through the entire month without touching any of those month’s paychecks. It’s an intense sprint — not an endurance race. You just need to eek by and not touch those checks for the entire month!

Once you’ve done that, you’ll start the month with all of the prior month’s paychecks available for budgeting. You’ll have recorded those paychecks in the prior month in YNAB as ‘Income : Available Next Month’ and they’ll be ready and waiting for you.

Financial bliss.

What if I don’t have a full buffer, can I still use YNAB? [top ↑]

Absolutely!

All that you need to do is to budget (assign to a specific job) the money that you have on hand right now (in cash or in the bank) toward the bills and other needs that you have that will occur before you get paid again. Then when you get paid again simply repeat the steps. As you near the end of the amount that you have available to budget simply don’t budget that small amount. It will sit there waiting to go to work for you and in a sense has been given the job of being a mini-buffer already. As long as you keep an eye on the future and spend conservatively then you will eventually be able to save up enough money to budget out the whole month with a full ‘YNAB buffer’.

Will your software run on my computer? [top ↑]

YNAB 3 will run on Windows, Macs and Linux as long as they are capable of running Adobe AIR. So, as long as your computer meets these minimum requirements then it should be able to run AIR and thus YNAB 3!

Why do I need Adobe AIR? [top ↑]

YNAB 3 requires Adobe AIR to be installed on your computer or it will not run.

Adobe AIR is a runtime environment on which YNAB 3 runs. It’s fairly bleeding edge technology (at the time of this writing), but you’ll see it become more mainstream as time goes on and other companies adopt the technology. Other companies that are using Adobe AIR include AOL, eBay, NASDAQ, Facebook, and Time Magazine.

The reason that we picked Adobe AIR as our development platform was mainly due to the cross OS compatibility. It allows us to write and maintain just one codebase that can be lanched on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Which makes it far easier for everyone involved including users who have both Macs and Windows PCs.

Overall this means we can develop faster, focusing much more on improvements and new features, and a lot less on maintenance.

It also means we can develop and implement new features much, MUCH faster!

What is YNAB Pro?[top ↑]

“YNAB Pro” is the name of the predecessor of our current version – YNAB 3. It was a step up from “YNAB Basic” which was spreadsheet based and was the original version of YNAB.

It ran only on Windows computers and has been discontinued.

How do I redownload YNAB Pro?

You can redownload YNAB Pro here but please be aware that support for YNAB pro will end on 12/31/10.

How do I redownload YNAB Basic (spreadsheet version)? [top ↑]

YNAB Basic is no longer available. It was retired at the end of 2009. RIP.

Could you tell me how YNAB 3 is different from YNAB Pro? [top ↑]

YNAB 3 has the following improvements over YNAB Pro

  • It has better reporting capabilities
  • It has an amazing Google-like search built in
  • You can drag and re-sort categories as you’d like without regard to alphabetical order
  • It runs on Mac!
  • It runs on Linux!
  • It still runs on Windows!
  • You can share the very same budget data file amongst all 3 operating system platforms without the need for conversion
  • You can view more than 2 months in the budget window if your screen resolution is high enough
  • You can see your account balances on the screen as you work in the budget window
  • You can assign a specific currency and date format to each budget file regardless of your computer settings
  • Rule 4 is now optional on individually chosen categories which means that you can decide if you want any overspending to remain in the category or be absorbed by the next months entire budget.
  • Split transactions handle nicer with an easier workflow
  • The Budget page is more informative (optionally)
  • The Scheduler is now inline with each respective account
  • You can sync it with the YNAB iPhone app!.

Getting Started

How do I install YNAB? [top ↑]

The quickest way is by clicking the button below.
YNAB 3 download button

If that doesn’t work, or you’d rather do it yourself, then follow the steps below.

  1. Download and install Adobe AIR from this page.
  2. Download this file to a folder on your computer.
  3. Make certain that the file that you downloaded on the step above did not get renamed with a “zip” file name extension. If it did then you need to change it back to read “YNAB3_Live_3.1.5.2363.air” before proceeding with the next step.
  4. Navigate to the folder on your computer where you saved the YNAB3_Live_3.1.5.2363.air file to and double-click on it to install YNAB 3

If these steps did not work then go here for other things you can try.

It’s asking for a key, now what? [top ↑]

If you purchased YNAB then your license key can be found under the “Description of your Order” section in the email that you should have received after you ordered. The email receipt will have a subject line like this:
Order Placed – YNAB-123456789012-123456.

It may be that your receipt was filtered as spam. Check your spam folder and see if it’s there as well.

Alternatively, you can always look up your order by entering your order email address. That will provide you with your license key and a fresh download link.

If you haven’t purchased YNAB yet but only downloaded the trial and it is asking for a key?
Then contact us directly via the support form and we can help you from there.

The Order Lookup couldn’t find my email address [top ↑]

Please make sure you’re entering the email address you used when purchasing, as that is the email address we’ll have on file with your order. This applies even if you no longer have that email or access to it. It won’t hurt to try several different email addresses to see if one works. If you’ve tried all of that and still can’t find your order, you can contact us and we’ll get you squared away.

The key you gave me doesn’t work![top ↑]

YNAB 3 requires a brand new key. Your YNAB Pro key will not work with YNAB 3.

This is the key entry window for YNAB Pro (which we no longer sell)
This is what the YNAB Pro key entry window looks like

This is the key entry window for YNAB 3
Please note the example key, 5 sets of 5 digits plus 1 digit all seperated by dashes.

Your key for YNAB 3 will follow the same format and when you enter it we recommend that you paste it in from your email, dashes and all.
This is what the YNAB 3 key entry window looks like

You can upgrade to YNAB 3 for a discount by using our Upgrade Tool. Simply enter your email address and we’ll find your order and provide you with a special discount purchase link.

How do I transfer my license key to another computer? [top ↑]

YNAB’s End User License Agreement allows you to use YNAB on multiple computers, as long as it remains for your personal use. If you’re getting rid of your old computer, you can uninstall YNAB on that machine.

On your new machine, go to our Order Lookup and enter your purchase email address. You’ll be provided with your license key and a redownload link. Follow that download link and install the software on your new machine. When prompted, copy and paste your license key into the newly-installed software and you should be almost all set.

You’ll probably want to keep your budget (data) file from your old machine. Before you retire your old machine for good, email the budget (data) file to yourself as an attachment. If you’re working with YNAB 3, the file will end in .ynab3. If you’re using YNAB Pro the file will end in .ynab.

Now, from your new machine, save the file you emailed to yourself somewhere memorable (most users choose to save in a My Documents/YNAB/ folder). Fire up YNAB on your new machine and go to File -> Open. You’ll now have your new data fired up with your new software, on your new machine. Go get yourself a soda or something.

Is it okay to run YNAB on multiple computers? [top ↑]

A single purchase of the software covers as many installations as you need as long as it is only for your use (and/or your immediate household; spouse, children living at home, etc.) and that you do not share it with others by installing it on their computers.

1. Grant of License. The Author hereby grants to you (an individual) the revocable, personal non-exclusive, and nontransferable right to install and activate the Software on multiple computers solely for your personal and non-commercial use. Sharing this Software with other individuals is in violation of this license.

If you’d like to share the budget file amongst your various installations then you can do so by any one of the following methods:

  1. Shared folder on a home network
  2. Save the budget file to removable media (USB, or our popular UNCredit Card USB drive)
  3. Email the file back and forth
  4. Online storage and retrieval service such as DropBox

Regardless of how you share your file we highly recommend that you save it every time after making any changes and that you backup your file in a safe location on a regular basis. YNAB does not have version control, or conflict resolution built in. It will be up to you to manage that.

In case you’re wondering, the very same YNAB 3 budget file can be shared between Mac, Windows and Linux operating system installations without the need for any conversion. The software itself will run on any of the operating systems mentioned as well as long as they can run Adobe AIR. These are the system requirements for Adobe AIR.

How do I update my email address that YNAB has on file? [top ↑]

You can update your email, name, and contact preferences all through our contact preferences page.

I am/am not receiving YNAB’s newsletter, and I would/would not like to! [top ↑]

You can let us know your email preferences by visiting our contact preferences page and clicking Yes (or No!) by different mailing options. We mail our newsletter out twice-monthly and will occasionally send out something else if we find it truly exciting.

I’m having trouble just getting started. Are there some clear, concise directions? [top ↑]

Yes. You should definitely check out the Quick Start Guide.

I could really use some more in-depth help, is that available? [top ↑]

We offer eight to ten online (webinar) classes each month. Those are in a group setting where you see YNAB demonstrated and explained by a live instructor. You can also submit your questions and have them answered by the instructor.

95% of particpants in these online classes say they were either helpful, or very helpful in getting started.

If you’d like, there is also one-on-one coaching available. You can purchase one hour of coaching (done by our extremely talented coach, Erin Lowell) for $69.95. Erin will clear up any and all questions you have and will definitely see to it that you start off on the right foot! You can purchase one-on-one coaching here.

Where is my YNAB file (budget) saved by default? [top ↑]

Windows
My Documents/YNAB/.

Mac
user/home/documents/YNAB/.

Can I have some one-on-one help in getting started? [top ↑]

The cost is $69.95 and includes one hour-long private webinar where the coach can work directly with you on your budget live on your computer as well as a simultaneous phone conference tailored to your specific situation.

The focus of the private webinar is up to you so whatever you’d like to work on with YNAB, then that is what your coach will go over with you. You can sign up via this link.

How does YNAB’s 30-day moneyback guarantee work? [top ↑]

If you don’t like the software, it doesn’t suit your fancy, rubs you the wrong way, disappoints, annoys, etc. then you can opt for a no-questions asked (really? You hate our software? But WHY?!) refund.

Now, obviously this is open for abuse. We expect you to be honest and recognize that YNAB, as a business, supports our team’s tireless efforts both day (and night, if we’re up against a deadline). We trust you to be trustworthy.

How do I go about getting a refund? [top ↑]

Before I divulge our super-secret link where you can request a refund, please know that we are very willing to go the extra mile to help you get started. We offer free online classes, a slew of video tutorials, and a very thorough help system (embedded in the software). If there’s something we can do to convince you that getting a refund would be the worst thing you could possibly do, please give us that chance!

That being said, you can always request a refund. We batch process these weekly. If we’re doing it tomorrow, it’ll be there in a few business days. If we just did it yesterday, it could take up to a week. The refunded monies will go back on the card (or into the paypal account) you used when you purchased on that fateful day.

Please keep in mind that once we issue the refund it may take as many as 30 days for the money to actually arrive back in your hands.

How do I go about getting a refund for the iPhone app? [top ↑]

By following the steps on our iPhone app refund page.

Troubleshooting

The installation didn’t work, what else can I try? [top ↑]

Most of the time, issues when installing YNAB 3 can be easily solved by following the steps below. (Some common error messages that these steps will help with include, “The application could not be installed because the AIR file is damaged,” as well as errors that include “Error: #0″.)

On Windows:

  1. Go to Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs or Control Panel->Uninstall a Program
  2. Uninstall YNAB 3 and Adobe AIR if they are listed.
  3. Download and Run the Microsoft Installer Cleanup utility
  4. Remove any YNAB or AIR files shown by the utility. (Do NOT use the utility to remove any other programs.)
  5. Delete any AIR files or folders within: C:\Program Files\Common Files\
  6. Delete the ‘YNAB 3′ folder or folders within: C:\Program Files\
  7. Download & Install Adobe AIR
  8. Download & Install YNAB 3

If that doesn’t work, users have found that downloading YNAB 3 using another browser sometimes works. We suggest Firefox or Chrome.

On a Mac:

  1. If you have an application in /Application/Utilities called “Adobe AIR Uninstaller”, run it.
  2. Afterwards, remove any of the following folders if you find them:
    • /Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework (Please note that this is the /Library folder in your root folder/hard drive – NOT the /Library folder in your home folder)
    • /Applications/Utilities/Adobe AIR Application Installer
    • /Applications/Utilities/Adobe AIR Uninstaller
  3. Download & Install Adobe AIR
  4. Download & Install YNAB 3

If the above doesn’t work, also make sure you turn off your firewall during the installation process. (Turn it back on once the installation is finished.) Some firewalls don’t cause an issue, while others do :)

When I try to install YNAB, my computer crashes or reboots immediately. How do I fix this? [top ↑]

This rare issue is usually caused by a bug in a program called “Folder Lock”. If you have Folder Lock installed, please uninstall it and try again. If that does not fix it, please contact support.

I receive an “Application crashed with an unhandled SIGSEGV” error when installing on Linux (Fedora Core 12). How do I fix this?? [top ↑]

This is because the Adobe certificates need to be marked as trusted. You can follow these thorough instructions to resolve this error.

I’m switching computers. How do I transfer YNAB over to the new computer and still keep my data? [top ↑]

Follow our instructions for transferring your license key and you’ll be all set (it covers doing a new install of the software and transferring your data to your new machine).

I have the AIR 2.0 Beta, and YNAB 3 will not update or run correctly. How do I fix this?

If you are running the BETA of AIR 2.0 released in late 2009, YNAB 3 will not work. Please upgrade to the release version of AIR 2, released on June 10, 2010.

I would/would not like YNAB to detect when I’m downloading a file (.ofx, .qfx, .qif) from my bank. How do I change the file association so this does/does not happen? [top ↑]

If you want YNAB to open when you are downloading a file from your bank, open YNAB and go to File->Manage File Associations (or on the Mac, go to YNAB->Manage File Associations). From there, you will be able to tell YNAB to automatically open downloaded bank files.
YNAB 3 file association selection window
If you would like other programs to open your bank files instead, you can follow the instructions below:

On Windows
The following can be found at Microsoft’s Knowledge Base:

  1. Open Windows Explorer by right-clicking the Start button, and then click Explore.
  2. Click a folder that contains a file of the type that you want Windows to open in a program that you select.
  3. Right-click the file and, depending on the programs installed on your computer, complete one of the following steps:
    • Click Open With to choose the program that you want.
    • Point to Open With, and then click Choose Program to choose the program that you want.
  4. The Open With dialog box is displayed. Use one of the following methods to select the program that you want to use for this file type:
    • In the Programs list, click the program that you want to use.
    • Click Browse, locate and then click the program that you want to use, and then click Open.
    • Click Look for the appropriate program on the Web to browse the Internet for the program that you want to use.
  5. Click to select the Always use the selected program to open this kind of file check box if it is not selected.
  6. Click OK.

On a Mac

  1. Select the file in Finder and go to File -> Get Info (or press command+i)
  2. In in the File Info window you’ll notice a section called “Open with:”. When you click the drop-dwon menu, it will show you a list of programs that can open that file type.
  3. Select the program that you would like to open the file and then close the File Info window.
  4. If you would like this change to be applied to all files of this file type (you probably do), you can click the “Change All…” button and then confirm the change by clicking “Continue”.

Upgrading

What is YNAB’s upgrade policy? [top ↑]

Updates to the software are free. We are always improving YNAB and making it easier to use. We push updates out fairly frequently (at least monthly, sometimes even more frequently than that).

We may charge for upgrades. An upgrade is where we introduce significant features, overhauls, improvements, etc. Our first “upgrade” was when we launched YNAB 3 — though YNAB Pro saw serious feature improvements that we continually put under the updates umbrella

Basically what we’re saying is this: we may charge for upgrades in the future. It’s how we can economically justify this whole effort! Bear in mind that we will never cripple a prior version, so you need not feel compelled to upgrade for fear of losing the functionality that you already paid for and own.

One more note on upgrades — we don’t like the annual lock-step upgrade process because it seems like it’s a slippery slope to begin adding features merely to call it an upgrade and charge users again. In conclusion, we’ll charge for upgrades when the features we add warrant it; we won’t do it just because the year changed like some other companies like to do…

I’d like to upgrade to YNAB 3 from YNAB Pro or YNAB Basic. How do I go about getting the discount? [top ↑]

You can use our Upgrade Tool. Simply enter your purchase email and you’ll be provided a special link to purchase at the discounted upgrade price.

If I upgrade, will I still be able to keep my data? [top ↑]

Absolutely! YNAB 3 opens .ynab (YNAB Pro) budget files with ease. You’d then just File -> Save and you’d have a .ynab3 (YNAB 3) file on your hands.

YNAB 3 can also open your YNAB Basic spreadsheet, but only if it’s an .xls. If you’re using OpenOffice (NeoOffice on the Mac), you’ll need to save your .ods as an .xls. You can do this by going to File -> Save As and choosing .xls as the File Type.

Caveat: If you’ve customized your YNAB Basic file at all, it may very well break the import into YNAB 3. Importing is a fickle thing when the file can be so easily changed.

Using YNAB. How Do I…?

How do I use YNAB on multiple computers? [top ↑]

You’ll need to install YNAB on each of the computers you intend to use (this is okay according to your End User License Agreement). You can use your same license key to activate each installation. If you don’t have your license key, you can retrieve it through our Order Lookup.

If you’d like to share the budget file amongst your various installations then you can do so by any one of the following methods:

  1. Shared folder on a home network
  2. Save the budget file to removable media (USB, or our popular UNCredit Card USB drive)
  3. Email the file back and forth
  4. Online storage and retrieval service such as DropBox

Regardless of how you share your file we highly recommend that you save it every time after making any changes and that you backup your file in a safe location on a regular basis. YNAB does not have version control, or conflict resolution built in. It will be up to you to manage that.

In case you’re wondering, the very same YNAB 3 budget file can be shared between Mac, Windows and Linux operating system installations without the need for any conversion. The software itself will run on any of the operating systems mentioned as well as long as they can run Adobe AIR. These are the system requirements for Adobe AIR.

How do I use YNAB with multiple currencies? [top ↑]

YNAB can handle virtually any single foreign currency, but it does not support multiple currencies in a single budget file. We have our eyes on this functionality for a future release, but do not have a specific date set.

One workaround is to set up a budget file for each currency. While this isn’t as elegant as having it all in one file, it’s the best we have to offer at this point.

Will YNAB work with irregular or odd pay periods? [top ↑]

Absolutely. The best way to approach any paycheck cycle situation if you don’t yet have a full buffer is to only budget what you have on hand (in cash or in the bank) towards what you need to pay before you get paid again. Then when you do get paid again simply repeat the process. If you budget an amount to a category and then need to budget more to that category (like placing cash in envelopes) then just add it to what is there already (or what is remaining for a category balance) to the point that you need for that category/envelope.

Any category that still has a balance in it will flow from one month to the next automatically as well.

As long as you are able to leave even the smallest amounts of money un-budgeted at the end of each budgeting session then you will be able to eventually save up enough money to equal an entire month’s worth of expenses – a full “Buffer” – and then budget using money earned in the previous month. Then, as the month goes by, you will tag any and all income as ‘Income:Available next month’ allowing the cycle to repeat forever removing you from the doubt and uncertainty of having to time paychecks and guess at how best to approach your budget.

My budget won’t balance with my accounts. How do I fix the issue? [top ↑]

The accepted equation for findind balance between your YNAB Budget and your bank balance(s) is:

Total Category Balance + Available to Budget + Income : Available Next Month = Sum of On-Budget Account Balances

Here are some steps to trouble shooting what may be wrong:

Step One – Reconcile your YNAB Accounts with your Bank Accounts. Make sure you have included all the info from the bank, and that your YNAB file is up to date with the bank.

Step Two – Determine which Accounts are ON BUDGET and which Accounts are OFF BUDGET. To determine if an account is “On-Budget” look at the initial transaction.If the initial transaction has been categorized then the funds from that account have been brought into the Budget. Since the formula only needs to know about your ON BUDGET Accounts – since you are balancing with your Budget, it’s important to know which Accounts are ON BUDGET.

Step Three – Have you categorized all outflows that should have been categorized?  If you spent money – and the money left your life – then the transaction should be categorized.

Step Four – Have you categorized outflows when you shouldn’t have? If you just moved money between two ON BUDGET Accounts, then you didn’t spend any money and there is no need to categorize.

Step Five – Have you entered transactions with a future date that haven’t left your Accounts yet? That would mean the Budget thinks the money is gone, when in reality, it’s still in the bank. Enter transactions in real time as they occur.

Step Six – Have you handled Transfers correctly? A Transfer should only have a category if money is leaving the Budget. If you moving money around within your ON Budget Accounts, there is no need to categorize.

Common reasons that your personal equation isn’t balancing would be:

  1. You’ve forgotten to categorize a transaction for an On-Budget account (an account with inflows/outflows that affect your Budget.
  2. You’ve categorized a transaction in an account that is Off-Budget (an account with inflows/outflows that likely don’t affect your budget, such as a mortgage).
  3. You’re comparing YNAB to an incorrect bank statement date. For example, you’re comparing YNAB as of the 31st of January, but your bank statement has a cutoff of January 27th.

How do I reconcile YNAB with my bank statements? [top ↑]

You can see the answer directly above if you’d like to balance your Budget with your bank balance(s).

If you’re reconciling your bank statement/online bank balance with your YNAB account balance, you’ll want to look at the ‘Cleared Balance’ of the account to be reconciled:

Reconciling bank balance to YNAB working balance

The working balance shown above is including all transactions in your account register. If you want to reconcile to a specific date, you can hover over that date in the register:

Reconciling YNAB to a specific date

You can also see the running balance of your account by clicking on the ‘Choose Columns’ link at the top right of your account’s register and selecting ‘Running Balance’. Bear in mind that the Running Balance is your ‘Working Balance’ — meaning it includes both cleared and uncleared transactions.

Regardless of the method you use to see your account balance, you’ll simply look at your bank statement, or look online at that specific date and if your balances match up, you’re reconciled. YNAB does not have a reconciliation wizard or a way to mark a transaction specifically as “reconciled” (though users do use flags to have basically the same functionality).

How do I share my YNAB file with another user on my Mac?[top ↑]

Here are the steps:

1) In YNAB, save your budget file to Macintosh HD/Users/Shared/YNAB
1) Now, in Finder, go to Macintosh HD/Users/Shared
2) Right-click on the YNAB folder and click “Get Info”
3) At the bottom, expand “Sharing and Permissions”
4) Click the “+” button at the bottom and choose the other account to which you’d like to share your YNAB file. Now make sure that that account’s permissions are “Read & Write”
5) Click the lock icon in the bottom right to unlock it the further permission options
6) Click the gear icon and click “apply to enclosed items”
7) Now, the other account should be able to open and save the same file just fine!

How do I download and import my bank data files?[top ↑]

Here are the steps:

• Log onto your banks website.
• Navigate to the area where you can download your account data.
• Choose a range of dates that you are certain contain transactions.
• Pick any one of the file formats that YNAB can import as the file format that you want the bank to give you.
• Save the file to a folder on your computer.
• In YNAB 3 click ‘File>Import Transactions…’ to start the import process (You can also use the button at the top of the register or press CTRL-I to import your file).
• Follow the prompts from there.

All that said, if you are just starting out with YNAB 3 you shouldn’t download any transactions yet. The reason why you shouldn’t is because any transactions prior to your first day with the software represent money already spent and since YNAB is designed to help you decide where to spend your money looking forward then those historical transactions won’t help you get started at all. Besides, any bank data file that you download will only contain a list of transactions that have cleared your account and will not contain any balance data for you to use at all in case that is what you want it to do.

Instead, you should simply log on to your banks site, look at the closing balance that the bank shows for yesterday and then use that number as the beginning balance of the account that you just created in YNAB. Then, as long as you hand enter in any transactions that you know that you have authorized (checks you have written that haven’t yet cleared the bank or electronic transactions that you set up but also haven’t cleared yet) then you’ll be off to a good start.

What do I need to know when importing CSVs? [top ↑]

Please see our detailed guide to CSV importing

Which formats can YNAB import? [top ↑]

YNAB imports the following file formats. Please note the advantages/disadvantages for each:

Format Name File Extension Important Notes
Quicken Financial Exchange .qfx You’ll sometimes see this designated as “for Quicken 2005 (Mac) & 2007 (PC)” or “for Quickbooks 2007 or later”.
Open Financial Exchange .ofx You’ll see this designated as for Microsoft Money 2002 or later. You may also see it designated as for Microsoft Office Accounting.
Quicken Interchange Format .qif You’ll sometimes see this written as “for Quicken 99 to 2004, or Microsoft Money”. Transactions are not uniquely identified, so YNAB can’t tell if you’ve already imported a transaction (and ignore it). You’ll need to make sure you stay on top of the date range of your last import.
Comma Separated Values .csv Not standardized at all across banks. If your bank offers any of the above formats, don’t use CSV. It’s not that it’s bad data or anything, you just need to massage the data before YNAB can import it.

 

Can I import my historical data from Quicken or MS Money? [top ↑]

If your Quicken or MS Money software can export to any of the formats that YNAB imports (see above), then yes, YNAB can import those files.

However, although you can import all of your old Money/Quicken data into YNAB Pro, we don’t recommend that you import historical data.

The reason for this is simple, YNAB works as a forward looking saving and spending management plan for your money. As such, it is not concerned with vast amounts of imported history. Having access to that history as a matter of record may have value, but it’s more important to fully understand how YNAB works before loading in that much data.

The main reason for this is if you suddenly import years worth of data, then in order to keep your brand new budget correct, you would have to go back to the earliest date of the imported data and budget each and every dollar to make it all match up in every single month. Depending on the amount of historical data, that could be a daunting and tedious task.

Consider these points:

  • Historical transactions have little to no bearing on future plans. While they can help to give you a place to start planning (budgeting), it won’t be worth the trouble it will take to get them in place and in order.
  • Budgeting is all about categories and assigning dollars to jobs. If you import several months or years of un-categorized transactions then it will create a huge amount of work for you to categorize each and every transaction. If you choose not to categorize them then they will not reflect in the budget nor appear in any report.
  • As long as you can still open up your old software then you are better off leaving the old files there for easy and familiar reference as and when needed.

I’d be willing to bet a milkshake that you don’t refer back to your historical data enough to even merit any of the work. If you do, you have it in that old software. Just let it go :)

My bank says it only imports to Quicken or MS Money — will it import to YNAB? [top ↑]

The short answer is yes. A quick browsing of the files that we import will show you just what you need to know.

Features (requests, roadmap, etc.)

Can I request a feature for inclusion in a future version of YNAB? [top ↑]

You certainly can. We don’t take feature requests through our support queue (we try and keep that queue focused on helping people that can’t get help anywhere else on the site), but you can certainly post your idea in our Feature Discussion forum. (That forum is not for YNAB Pro features. We are no longer improving the YNAB Pro codebase and will be retiring support for it at the end of 2010).

Do keep in mind that we are not a small company. We’re a tiny company. We only develop as fast as we can afford.

Also, we really vet new features because our biggest fear is that we end up traveling the road of software gone before us that added features simply for the sake of adding them and then, one day, woke up and found they had a messy piece of software on their hands that had lost its true purpose.

What features are on the development roadmap? [top ↑]

We’re always improving YNAB and making it easier to use, and we’ve already released a number of free updates to YNAB 3, but here are a few of the bigger things we’re currently working on behind the scenes:

  • YNAB everywhere. We want you to be able to update YNAB on the go, so we released an iPhone app to help you do just that! Due to the phenomenal response to it, and the number of requests we constantly get for an equivalent Android app, we’re currently investigating our options for other mobile platforms! If you’ve got experience developing Android or Blackberry apps, drop us a line! (We love hiring from our passionate customer-base!)
  • Direct bank syncing. We’re looking at directly connecting with your bank to pull down new transactions automatically. This is not an inexpensive proposition and weighing different business models that could support it (our current business model of: continue to add new features to the software while rarely calling it and charging for an upgrade wouldn’t work with a Direct Connect feature. Well. It would, but we’d have to shutter the shop in a matter of months.)

We’re always making YNAB easier to use, and we release free updates frequently because of it! If you’ve got a feature in mind, please feel free to let us know!

Will YNAB handle investments, calculate the PITI on my mortgage, or wash my car? [top ↑]

No. No. No. YNAB cares about when you receive money, what you want to do with that money, and then what you actually do with that money.

I hope we never offer any of those features because that would mean we’re experiencing feature creep, which leads to feature bloat, and then eventually software death.

Honestly, do you need your software to break down your mortgage payment for you when you can just log into your mortgage provider and view it there? And we can almost guarantee that you’ll never run into any technical snags when doing such a thing. It’s honestly not worth the work. We’d rather be adding features that help you do what YNAB does best, even better.

Can YNAB print checks? [top ↑]

No. The likelihood of that feature being added is close to zero. Checks are just becoming obsolete. You may consider using your bank’s check writing service. It’s probably pretty slick, and doesn’t cost you a stamp.

Can I generate a profit and loss with YNAB? [top ↑]

You could export your data to a CSV and crunch numbers all you’d like. You could also use the Net Income/Net Worth graph to get a high-level overview of your inflows vs. expenses.

However, a proper P&L, with Income at the top and then expenses grouped by category, we don’t yet offer. It may be a report we’ll be adding in the future. Reports are a tricky thing though — as soon as you add one, you have people wanting three more. A year later you have a bloated mess on your hands and people can’t even find the reports that are actually useful because you have them so confused. We tread very carefully here.

Bug Reports

I found a bug in the software, how do I submit it? [top ↑]

You can send your bug report to bugs@youneedabudget.com. Please be extremely specific with your bug report! We may not respond, which means we already have seen that bug submitted and we’re working on it. We may certainly respond if we need more information from you.

Keep in mind that we’re a tiny business with a BIG userbase. We code as fast as we can afford!

Other YNAB Products

What is the YNAB UNCredit Card USB? [top ↑]

It’s just our way of giving back to the Credit Card industry by making fun of them. It’s a nifty USB drive that looks like a credit card. It has YNAB pre-loaded on it (along with all of our video tutorials) so you can have a backup of your software download and install it right from the USB drive if needed.

If you’d like to order the YNAB UNCredit Card USB, you can purchase it here. It’s fantastic for parties.

How do I get a copy of The YNAB Way? [top ↑]

You can purchase a copy of The YNAB Way if you’d like. We’re working on an updated version to be released at a later date.

Is there a mobile solution for YNAB? iPhone/iPod Touch? Blackberry? Android? [top ↑]

We want you to be able to update YNAB on the go, so we released an iPhone app to help you do just that! Due to the phenomenal response to it, and the number of requests we constantly get for an equivalent Android app, we’re currently investigating our options for other mobile platforms! If you’ve got experience developing Android or Blackberry apps, drop us a line! (We love hiring from our passionate customer-base!)

I’d like to get a hard copy of YNAB 3. How do I do that? [top ↑]

When you go through the checkout process while pruchasing YNAB you will be able to opt for a backup disc before you finish.

If you’ve already purchased YNAB and would like to get the disc then you can buy a copy directly.

Please Note: The copy of YNAB on the disc does not contain a license key and will only function as a trial. It is the full version of the software and the time constraint will be lifted when you enter your separately purchased key.

What happened to YNAB Pro? Will you still be supporting it? [top ↑]

We stopped improving the codebase for YNAB Pro in 2009. We’re still supporting it (maintenance updates if needed, support materials, etc.) through 2010.

YNAB 3 is the replacement for YNAB Pro and its future is bright.

What happened to YNAB Basic? Will you still be supporting it? [top ↑]

YNAB Basic was retired and discontinued as of December 31, 2009.

YNAB & Education (Churches, Schools, Communities, Businesses, etc.)

I’d like to teach the YNAB principles in my school, church, community, etc. How do I go about doing that? [top ↑]

We have materials available upon request that you’re free to use. We only ask that you obviously respect the copyright and trademarks of YouNeedABudget.com. If you’d like to request materials, you can contact us directly here.

Emails sent to the above address without the “Request for Educational Materials” subject line will not be seen or read by the YNAB team.

I would like to teach YNAB to my students in school. Are there any discounts for educators?? [top ↑]

If you would like to provide the YNAB software to your students, there are discounts available for bulk purchases. Please contact us directly here.. Emails sent to the above address without the “Request for Bulk Pricing Quote” will not be seen or read by the YNAB staff.

I’m teaching a budgeting class at [fill in venue] and will introduce YNAB. Do you have any teaching materials I could use? [top ↑]

We have materials available upon request that you’re free to use. We only ask that you obviously respect the copyright and trademarks of YouNeedABudget.com. If you’d like to request materials, you can contact us directly here.

Emails sent to the above address without the “Request for Educational Materials” subject line will not be seen or read by the YNAB team.

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