Extra "To Be Budgeted" in nYNAB vs YNAB 4 After Migration
I'm currently attempting to transition from YNAB 4 to new YNAB but am running into a confusing issue.
I completing the transition steps and adjusted all nYNAB "Budgeted" amounts to make category balances equal to what I have in YNAB 4. The confusing part is that my "To Be Budgeted" in new YNAB is $470.63 whereas YNAB 4 is $0.
I've confirmed the following:
1. All accounts are reconciled to the same value in both programs
2. All category balances are the same in both programs.
3. Current month Outflows in YNAB 4 match "Activity" in New YNAB.
Where might this "extra" money be coming from? I assume its a result of differences in philosophy between the two programs, but I can't figure out what.
Thanks.
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Do you have credit cards? There is a new payment category that should match what you owe (but positive rather than negative) assuming a paid in full card.
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I do have credit cards. Not currently completely paid off, but we pay them off every month and have more than adequate cash to cover the balances. Are you referring to the "Credit Card Payments" category? I see that was created with budget amounts that YNAB seems to have chosen for me as I didn't enter them. The values don't seem to add-up - I've included a screenshot of the values in the "Credit Card Payments Category" for reference. The "Budgeted" amounts seem to have been autogenerated as I don't recall entering them or how they ended up the values they are.
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Pink Orca Yes, when I say paid in full I mean that you pay off your statement balance every month and that you always have the cash in your budget to pay them off at any point in time. I'm not implying that they're paid off at the moment. Mine constantly have a negative balance as I only pay the statement balance but I have the cash available to pay them off at any time.
But yes, like Jayne says below, your Available Payment should always inversely match your current credit card balances. If your balance is -$1000, then your Available Payment should by +$1000. You'll need to modify your Budgeted column until that is true.
You're available funds are inflated until you fix that.
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Your “payment” amount for credit cards should equal the balance in your credit card account, but with a positive sign (should be green). For instance, your first credit card has a red -$47.74. You should delete the $297.35 in the budget column and budget enough so that the payment is green (positive) for the same amount of that credit card’s balance. If you owe $100 on your credit card, that balance will show as -$100 in the account column. The payment should be a positive $100 so you would budget $100.
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You also might check any hidden categories. When I did my original migration, funds were available in some of my hidden categories and I had to move them back out to To be Budgeted. The hidden categories can be found at the bottom of your budget. You might have to unhide them temporarily to get the funds out.
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In general, the CC Payment category Available should equal the difference between the account and Pre-YNAB Debt (PYD) category balances (use positive values when doing the math). For example, a -$5000 account and -$1000 PYD should have $4000 in the Payment category.
As others have said, in the case of a paid-in-full CC, the PYD is $0, and therefore the category should cover the entire account balance.
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So I started from scratch and tried to be a little more diligent with the steps I performed. I now have all category and account balances matching YNAB 4 and my credit card payment categories green in the same absolute value of the balances owing.
That said, the to be budgeted doesn't match YNAB 4. I suspect this may be related to the fact that we have spent more on our credit cards than was budgeted (with YNAB 4 we often would overspend in a category and carry that balance over to the next month before balancing it out in the next months budget). The total difference between budgeted and spent for both credit cards is 40 cents different than the YNAB 4 to be budgeted. So either this is a coincidence, or I've got a missing 40 cents somewhere.
Am I on the right track with that assumption?
EDIT: I found the 40 cents - I had entered a category balance incorrectly and didn't notice it. Seems safe to say that the issue now is that our history of carrying overspent categories won't work well with nYNAB. That's unfortunate as there were valid reasons for this e.g. - expenses to be reimbursed by our employers where the "income" won't come until the future. Carrying that "debt" forward prevented it from affecting our "real" budget. Oh well, I suppose I'll have to spend the rest of the trial period trying to get used to the new workflow to see if it will work for us. Thanks to all for the help!
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Reimbursements are easily handled by offering the category enough to stay positive (e.g., with money from an emergency fund).
If that's not an option but will float it on a CC, you may have to occasionally shift money in the budget to the CC Payment category, but it's straight forward. (Hint: the reimbursement category turns green if you need to shift funds.)
ETA: a search for the Reimbursement category will show the pending total for the latter approach, or you can tack on a Tracking account if you want the total at a glance.
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... handled by *offsetting* the category...
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dakinemaui I like the idea of offering the category, “Here, category, I offer to you this money so that you can handle my reimbursement!”
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dakinemaui
Thanks for the tips, I'll give that a try.
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Also, keep in mind that if you have transactions in YNAB4 dated in the future, they become scheduled transactions in online YNAB. So any category that had a transaction after today needs a higher available balance to fund the transaction that hasn't happened yet in online YNAB.
