Anvil Yeah, I want to be clear that "soon" probably isn't as soon as you or we would like. This just isn't as simple as signing up with the right partner or supporting Open Banking. There are all kinds of issues, including making sure we're ready to handle it on the support side.

Silver Stallion Please let us know what software you end up with. I haven't found any nearly as effective as YNAB. Also, you can change your CCs to work the same as in YNAB 4 by transferring them to checking accounts.

Superbone so I spent last 48 hours (or so). Doing only 1 thing. Trying different software which works in Europe and will Sync with banks. I found a lot of alternatives (moneywiz -> it's an app but syncs on its own, YNAB 4 on steroids and has a manual to migrate from YNAB, Toshl -> Good alternative, i did not like the TAGS management they have and so on).

I ended up configuring and reconfiguring and importing my YNAB settings. And now I can say that so far I did find something somewhat better for cheaper. Buxfer. It ticks all my boxes. AND it connected to my Morgan Stanely account for Employee Stock plan (investment incentive for employees). And all my banks. And my credit card looks awesome there and it's automatic from bank. And yes yes you will have to spend some time configuring your Tags aka. Categories. But I did. And now it looks great now. I setup my tags and categories. When I rename a category nothing get's lost (which I had problems with YNAB). I can change category on the whole set of things.

And yes it is somewhat more complicated in some way, that you can create automated rules which will place in a correct category, but also they can change your description to make it uniform. And the rules can be complex like IF description contains Auchan AND more then 100 per say do one thing. If not the other.

But you dont have to use it. It now sounds like I am selling it. Which I am not. I am just a geek and 2 days spent researching and trying.

P.S. List of other software worth to take a look with auomatic Sync working smoothly in Europe:

- Money Wiz (it's an APP which requires install. Like YNAB 4 but then it will use it's own internal things to sync across devices. I did not like reports on it, cannot just click feel a bit dated in a way)

- Spendee

- PocketSmith (I would steer clear from it, as no proper trial and just trying to get you signed up, very aggressivley and feels like scam)

- toshl.com (it has a nice webby look, but somehow I find it not appealing, though it seems to have good enough options)

P.P.S ah yeah and most of them are twice as cheap as YNAB which makes sense. Especially for a software which does not do anything for me. I cant see anything different between YNAB now and YNAB 4 except it's being in a browser. Nothing change for more than 3 years with syncyning in Europe.

Dmitrii Thanks, I will check out buxfer. I hadn't heard of it. I see they're directly competing as they have a YNAB vs Buxfer page on their website. I do see that it is more expensive, $10 per month, if you want all their features including goals.

Superbone well honestly. With what they have like investment and things. I really do not need goals. I bought a PRO version for 1 month to see how it will go for me.

But from what I've done in last day with that is already looking equal if not better then what I have in YNAB to be fair. I mean really connection to banks already paying of. No manual entry at all for me anymore. My:

1) Revolut
2) Bank
3) Company provided Stock options
all got synced automatically.

Dmitrii I just realized that buxfer is not a true envelope/zero-based budgeting solution. That's a no go for me. That was the most important thing that turned my financial life around. Best of luck to you in your financial journey!

Superbone I had a very cursory look at it. It sells itself as a more flexible budgeting software than YNAB, which definitely means you can make it something different than envelope budgeting. But I was wondering, is it possible to implement a strict envelope budgeting? I intend to have a closer look later in any case as it's good to keep an open mind (not on the budgeting method but on the budgeting software).

Ceeses I don't know. That's a good question. I didn't look into it enough to see if you could enforce your own zero-based system. I did realize that I'm paying less than their Pro version for YNAB due to my early adoption and their Prime version is twice the cost of their Pro version. So, it didn't make sense for me to explore it further.

I did try it enough to see that their direct import is miles ahead of YNAB. I'm curious about Buxfer's history. From my limited research, it looked like it was about dead in 2010 but has been resurrected. I found their twitter page but the last tweets were from April about a connection issue they fixed. Before that, the last tweet is from 2018.

Superbone Indeed. For the same price as YNAB, I would have bank syncing which I wouldn't use (I don't share my bank login details with anyone on principle), multiple currencies support (very limited and sporadic use, far from essential), IOUs (I never have any in either direction), more sophisticated payee renaming rules (the only one that might be of some interest to me). So in short, it would add next to nothing to me.

But I can see how it could be interesting to others. Depending on the budgeting...

Funny history.

I totally agree with that. I put up with the other shortcomings because it's a working zero-sum budgeting app.

But if another app came along with true zero-sum capabilities who also took direct import / auto categorization seriously, I would abandon YNAB in the middle of a forum post.

Gold Router Now, that's quick! 😄

Le Mirador All around the world, in dozens of different currencies, people are budgeting successfully with YNAB.

Some of those people have access to Direct Import. Some don't.

I've used YNAB both with and without Direct Import. On the whole, I would rather have Direct Import, and have it work well. And we genuinely are taking steps toward supporting international Direct Import and improving reliability in the US and Canada. I don't have anything concrete to announce on the international front.

However, having had it both ways: using YNAB with and without Direct Import is a very small difference.

I definitely encourage you to try other solutions. If solid, consistent Direct Import is vital to the way you want to budget, whether you live in North America or elsewhere, YNAB probably isn't going to be the best choice.

We only make money by selling YNAB, and if you find it useful with the features we have now at the price we charge, that's great. If you don't, for any reason, we offer fast, no-questions-asked refunds. We never want you to feel like we're stringing you along because of some feature we hope to introduce in the future, including international DI, and I'm sorry if we've made you feel that way.

Matthew  Direct Import isn’t ‘vital’ .  It is however what YNAB sold us as a benefit of moving to a subscription service.  That is what rankles! We continue to be charged the same as North American customers but don’t get the same  solution.

And a solid, consistent Direct Import IS available in the UK through syncforynab which is quite brilliant.  YNAB promoteS sync for YNAB and your customers have to pay again! Syncforynab uses Truelayer, something YNAB could do to support your overseas customers.  

Enough with the excuses

Matthew , all around the world, people are dedicating their personal time to implement the feature your company chooses to ignore with outrageously vague excuses. Customers like YNAB so much they are willing to pay extra money just to be able to use it in the countries where you don't support direct import. And yet this feature is poo-poohed as something insignificant?

From the start, I loved how YNAB establishes themselves as not being one of those faceless greedy corporations. They are friendly, they are cordial and down-to-earth, and they listen to their customers. I believed it when I bought the first Windows app, don't remember how many years ago. I felt betrayed when the company moved to web services, which made my experience worse, and didn't listen to my feedback.

Now I'm feeling betrayed yet again when I realise that all those years I could have not have to download my weekly transactions from my online banking every saturday, if only YNAB lived up to their image of valuing their international customers.

I'm only on this forum because of what remains of that trust. When Apple made their Books app unusable, I just shrugged and moved on. It's what they do. But to get the same treatment from YNAB - it stung.

For me it's not as much about the money. It's about being listened to and respected, as YNAB promised it would. But I seem to have the misfortune of living in the wrong country for that.

Le Mirador Scott Robinson of syncforynab is now working with YNAB.  

Tomato Colt , thats great news, thanks for sharing!

Gold Router Understood, and I'm sorry for sounding flippant about it. Again, reliable Direct Import is extremely important to us, and bringing Direct Import to more countries is something we're actively working on.

I know we've said that before, but I assure you that we're genuinely working on it and have made some key hires in that area. I wish I could tell you, "We will have international DI available in these countries on this date," but we just don't have that information ready to share yet.

I understand that this makes you feel like a second-class YNAB citizen, and that's certainly not our intention. The last thing I want to do is devolve into corporate speak, because you're right, we strive to avoid that. All I can say is, we want to do a lot better here, and I believe we will—but not nearly as fast as you or I would like.

Turquoise Moose I've been living in the London for just over two years. In all this time, I think I have only touched physical money once. 9/10 transactions in the UK are now digital.

Every day I'll sit down and look at my Revolut transactions on my phone and manually enter them into my YNAB. This is a waste of time. Why can't the two speak to each other? 

When I trialled syncforynab (which worked great) I would still sit down once a day, but this time my transactions would already be there, and I would review them one-by-one and approve / ensure the category and payee  is correct / rebalance categories as required.

Subtle difference, but makes me feel like I'm running my budget as opposed to working a manual entry / admin part time job.

Eventually cancelled syncforynab, not because of any fault of the product but because, as countless people mentioned above, I didn't feel like paying extra for a feature that should be part of YNAB.