RIP_MSMoney At this time, there are no plans to roll back this change. Our Development Team is keeping an eye on the feedback received, but this change is meant to help a large majority of YNABers from accidentally using the category delete option to confuse themselves and mess up their budget.

Faness I get taking away the delete when there are transactions associated with a category.  That messed things up.  I wished YNAB had fixed the problem, but I can at least understand this as a stop-gap measure.

However, if there was budgeted activity in a category, there was no issue!  It didn't mess anything up! 

Please ask them to reconsider about the budgeted activity!

Faness

Scenario #1 (previous workflow):
Say you have a category called "New Dishwasher" that you're saving for separately from your "Home Maintenance" category because it has died and you're washing all dishes by hand right now.  It's a priority, and you don't want to accidentally use that money for air filters.

For 6 months, you put money into that category.  Now you finally have enough to buy the dishwasher, so you categorize the purchase to "Home Maintenance" and move the "New Dishwasher" money over to "Home Maintenance" to support the purchase.

From now on, hopefully your normal "Home Maintenance" contribution will cover things like this, so you want to delete the now empty "New Dishwasher" category. 

Watch this:
Deleting "New Dishwasher" in November releases all the budgeted funds in each month, May-Oct to TBB, and also deletes the negative "ND" budget amount in Nov. 

But wait!  You didn't see anything? 
That's because YNAB is so smart, it can do different math operations simultaneously.  Wow, YNAB!

The new way requires A LOT more knowledge of the implications of a Global TBB from the user.

Scenario #1 (current required workflow):

Same situation as above.

Watch this:

1. Go back to May and move budgeted amount to TBB.  Be very confused as to where that money has gone, as TBB remains 0.
2. Repeat for June - Oct, trusting the fact that you're not losing money to YNAB's interface, as TBB still remains 0.
3. Click to Nov.  Get past the unsettled feeling that you just dealt with because you can see that somehow, Nov. is the same as before.  Or not, because you didn't know to check Nov. to have something to compare to after the rigmarole.

Or perhaps you don't get to steps 3 and 4 because you thought you were doing something wrong in steps 1 and 2, so you aborted mission.

I'm not going to come to a conclusion for you.  If the developers don't realize they have just disrespected customer service/customers by increasing the workload and confusion for no benefit, I don't have anything to say right now.

Faness Stealing from the future, dealing with cash back on a credit card, over paying your credit card, and doing an account transfer from a credit card all involve budget manipulations and understandings that are much more complicated than the results of deleting a category that has previous budgeting. 

If none of those things are problems, then this isn’t a problem either.

Faness 

Scenario #2 (previous workflow):
Say you stuffed your stimulus check in a holding category because you didn't want to blow it.

A few months later, you've figured out how that money will best suit your priorities, so you move it.

Watch this:
Deleting the holding category in November releases all the budgeted funds from April's budget line and also deletes the negative budget amount in Nov's holding category. 

But wait!  You didn't see anything? 
That's because YNAB is so smart, it can do different math operations simultaneously.  Wow, YNAB!

Why is that?  Why didn't you see anything?

Let's take the operations separately. 

1. Deleting the negative budgeted amount in November takes the TBB negative by the same amount in November, because everything still has to add up.
2. Subsequently deleting positive budgeted amounts in the past, where you would expect to see the money to go TBB, really means that that money is getting swallowed up by the future, negative TBB.  This isn't a problem, as it's basically just a detour to get to the category of choice.

What if you did it in the opposite order?

1. Deleting the positive budgeted amounts in the past puts that money in TBB.  It may or may not stay there, depending on how much of your budget has been spent between that past and the future, and also depending on inflows within that past-present time.  Alternatively, it may or may not create other overspending issues with seemingly unrelated numbers in the present.
2. However, if you keep your eye on the ball and fix everything that you were intending to fix related to ONLY this category (meaning you have to know what you are doing without guidance from the interface), everything will magically work out in the end.  It's hard to ignore the numbers getting worse, though...
3. Go ahead, make a fake budget and play with the numbers (budgeted and transaction) over a stretch of time in the past.  You generally want to start a year ago and manipulate things at two-month intervals, then click through the months at each step so you can see the effects of your actions.
4. Have fun figuring out invisible math!

Anyways, just in case the previous post was unclear...

The new way requires A LOT more knowledge of the implications of a Global TBB from the user.

Scenario #2 (current required workflow):
Same situation as above.

Watch this:

1. Go back to April and move budgeted amount to TBB.  Be very confused as to where that money has gone, as TBB remains 0.
2. Click to Nov.  Get past the unsettled feeling that you just dealt with because you can see that somehow, Nov. is the same as before.  Or not, because you didn't know to check Nov. to have something to compare to after the rigmarole.
3. Note: It's wayyyy more fun if you go present --> past.  Easiest way to fix is by starting in the furthest past --> present.  I have a good guess as to which order inexperienced YNABers will choose, though. XD

Or perhaps you don't get to step 2 because you thought you were doing something wrong in steps 1, so you aborted mission.

I'm not going to come to a conclusion for you.  If the developers don't realize they have just disrespected customer service/customers by increasing the workload and confusion for no benefit, I don't have anything to say right now.

WordTenor Am I totally off base here?  Were there actually any visible results from deleting a category with previous budgeting (only budgeting) activity?  What were they?

Not that any of us can check now...

Move Light Sound Life So sorry, everyone.  To truly delete the category in Scenario #1&2, you'll need to add a Step 4 to get budgeted activity out of November.  I was busy doing math simultaneously.  No more!

In step 3, Nov will actually have a positive TBB of the amount that is negative in the target category.  Assuming you started this process with a TBB of 0, of course.

4. In November, delete the negative budget number in "New Dishwasher" or the holding category. 

woops!  I hope the process is still clear.

Move Light Sound Life Also, a bit of a note: If your AOM during the past/present time period in question was smaller than the time period, the numbers will act as described above.  This is because you've already spent the amount in question in a first in/first out type of way over the course of this budget manipulation. 

It is entirely possible that in a budget with higher AOM than the time period in which you had been saving (depending on the relationship of the amount in question to your average spend), deleting the budgeted amount in a past month will act as a newbie (someone who doesn't know about the implications of a global TBB) would expect and go to TBB. 

But really, I'm guessing that the number of newbies starting out with an AOM that is equal to their time on the program is rather small...  So...

Or maybe lots of not new users also don't want to take the time to figure out invisible math, so they haven't thought through the implications of a global TBB.  Can't blame anyone.  I got this crash course when helping someone fix 2 years of unbudgeted history.  Good thing I knew how the program was supposed to work.  It didn't help them stay on the YNAB bandwagon, though, because they couldn't see why I was telling them to do things.  There was too much trust needed.  If I had to do it again, I'd make them have a dated list of all the inflows and budget each paycheck, even though the TBB would be 0 for most of the time.

And for anyone who likes rabbit holes (I worked 12+ hours yesterday, I'm going to have some fun here!)...

Set Up:

1. Make a Sandbox budget.
2. Inflow 200 in September.
3. Budget $100 to a Microwave category in September.
4. Budget $100 to Microwave in October (I know, I know, you'd get paid in October, but I'm trying to isolate and show the effects of invisible math, here!)
5. Move $200 from Microwave to Appliances in November.  TBB = 0 in all 3 months.

Now, you want to delete the Microwave category.

1. Like a good YNABer, start in the furthest month past (Sept) and delete the $100 in Microwave.  TBB = 100 in all three months.
2. Delete October's Microwave budgeted 100.  TBB = 200 in Sept/Oct/Nov.
3. Delete November's Microwave -200. TBB = 0 in all three months again.  How nice.

What if, since your microwave was broken, you lived off your neighbor/family for free for a couple months, but THEN, you bought $20 worth of groceries in Nov, then found $20 on the street?  Lucky!

1. Revert to basic set up (use the undo button).
2. Log $20 groceries in Nov.  Any date.  Click through months to see TBB stay $0 for Sept/Oct/Nov, but go red by $20 in December.
3. Log $20 Inflow in Nov.  Any date. 
4. Budget $20 to groceries in Nov.  Can't have red, right!
5. Commence preparation to delete the Microwave category:
6. Delete Sept. Microwave's $100.  TBB = 80 in Sept/Oct, but 100 in Nov.  Weird. ;)
7. Delete Oct. Microwave's $100.  TBB = 180 in Sept/Oct, but 200 in Nov.  Weird. ;)
8. Delete Nov. Microwave's -200.  TBB = 0 in all three months. 

Now, what if you're a normal person who maintains normal expenses and inflows over the course of saving for something else?  Let's simulate that with the least work possible...

1. Revert to basic set up (use the undo button).  You can even adjust the starting balance to be $1000 just for fun.  Do that.
2. Budget $800 to rent (or whatever), and do the same $100s to Microwave in Sept/Oct. as you did before.
3. Make a transaction for $1000 (the total amount of the account) of groceries in Nov. Look at the red overspent groceries in Nov, and the red -1000 TBB in December.
4. Make an inflow of $1000 in Nov, and budget it all to groceries in Nov (get rid of red!). TBB = 0 all around.
5. Commence preparation to delete the Microwave category:
6. Delete Sept. Microwave's $100.  TBB = 0 in Sept/Oct, but 100 in Nov.
7. Delete Oct. Microwave's $100.  TBB = 0 in Sept/Oct, but 200 in Nov. 
8. Delete Nov. Microwave's -200.  TBB = 0 in all three months. 

As you can imagine, bringing in variables like varying amounts of spending/inflows, credit card use, etc, can have many more unexpected effects.  The toolkit's SFTF warning goes particularly bonkers when playing with these past numbers.  You just have to trust that you're using a logical process that takes into account all calculations.

Playing with the past in YNAB is not for the faint of heart.  I'm very surprised that that is the now recommended approach to delete a category. 

My husband's mind was blown when I showed him the examples above.   He knows how YNAB is supposed to work, but playing with the invisible math of the past definitely yields unexpected results in the screen of the past (even if the whole timeline does make sense).  He suggested that there should be a button that allows some sandboxing, like a pop-up that lets you type in a change and then somehow shows you all of the behind the scenes calculations that will make an effect on another budget screen.  Interesting idea, but it would have to allow for balancing correctional activity to really be useful.  Seems a more complicated solution to a messed up budget than just fixing the merge category wizard to follow through on moving budgeted funds. 

Alright.  I think I've had enough YNAB fun for a day.

P.S. Challenge to any YNAB developer who finds the mistake(s) in the above posts (that I didn't fix, obviously). 🤔😉🤓

Let's see you really take the time to think through this stuff.

I'd also like a good answer to what problem you've fixed by nixing the previously allowed budgetary activity in a category to be deleted. 

Good night, good week, and good luck!

RIP_MSMoney Without rebranding or hiding the category, all history in that category would need to be removed before the category could be deleted. 

I've sent this forum thread directly to our Development Team, so they can see the thoughts and feedback listed here. You can also submit a Feature Request if you want to send in your thoughts yourself. I completely understand your frustration and I appreciate you sharing how this affects you and your budget.