YNAB

There is now a Chrome extension in development (1.1 released) that lets you sync your account balances from YNAB to PL to save you the trouble.

What's ProjectionLab you ask? It's a natural planning successor to YNAB. Once you have your current house in order it's time to start planning for the future and PL is awesome at it.

I have no affiliation other than a very happy user. The dev of PL is very responsive on Discord as is the extension dev.

TLDR: Try it, it’s super helpful especially for reconciliation. You can also do it on iOS (can’t say anything about Android):

• File export: if your bank doesn’t support QFX, OFX, QIF, or CSV (YNAB info page), you can export a QIF file from e.g. Banking4 for iOS (add your bank account, then under menu → tools → data export). If you only have a CSV, you can use this tool to prepare it.
• File import: Save the file to files and then drag&drop it to the website. For me, it worked best with the free Zoomable App.
• Everything else can be done in the YNAB App

That sounds like a lot, but it’s actually pretty simple. Definitely faster than doing it manually.

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I’ve been using YNAB since 2014, but never used the file based import since it always struck me as too cumbersome. Maybe I was also just misunderstanding the feature, thinking since I’m writing down all transactions I don’t need to import them.

But it’s actually extremely helpful for reconciling. I used to go through every single transaction in my bank account to then find it in my YNAB transactions, which was really tedious if there was even just a small mistake somewhere (I was only doing it once a month). And I never had a full month without any mistakes.

Another reason that kept me from using it, was the feature only being available on desktop, but I’ve since found a way to do it on my phone (iOS). YNAB should really make it possible to import these files directly in the app, but for now I have the workaround as mentioned above.

I only recently started using file based import (and it’s actually really nice), but I keep running into this issue where imported transactions aren’t matched to reconciled transactions and they end up being just duplicates. How do I get around this?

When I want to manually match it, only transactions that aren’t cleared are shown.

Do I just delete them every time? Should I remove the reconciled transaction so the imported transaction is memorized and doesn’t pop up the next time? Should I try to remember the exact import date and only use the transactions after that date?

Specifically with regards to checks you've written that are cashed months later, do you keep it in YNAB with the date it was written.. or move it to the day it was cashed?

If you haven't heard of it before, it's a YNAB challenge that has 3 simple rules. For 30 days you:

1. Track your spending
2. Only buy essentials
3. No dining out

I haven't been able to successfully follow this for 30 days, but I've made a lot of progress towards my financial goals in trying! I'm glad I did actual progress too, because I sure felt silly turning down friend dates at the bar and having them offer to pay.

What about you? Have you been able to crush your desires and go a month without going out or buying any fancy coffees?

Though this could be useful for somepeople since I myself hadn't seen it even though I started YNAB no so long ago

I'm sure they're aware of what's been happening on the Reddit side of things, and I'd love to be able to interact with the team on a more friendly forum.

Sorry for the delay! I meant to post yesterday.

Today’s Question: How often do you reconcile your transactions? Bonus question: Do you primarily rely on sync or do you manually input your transactions?

I am debt-free thanks to YNAB and now when I buy something big, I really feel it. Before I buy something I always go to YNAB and see what it feels like to empty a category or move money away. If it doesn't feel good, I'll usually sleep on it a few nights until I feel comfortable making the purchase. A lot of times I've just outright skipped the purchase!

Round 2: How long have you been using YNAB for?

Bonus questions: was it your first budgeting app?

Do you also use a spreadsheet?

I’ve been finding it so incredibly annoying to sync my transactions when life gets busy. Especially reoccurring transactions with variable balances. How do you guys manage? Do you use the export/import tool ever?

I figure I’ll do something like this every so often.

What has been a category you created that really became useful to you or provided unexpected value?

I’ve been using YNAB for a while and already miss the reddit community. I’m hoping to at least build a small community here of people answering questions, sharing categories, and communicating news. I’ll do my best and keep this community running!