Bank Connections Suck
So, yes, I'm frustrated. I have been spending the better part of a year dealing with the joke that YNAB calls bank connectivity. Today, I'm staring at a screen - again - where YNAB can't connect to my bank.
The replies I get from support are "well that's not the YNAB way, just enter every expense proactively" (paraphrased). Or, if I look at the support page, I see entry after entry showing failures in connecting to different banks.
This isn't widespread, this is YNAB. My Fidelity account works fine when connecting to other accounts, when I used Mint, it worked fine, and when I used Quicken - also perfectly fine.
I'm tired of YNAB's CONSTANT connectivity failures and constant inability to help. This is 2020 - all kinds of online services talk to each other flawlessly. Get this fixed YNAB...
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**UPDATE**
This issue has now been resolved and things are back up and running! We've updated our status page to reflect the latest news. You can fill out this form if you would like our Direct Import Team to take a closer look!
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Another update, and my oversight because it was already on our status page—sorry about that folks. 😅
Many financial institutions are experiencing high volumes/infrastructure issues right now, due to the number of customers checking their accounts for COVID-19 Economic Impact Payments/Stimulus checks.
Even if your bank's site appears to be up and running, these outages & delays may impact their ability to export transaction data to our import partners, as institutions limit the amount of data requests from third-parties (like our partners) in order to prioritize customer traffic to their site.
We'll continue to monitor the situation, and update the Status Page as we hear more! In the meantime, we recommend entering any transactions as they occur, using either the web or mobile app, and also taking advantage of our File-Based Importing & Scheduled Transactions features; once transactions are able to import again, they'll match right up with the ones you've already entered. -
I'm dealing with the same thing with my back. I love the software, but hate that I can't connect my account. that would truly be the cherry on top for me.
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I share your frustration. I've been waiting for 2 days for YNAB to update with the bank. I see transactions that are no longer pending but YNAB says there's nothing to import. If I'm reduced to importing it all manually, it takes away a huge reason for using YNAB to collect this information in the first place. I might as well use Excel at that point.
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Gray Song Exactly my thoughts. Thank you for sharing yours.
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I know a large part of my frustration is with the state of all the things in the world lately, but, yeah, I'm getting real sick of the direct import flaws as well. My blood pressure every time I have to "reconnect" or refresh is through the roof lately. And some days, even that doesn't work - like today since apparently everyone is checking to see if their stimulus funds deposited (in the US at least).
I agree that direct importing with other accounts (Personal Capital, Betterment, and my local Credit Union, FFS!) , do not have the same issues as YNAB does.
My issue is with connecting with Capital One, which says is a "known" issue on the Status page (identified back in Sept 2019). What gives YNAB? Is this a lack of coding knowledge, or resources, or what? Don't promote DI as a "feature" if it doesn't work.
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Melissa Exactly how I feel. Thank you Melissa. It doesn't help that I'm in IT and that my customers would bail by the truckload if this was a core product problem.
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Alice Blue Orca
I commiserate with you. I used to design custom web-based databases so I get there are lots of complications and behind the scenes issues that the rest of us aren't privy to; I.T. is a finicky mistress... But my customers' heads would have exploded if I tried to roll out a "feature" that only worked on the second Tuesday of a leap year so long as you were standing on one leg, patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time.
I'm trying to remind myself to breathe deeply, but I'm just extremely irritated right now. I guess I just need to unlink the accounts since there is no road map for resolution.
Going to stare at this for a while... https://youtu.be/DY5RYp4sxYc
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I just started YNAB & it can not connect to my BofA account at all. If this is an ongoing problem, why did I just buy an annual YNAB membership? Ugh...
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Nessa2481 I know this doesn't really help, but in case you didn't know, BofA is the issuer of unemployment payment/debit cards (at least in California), so their website has had MASSIVE increases in activity the last week.
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I'm having the same problems. Occasionally I can get it to work and then yet another bank connection fails. Yea I can enter transactions (and I do) but reconciliation of the transactions is becoming a real pain point when other apps have no problem handling the new multi-factor authentication flows these banks are spinning up.
YNAB get your developers to fix these integrations or hire better ones like me. It's challenging, yes, but not impossible to resolve the problem. I chose this app over others because of the ease of use for me and my wife. It's no longer in the easy to use category. 🤨-
Gold Mill We currently work with four data aggregators to import transactions, the most recent is Plaid. They integrate with banks, and we with them. Bringing it in-house isn't something we expect to do.
I know it's a bummer when a connection isn't working as expected. If you have a moment, please fill out this Bank Issue form—so we can gather a few details about the issues, and we'll get the investigation started!
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Hey folks! We know that bank importing issues are inconvenient and we do our best to both prevent and quickly fix issues that arise. I know it's frustrating!
If you're having trouble with a connection at the moment, please report a Bank Importing Issue here, and our Importing team will be happy to look closer at your specific connection! They're happy to help get things back up & running.To be completely upfront, data aggregation is imperfect. It's an unfortunate truth, but it's a truth nonetheless. It's expected that there will be bumps in the road, and while we do everything we possibly can to fix them as quickly as possible, it's just not something we have the power to eliminate (and trust me, we really wish we did).
Banks frequently make changes to their security settings, websites, or data files—and these are all things our Direct Import partner needs to manually fix. We do expect the majority of connections to work without issue the majority, but occasional hiccups are expected from time to time.
We are continuously making improvements here but we expect there to be hiccups as banks make changes.
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Alice Blue Orca Lagniappe Vegan Gray Song Melissa Nessa2481 Gold Mill Our Importing team can look into any connection issues you're experiencing. Please report a Bank Importing Issue here, and they'll take it from there!
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Nicole Thanks - I already have contacted support many times and unfortunately there hasn't been a permanent fix available. This issue continues to reoccur and other people are experiencing it. I'd have to say at this point I'm suspecting systemic design/engineer/partner issues over something broken in a quality system.
I don't know if YNAB has performance logging enabled or can see the raw number of failures occurring with bank updates, but I'll bet it's substantial.
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Alice Blue Orca We are seeing reports of delays related to COVID payments, and increased traffic to bank sites (where they often limit third-party requests like our partners). I posted an update here!
Many banks do ask for a connection to be re-authorized frequently as part of how our integration works with their site security—which looks like the cause when you last wrote in. If you aren't able to connect and import after re-authorizing, that's definitely something we can look into. I sent you a message with a few options to try. 🙂
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For what it's worth, I've learned to go with banks and credit cards that work well with YNAB. Since YNAB struggles to adapt in this area, I've adapted to them. For example, I had a Capitol One credit card and we all know how direct import has been broken for over a year now with them. So, I dumped that credit card. My Chase and Citi cards work great. Every budget account I own now works well with YNAB.
I discovered YNAB over 10 years ago and the method has turned my financial life around so I've decided it's worth it to me to adapt to them to make my life easier in the area of automatic importing. Instead of fighting it, I've succumbed and now life is bliss. 🙂
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Superbone i have a slightly different perspective, I love the way capital one works because now I can connect on demand. That said I'm of the opinion your approach is great. If direct import is important, the choice is that or move on to one of these other products that work so much better. I don't expect there will be significant improvements to ynab direct import.
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Superbone YNAB has changed my life, and I don't mind spending 5 minutes a day entering transactions if a connection isn't working great at the moment. I have added those 5 minutes to my routine, and it's been a wholly worthwhile investment of time.
Herman Like you, I appreciate the way Capital One works, and don't mind the on demand connection and added layer of security they've implemented.All that said, the otherwise intermittent connectivity issues are certainly annoying, but I don't view them as dealbreaking, since my financial life turned around when I started using this tool.
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Herman I guess I didn't knock on wood. As soon as I posted this, I looked at YNAB and my Chase Amazon credit card says: "Connection: Incorrect Credentials". 😂I kid you not. It says to try logging in directly, which I can do without issue but it remains unconnected in YNAB. I'm chalking it up to the general issue Nicole mentions above due to everybody checking for their stimulus checks. I'll revisit later and see if it corrects itself. My login credentials haven't changed.
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Superbone Ha! sorry! So far my chase amazon account is working. I'd rather have connection issues, than give up my 4% cash on dining out or my 5% cash on amazon! Hope the chase issue is short lived for you!
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Herman I'm with ya - Switching banks/products because a 3rd party budgeting tool can't keep up? No way. I've been with my bank for 20 years before YNAB even existed. I like the products I use from them an do not plan on switching - especially because a new bank is going to put another credit inquiry on my record. All because a budgeting tool won't connect? Unfortunately a hard "no" for me.
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Herman So, it would not work all of yesterday. Finally had to remove the connection from YNAB. Figured it was a good time to change my Chase password anyway. I was finally able to get it working again today. It's interesting that my YNAB connection still displays all of my old Chase accounts that I can't see when I log in to my accounts on the Chase website. Shows my old checking, savings, and even an auto loan that I had for one month a couple years ago.
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Superbone I like your strategy. I've lucked out with this. When I started, I had wells fargo and american express and they work well. I'm preparing to drop capital one because of the connection issues as well. Go with the flow, if you like the ynab current.
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YNAB is aware of direct import issues in general. Check out this blog post from a week ago:
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Superbone That post was from April 2016, after Direct Import was introduced. 🙈 Many of these things have been implemented (internal tools/processes, File-Based Importing, etc.)—however, the sentiment remains the same: we're always working to improve the experience!
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Nicole Oops! 😳Didn't see that year! And here I thought it was timely. 😝
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I used YNAB for 3 years prior to 2019, but quit before coming back recently. I left because of constant import issues with Discover Card and intermittently Amex. The argument to manually input things doesn't wash because there are multiple users on the card accounts, and I can't compel my significant other or dependents to meticulously enter transactions. So I quit YNAB at the end of 2018, but came back at the start of this year to try again. Amusingly, literally the day before my trial period was up (which was extended, thanks for that!) Amex imports and Discover imports both stopped working.
I had interactions with support on this who told me 2 - 3 day delays was to be expected (delays were actually more typically 4 - 6 days) but I don't see this with Banktivity or Quicken, which both import within 24 hours of the transaction clearing the account. Quicken connect directly (allegedly) but Banktivity uses an aggregator (does does Personal Capital and MINT, neither of which gave be these issues when I tried them out).
To be fair, what Nicole said about banks prioritizing direct logins is true, and we're not living in normal times with the pandemic. Quicken announced disruptions too (due to COVID-19 and high internet-banking use) and I'm seeing the same behavior across other apps. However it's also true that when institutions have had issues before, or changed something, YNAB's connection always seems to be the first to go down and the last to be restored, with the feedback from support being this isn't a priority and we should not rely on it. You certainly don't get that feedback from other companies offering paid financial software support.
Discover does allow you to export QFX so it's easy to go in periodically and import (although honestly part of the reason we pay a fee is to not have to do this) but other banks don't offer it. Amex, US Bank, Chase etc.
I love YNAB's approach to budgeting, it's the very best out there. But there's already quite a lot of work to maintain accounts, and the import issue makes this worse. For example, you can't reconcile to a historic date and balance, which is kind of strange to be honest. So you must reconcile on the day you have a known balance, and of course all items must be cleared on both sides. If it takes 5 days to update an account, reconciliation without manual input is almost impossible.
My hope is that YNAB will switch aggregators whenever their current contract runs out, and that this is sooner rather than later.
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Woolloomooloo It is interesting that YNAB seems to struggle in this area more than the other popular apps. I guess we should be thankful it works at all. Our European brothers and sisters have to pay the same price with no direct import.
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Woolloomooloo just wanted to comment on the reconciliation note. You do not have to wait until everything is cleared in ynab to reconcile. If you have pending items you don’t include those and you just compare cleared to cleared.....
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One thought I had on all this is that YNAB can see when bank connections don't work. They can also probably see any specific error messages, how often these occur, and how many people it affects.
Being in IT, I have to ask... what monitoring & alerting is being done? When core parts of the platform like this regularly fail, are these issues being worked on directly with back office partners? I'd think users should not have to report issues after its been clear that they are pervasive - especially after already reporting them so many times as some of us have.
Then again, perhaps they are doing this and that's why there's seemingly a new import partner periodically? I wonder what is being done to make sure QA is there before going live?
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This time you really can't blame YNAB. https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/g1s8rd/is_every_major_banks_website_down/
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If that's the reason, I find it odd that both my Bank account and my AMEX stopped importing at the same time. I haven't received any posted transactions since Monday for either of them. And both were working okay prior to that. No error messages, just not getting any transactions. I doubt AMEX receives a lot of stimulus deposits.
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So, like everyone here, I'm also not able to sync up with my bank (PNC). As a software engineer, it is really difficult to look at the fragility of the API between YNAB and the various banking institutions. I realize most of this is probably on the banks' sides.
My issue is that in trying to re-link my PNC accounts (I had removed the link initially not realizing it was a widespread issue), I cannot type in the user/pass fields of the Link Accounts dialog. It's weird, as if it is blocked somehow by YNAB, yet it does not appear greyed out or inactive.
I have noticed from time to time that the front-end controls with YNAB seem to get funky. I assume this is an Angular (or whatever FE language/framework YNAB uses) hiccup, and normally, closing the tab and bringing up a new YNAB tab does the trick. Otherwise, closing chrome and starting again will do the trick if necessary. Not this time. I have shutdown chrome, and upon restarting chrome, choose a new tab but I still cannot type my user/pass creds into the Link Account dialog.
Is this somehow being managed/blocked by YNAB, or is this a bug?
Thanks,
Jerry
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Hi Jerry!
When the dialog box pops up, you aren't able to click on it to fill the entry, correct? That isn't something we'd block (if the connection is having trouble, you'd get a message stating so after attempting to log in). When you have a moment, please fill out our Bug Report so our team can take a closer look! :)
gobuzzgo
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Faness I stepped away from the forum, and apparently, my inbox, so I missed your excellent support messages. I was eventually able to type in the cred fields, so that was good. Really not sure what happened there, and it continued after I rebooted my machine (for a separate reason). Eventually, I tried the dialog, and the fields were editable.
I still cannot link my account as of this morning, however. I'm with PNC. -
gobuzzgo Glad to hear you were able to enter in those fields again! If it happens again, let us know. I sent you a quick email, so we can look at that connection.
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Hi All - an update from OP (me): I was switched to Plaid and things started to immediately improve. Two things I noticed right away were that Chase started working flawlessly, *and* I wake up to a mobile app notification silently delivered at 5:30 am saying "X transactions have been imported and are ready to review". (Never had that with other providers).
Note that I am not saying things are perfect: It's only been a few days since I was switched, and Capital One still doesn't work, but this goes to show that it is not necessarily related to "increased demand" at the banks for stimulus money. Some issues could be related but mine were not.
I hope this proactive overnight update and functionality will continue - and that the remaining banks will be fixed. I do understand differences in banks and connectivity requirements (not to mention the handling of multifactor auth, "new location" challenge/response, etc.
One thought is: Obey the 80/20 rule. Don't spend 80% of effort chasing 20% of use cases. Just get the top 10-20 banks by user count working flawlessly and keep them working (yes, in conjunction with Plaid and others), and then knock out the rest one by one. But for sure the big players - Chase, BofA, Citi, Capital One, etc. these should always be the focus for consistent uptime.
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Alice Blue Orca I'm glad to hear that switch to Plaid is a better experience for you! Notification behavior won't vary on import partner, but it can vary if they require frequent re-authorization. Keeping your app open in the background helps too! There is a widespread issue with Capital One after they made changes that prevent customers from sharing the details needed to connect to third party apps. I passed along the details in reply to that last email.
For other folks that are seeing the same with Capital One, please report a Bank Importing Issue and our team will get your account tagged. 🙂
I posted an update at the top of the thread, and our various import partner's are seeing that the stimulus related performance issues are resolved!
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I'd love to point the finger at the stimulus act here but this is the 3rd extended outage I've had between YNAB and PNC going back about 9 months. The first one eventually resolved itself after a week or so. I was able finally reconnect the second time by removing the connection and relinking everything. So far nothing has worked this time. This seems to be a weak link in YNAB's service. If the issue is with data-integrators it may be time to move to a new one. Ok, my rant is over, I feel slightly better.
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revgregg65 That PNC connection is a cranky one! I'm sorry for the trouble. The stimulus related issues have been resolved as of yesterday, and if you're still having trouble—we can definitely help!
Can you report the Bank Importing Issue here, and our Importing team would be happy to look closer at that connection for you.
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Agreed. Imports are even worse now with the move to plaid. Love the concept of YNAB, but have become exhausted by the never-ending import problems
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I agree that YNAB is just not good enough at bank imports and it's causing me to seriously reconsider my subscription. I haven't been able to sync my credit card for Capital One for a whole week now, even though I can easily log into the Capital One website with the same creds. I've had the same issue repeatedly with my bank (USAA). I do not feel like entering every transaction manually and neither does my wife. I do not believe it should be that hard for you to consistently get it right. Get it together, please!
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Gray General Lagniappe Vegan Are you all aware of file importing? It's a little more work but it does the same thing as direct import.
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Superbone I'm aware of it, but I'm also not into doing extra work because the services I'm paying for are implemented poorly and don't work. As an experiment I opened a Mint account this morning and it immediately worked perfectly with downloading transactions from the same banks I'm having problems with in YNAB. So that indicates to me that YNAB's developers are doing a poor job.
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Gray General OK, just making sure as it is an alternative to what you described. I agree that Mint is the best of the direct import apps. Unfortunately, it's not a good budgeting app and because it's free, they sell your data.
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Superbone Yeah I don't really intend to actually use Mint and I immediately deleted the account. I just did it as an experiment to see if they are having the same problems with Capital One, which they are not.
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Gray General I agree with you that YNAB has really struggled in this area. The Plaid transition has been pretty bad based on the forum chatter. I just don't think they have the access to banks that Mint, who is owned by Intuit, I believe, has. Intuit has been doing this for years and years while YNAB is relatively new to it.
I had a Capital One credit card and got tired of it myself. I ended up just cancelling the card (had a fee anyway) and just stuck with my other CCs that worked with YNAB. However, I agree that you shouldn't have to change banks because YNAB can't interact with them smoothly. This area has obviously been a struggle for YNAB.
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Superbone Yeah it's unfortunate because in general I like YNAB a lot except for this one issue (and I guess also the weird credit card payments budget category). I also tested Quicken this afternoon and they had no problem importing from Capital One either. Whatever third-party service YNAB uses to download transactions is not great! However, since all the other solutions are even more confusing and terrible to me, I'm going to try to hold out for a fix.
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Gray General Just so you know, you can get rid of the credit card payment budget category by making your CC accounts checking accounts. I made the transition over a year ago and it has been bliss. This is only recommended if your cards are PIF and you have the funds to pay them off at any point in time.
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Superbone Aha! Yes, I pay the card in full every month and am just using it to earn rewards points. I'll try that. Thanks!
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Correct. Even though we’re in a pandemic, my life is still way too busy to be trying to enter every transaction. That’s when I mess up.
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Lagniappe Vegan Steel Blue Router Eric Poulin We're making strides with the transaction issues mentioned on the status page—but not 100% out of the woods yet. Things are moving in the right direction, and I'd like to have our importing team look closer at your individual connections.
When you have a moment, report a Bank Importing Issue here so we can gather a few details. They'll help get it sorted out! 🙂 -
Nicole Hi Nicole. I filled the form this morning but had not received any feedback. I will try to disconnect and reconnect everything.
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Nicole , I have decided to unlink and remove completely the connection. Now when I reconnect (with the good credentials), it goes to a pretty much useless windows where it ask me if I remember this device? This is very weird. That question do not exist as a security question...
On a first connection with the right credentials, Desjardins goes to the security question. The funny thing is that now that I tried with Ynab to connect, Desjardins is quite unhappy and says that my last attempt failed at the security questions.....
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This is so frustrating. I came here to see if anyone had any luck troubleshooting but from this thread seems like we are all on the same boat.
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Yup. And this is clearly a Bank Import Parter issue, and I was switch to Plaid a few weeks ago in their beta phase. I have connection to 3 *very* different Bank (Desjardins Crédit Union, Tangerine and Canadian Tire bank).
- Connection in YNAB is shown as healthy, but nothing is imported
- I am able to connect flawlessly to those 3 banks directly without any problem.
It has been like that the whole week so far, and there is no doubts the problem is with the import partner.
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Eric Poulin I don't know if this will help you, but I was experiencing something similar and at first I was unlinking the account then relinking, which didn't work. After I removed the connection entirely and re-added it did it start working.
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Powder Blue Cornet , thanks for the information. I had try relinking as well but like you it failed. I will give a complete disconnection a try.
Cheers
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Powder Blue Cornet Alright so I tried your solution and for a good 2 hours it didn't work. It could not reconnect, like if it couldn't figure out the way the credentials works.... Then I retried and it works!
Weird but glad to have it working at the moment. Now I just don't know if it would have fixed itself....
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Eric Poulin Powder Blue Cornet We don't recommend removing the connection, unless it's mentioned by our Support team—so we can take a peek at what's happening on the backend. Just wanted to mention that for other folks that may read this. I'm glad you're seeing an improvement!
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Agreed! Every time I log in I have to reconnect to my bank! Then it sends a code to my phone, I put the code in, wait, then it wants to send another code again before it will connect. This sucks!
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Tan Clarinet Now it keeps telling my my bank login is incorrect and I log in on my bank's phone app with the same credentials just fine. YNAB needs to do better than this.
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Tan Clarinet Same. I've been waiting on a resolution to my Fidelity connectivity problems for well over 2 weeks. Just a lot of back and forth so far - no solutions.
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Gray Mare said:
Go with the flow, if you like the ynab current.Ha ha! Love it!
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I'm writing 4 months after this was posted, and I'm still having the same problems as Alice. Major connectivity issues, slowing the process down....takes SO much longer to manually import.
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Cyan Guitar Sorry for the trouble! When you have a moment, please use this form to report a Bank Importing Issue .That way, our Direct Import Team can take a look at those connections for you! :)
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