Can I transfer a tracking linked account setup to non-tracking?
So I have kids savings accounts linked and tracking in budget - can I easily keep them linked to a bank BUT have them non tracking in the budget?
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I keep my son's savings as an unlinked tracking account. We have a category that tracks funds that leave the budget to be added to his savings. That way, I can see in reports how much we are putting towards his account. "Tracking accounts" in YNAB speak are accounts that are not included in the budget. Typically, this is more assets and debts for net worth purposes. I wanted my son's savings off budget because they are non-negotiable. We won't touch them for anything.
If your children's savings are currently on budget, do they have their own categories? Is there any spending out of those categories? If you spend for children's expenses you need them on budget. If not, they can be tracking accounts.
Tracking accounts can be linked but it is my understanding that only the starting balance will be imported. Personally, I leave all accounts unlinked. If I ever decided to link, I would not link any tracking accounts as they are off budget and handled differently.
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The answer to your question is Yes.
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MomonWheels said:
Tracking accounts can be linked but it is my understanding that only the starting balance will be imported.No, they will act exactly the same as they do as a budget account. You're thinking of investment accounts. The account itself determines how it direct imports. Not the account type.
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The type of account that does not participate in the budget is called a Tracking account (not a non-tracking account).
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Sorry I meant to say can I move a tracking account thats "linked" to off budget but still have it linked/synced with bank?
If so how?
I only see option to unlink.
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Turquoise Hail Tracking accounts are off budget. You're talking about a Budget account that you want to move to Tracking. You'd need to create a new tracking account (Asset account) and transfer your transactions to the new account. You can then delete the old one.
Link/Unlink is available in Budget accounts and Tracking accounts. That's just whether direct import downloads transactions for you or not.
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Turquoise Hail
There isn't a way to automatically change an account from on budget to off budget, but here are the steps for creating a new account and moving the transactions over like Superbone mentioned.
- Create a new account to replace the current one by clicking on Add Account > Unlinked > Enter Name & Type (You'll have to give it a slightly different name). Enter a $0 starting balance for now, since we’re going to move over all the transactions from the other account. Do this first!
- Go to the original account, select all of the transactions, and move them to the new account using the Edit menu.
- Hover over the name of the original (now empty) account, click the edit icon, and Delete Account.
- Now, you can edit the name of the new account and/or set up Direct Import.
If you have any transfers in the account, you'll want to go through to see how they've affected your accounts (since they'll now be between on budget and off budget accounts).
Give that a try and let me know if you still have questions! :)
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Faness I am also trying to change over a budget account to a Tracking account, and I've been able to do so easily since I had the Budget account as it's own item in the budget. I just moved the money from the Budget account line item in the budget to To be budgeted, then moved it into the Tracking account that I set up. But my issue is that now it's throwing off my Reports and showing that there as an expense rather than just a transfer of money. Can that be fixed somehow to reflect that it's not truly an Expense since the money is still all in my possession, just in another account that is Tracking rather than Budgeted?
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Cadet Blue Lobster An expense, by definition, is money leaving the budget.
You can move all the transactions (details above) so that money was never part of the budget in the first place.
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Cadet Blue Lobster No you can't remove it from expenses but if you don't want to see it in the Expense vs Income report, simply deselect the category in the drop-down menu. This way it won't be added to your other expenses.
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Cadet Blue Lobster For the Spending report, you can also deselect the category. For the net worth, select the tracking account as well.
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