Why are Budget Category and Balance not the same for Credit Cards.
I know this is a dumb question from someone who had done YNAB for years. I pay my credit card balance off every month. Why are my Budget Category and my balance on the credit card not the same?
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The two things I look at when this occurs in my budget are:
1. Did I return something? If so, was it budgeted to TBB or category the spending came from?
2. Overspending?
By keeping up to date with data entry and reconciliation I can generally identify the problem fairly easily. Hope this helps find the discrepancy.
If unable to identify the real issue, I will enter a correcting entry, then delete it when I figure out what happened. Am able to sort things out within a few days normally. This keeps me going for today.
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A number of things throw off the agreement, with overspending being the main cause. If you don't see it in the current month, just reallocate funds to restore the full amount in the Payment category.
Returns and reimbursements always go back to the original category and are self adjusting. CC purchase rewards are typically categorized as TBB (since they arise from spending in multiple categories) and would require an adjustment. Outgoing transfers require an adjustment.
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Are you referring to the amount in the Budget Column? Normally for a Paid in Full CC that will not match the balance in the CC account. What should match are the account balance and what's in the Available Column.
Maybe I misunderstood your question.
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Another thing that throws it off is the timing of returns and payments. One of those timing scenarios results in an increase to TBB and lots of folks don’t notice and don’t allocate those funds back the credit card category.
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King The red category warning should be the first indication the user needs to budget those seemingly new funds in TBB to the Payment category rather than elsewhere in the budget. Nevertheless, you are correct in that it does require an adjustment.
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