
5 minutes to reconcile all my accounts
I just reconciled all my accounts (6 accounts across 3 institutions) in 5 minutes. I know people seem to struggle with this so here is what I do. Hope it helps (btw nothing magical here, sorry).
EVERY transaction is entered as it occurs. I even got my hubby on board to do this.
Scheduled transactions set for things that happen automatically in my accounts like mortgage, preauthorized payments, etc. Our paycheques are also set up as scheduled transactions as we are on salary and for the most part, the paycheques are the same every pay period.
Import often (sorry for those in countries that can't do this). I do this daily (or sometimes more often)
When you import, everything that is already entered (either manually or as a scheduled transaction) gets matched up with a link symbol. I accept those.
When you import, sometimes little things sneak through. Like someone (not saying who) forgets to enter a transaction. Or something comes through that you didn't enter (like bank or credit card interest). As the import happens, deal with it. There may be instances where the amount entered didn't exactly match the actual amount. YNAB lets you match these in a single step (no editing required unless the transaction has split categories).
Now we get to the reconciling. About once a month or so, I sit in front of the actual computer and reconcile (I don't think you can reconcile on the app). Click the reconcile account and it asks if the amount is correct. If it is, say yes and you are done. If it is not, say no and enter the correct amount. Then go clear the items that didn't get cleared (which is usually why it doesn't match the reconciled amount but the overall account balance is correct).
In a rare case, something goes wonky and a bit of investigation is required but I would say that happens less than 3 times a year (and even that seems more often than it really is).
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I can’t import yet. The only way I can avoid spending hours at the weekend looking for the elusive €46.79 (or whatevs) is if I reconcile everyday. I “lost” €450 in August because I didn’t do it every day for a week or so and I’ve just spent 3 days playing catch up. And I still can’t find the €450. So I’ll have to latch it onto a habit I already have every day - eat dinner, reconcile. Clean teeth reconcile.
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I manually input everything, there is no 5 minute anything. It is usually pretty fast until I get to...the Amazon purchases. I hate the Amazon purchases. Sometimes I will admit to spreading purchases out over multiple days so as to avoid the dang "as shipped" transactions. It's really irritating to put in one transaction and then later have to break it up into 3 separate transactions because they all shipped separately.