Frank K If things are balanced, they should stay that way as long as all future credit card payments are budgeted for (except for a few outliers). If you notice things still fall out of whack, we'd be more than happy to take a look for you! You'd just need to enable Support Access for your account and let us know whether you’d like to continue the discussion here or via email instead.

VoltaicShock If you feel your CC should have paid in full status, just ensure the Available in the Payment category covers the entire debt (account balance)

dakinemaui One thing I've come to realize over the past 4 years is that if you have to ask why the payment category isn't in sync, you probably shouldn't use the CC as checking account method.

nolesrule I'm on the fence about that. As long as people fully understand what PIF status really is (and have achieved it in their budget), I don't see the need to bother understanding the more unintuitive aspects. After all, every single one of the YNAB4 PIF users didn't need to understand them. The "spending is spending" mentality afforded by sweeping the temporary debt under the rug is rather compelling.

Frank K  

For your reference, here are the reasons I've found that a paid-in-full credit card account & payment category balances diverge when using the stock CC handling:

• starting balance on a paid-in-full card - category is lower
• overspending - category is lower
• uncategorized transactions - category is lower
• outgoing transfers to other on-budget accounts (e.g., gift card account, immediate reimbursements) - category is lower
• purchase/cash-back rewards (should be categorized to TBB) - category is higher
• categorizing item returns as TBB (should use the original spending category instead) - category is higher
• reconciliation adjustment - category is lower for an outflow adjustment, higher for an inflow adjustment
• taking the account balance positive - category should be $0 in this case
• erroneous budget entry - accidents or misunderstandings occasionally happen.

To correct the problem, budget whatever is needed to make them agree. Some of them can also be fixed other ways (e.g., overspending).

dakinemaui Don't forget about overspending a category with purchases on 2 different credit cards followed by a return. YNAB doesn't always return the no longer overspent amount to the right card. 🙂

dakinemaui Actually, I think YNAB4 did have a PIF problem due to the red arrow. I don't think we realized it at the time.

nolesrule PIF status, by definition, had the Pre-YNAB Debt category balance at $0. If a user had other categories they had red-arrowed, I wouldn't consider that a CC issue.

dakinemaui I was not implying they are the same, just that the misunderstandings are there in either case.

It's not a CC issue, but rather a lack of understanding of the PIF concept as applied within YNAB which is defined as having the cash reserved to pay the full balance of the card.  In other words, you think you are PIF, but really you aren't because you don't have enough cash reserved for PIF status while being able to back all the remaining categories.

On the bright side, in the current version all overspending gets pulled from TBB in the next month, but even that has an effect on PIF when people come up short. That's why we have Rule 3. And you need to have Rule 3 covered properly ( and by properly I mean not leaving categories red to come out of TBB next month) in order to switch to CC as checking.

nolesrule Yep, and the good news is OP realizes at this point that Import can do a sneak attack in last month's area. (In fairness, it's not limited to just Import, as a reconciliation can do it as well.) OP, conveniently, there's a warning in the current month of past overspending when using the CC-as-checking approach.

Stephen Kirven Fundamentally, the budget is the plan for your cash. As such, debt is ignored (negative credit accounts and yellow overspending). It's easiest to understand if you look in the future-most budget area where these are equal:

* Accounts: Sum of cash + positive credit

* Budget: TBB+Total Available

A common mistake is to try to use the Budget Account Total for the account side. I realize you tried to adjust for that, but you used the CC Payment balance rather than the CC account balance.

Orange Cyborg said:
my credit card balance is not registering on my budget page

I may be misunderstanding, but this part may be user error. The CC budget category is not the same thing as the CC account balance. Nor is it your available credit. Rather, it is the amount of cash on hand that you have reserved to pay the CC. It is true that a paid-in-full card requires those to agree, but it's on you to make that the case as part of your planning (budgeting).

Orange Cyborg said:
I just reclassified my credit card to a checking account, and the balance owed shows red on my budget

Any red in the budget (categories or TBB) is a bad thing. Rule 3 is to eliminate that ASAP. Where does it show? I can't imagine what would possibly agree with the CC account balance when represented with a checking account.

Orange Cyborg said:
I hate that, but the balances finally match

What balances are you expecting to match? There is no CC Payment category when you use a checking account representation.

cpshaye when you did your fresh start, did you budget directly to the CC category for the starting balance on the card?

Vibrant  I suspect this may have had an impact, but the numbers still don't add up.

There was -$707.70 that hadn't cleared from my cc by the end of the year. My "starting balance" was +$577.01 (I had made a pmt at the end of December knowing about 2 of the transactions coming.)  The amount that the budget says I don't have covered is -$261.21.

If I can figure out a way to "fix" this, I don't have a problem with doing a fresh start in Feb. This is driving me nuts! I have money in TBB to cover it, but this isn't going to fix my fundamental problem.

cpshaye 

This is how you fix it, no fresh start for February needed.

1. Reconcile your credit card account (and all your other accounts, why not?). Ensure pending transactions are listed, not on a future date, and not cleared. 

2. Manipulate the budget cell (1st column) of your CC payment category (in the budget) so that the positive, available (3rd column) is equal (but opposite) to the negative account balance (working balance, including pending transactions) of the card (shown in the list of accounts on the left).  

Too many parentheses? Make your CC Payment Category equal the current balance on the card, but positive.

3. Adjust the rest of your budget so that TBB is 0 (in all future months, too) and your other categories are adequately funded. 

If you can't do #3, you'll need to move money from the CC payment category to support other spending categories, but this means that you are carrying debt. You'll want to budget more over time until the payment category can cover the whole balance of the card. Then you'll have Paid In Full status again. 

Does that help?

cpshaye Also, when reconciling, if there's an adjustment that needs to be made, I'd alter the starting balance such that things line up now. I wouldn't do the auto-adjustment. That's just my preference.

Move Light Sound Life said:
If you can't do #3, you'll need to move money from the CC payment category to support other spending categories, but this means that you are carrying debt.

Just FYI, you may not incur interest for this if the shortage is less than what you normally make in budgeted purchases on the card each month. That's called riding the CC float, and it's a natural phase between interest-bearing debt and paid-in-full status.

Move Light Sound Life I would suggest to delete the starting transaction (remember the date), reconcile with the auto-adjustment transaction, and then edit the adjustment, back-dating it to the starting date and making the Payee "Starting Balance". Might as well make YNAB do the math. 😉

cpshaye You have the option of making CCs work the same as they did in previous YNABs by making your CCs checking accounts instead. Let me know if you’re interested and I can give you the instructions on how to convert them. I feel your pain.

Superbone I'm not sure why, but I think the way nYNAB handles credit cards is perhaps my favorite feature. Maybe it's that little dopamine hit I get when seeing my payment category always equal my card balance 😍

Periwinkle Flute If it makes you happy, then that’s great. I have no need for it. It is an extra mechanism that does absolutely nothing for me. I get my dopamine hit by knowing that every CC purchase I make is backed by cash and that I will never, ever go into non-mortgage debt again. However, my my biggest YNAB dopamine hit is watching my net worth grow year after year.

Move Light Sound Life 

When I was doing your step 2, I have a clarification question.  Currently there is only 1 "pending" item on my cc for $18. Also, my deficit on the cc that says I overspent $112.52.  So...do I put budget cell $112.52 or $120.52?

OK, I *think* I did this.  But I *thought* I've done this before and it gets out of whack again.

I reconcile my accounts about every 5 days, and send a payment into the CC about every 2 weeks paying things off.

Step 3 - I'll finish budgeting to 0 as soon as I figure out this mess!  UGH! I want to move the "extra" to savings, but don't like sending it to that account (at the bank, not just YNAB) and then find out I need to bring some back again.

Thanks for helping!

Move Light Sound Life I usually do, but was holding back until I could figure out the cc imbalance problem.

Move Light Sound Life On my cc account it shows I have a 0 balance, but I have a pending $18 charge that is NOT accounted for in that account balance.  So, I am reconciled in YNAB to the 0 balance, and it shows that one transaction as not cleared.

cpshaye You need to add the transaction with the $18 charge so that, in YNAB, your cleared balance is $0 and your working balance is -$18.

Those numbers and identifiers are at the top of your account register screen. 

Then, when you view the budget screen, you'll see the working balance of -$18 in the account list on the left panel.

cpshaye After you do that, tell me what you see on the budget screen and I'll get you fixed up. 

Then I'll ask you an important question that will help prevent this trouble going forward. 😉

Move Light Sound Life OK...

What number do I put in the "budgeted" column for my chase card?

And as as Ceeses mentioned, I do have the habit of  paying what I know I owe before transactions post to my CC account, I'll stop doing that.

cpshaye Sorry, 

112.52 + 18.17 = 130.69

130.69 goes in the budgeted column. 🙂

That should make your CC available amount be  18.17, which is the positive equivalent of your negative CC balance. 

Move Light Sound Life OK... now what is the important question that will help prevent from happening again?

Move Light Sound Life Why do I pay the cc ahead?

Mostly habit. I hate seeing my cc balance be so high. We pay every bill we can with this card, and all of our purchases.

Some of it (recently) is we are nearing the end of a refinance of our home and the bank checks our debt at intervals.  I pay it more often to keep that number down.

Question- Frank K brought up "Let's say this is Feb and the transaction is for $10 and you bought in on Jan 31st.  If you only had $5 in the budget, but expected Feb to cover the additional $5 - it won't. You will end up with a -$5 balance for Jan and nothing comes out of Feb. "  How do you avoid this situation?  I think this may have been some of my problem in the past.

Thanks!  You have been very helpful (and patient). Time will tell if it stays correct this time.

dakinemaui OK, so bottom line is, even in my CC category I canNOT leave a month in the negative.

If I do, what happens to it?

cpshaye If your CC payment category is negative, that means you sent more money to the CC than you have, or your other category available amounts are lying to you.

Any cash overspending will be taken out of TBB the following month. 

If you buy a trampoline on credit without enough money in your trampoline category, YNAB will add the unbudgeted amount to your CC debt. No change to a future TBB, as the money didn't leave your checking.

When you wish to pay it off in a subsequent month, then you'll budget directly to the CC payment category to pay down the now old debt.

cpshaye if your CC payment category (or any other for that matter) goes negative, the red is the indication some of the money you sent is STILL EARMARKED FOR OTHER PURPOSES in other categories. Covering the red is basically replanning to reflect the missing money.

cpshaye Yes. 

Not only that, but you then paid the card with (from YNAB's view) insufficient funds in the CC category, which caused overspending. 

See my previous fun with that here. 

https://support.youneedabudget.com/t/m2s6zw/funny-fifteen-cents

cpshaye yes, a positive CC is effectively cash. (It's not like you need to pay it back!)

Budget it wherever you want. Do note you should always cover red categories first (again, it's missing money). A positive CC does not always mean the payment category is negative/red.

The CC Payment category should be $0 while the account is positive.