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What's different after moving from YNAB

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Moving from YNAB builds a brand-new zero-based budget in Beyond Budget from your YNAB export. Most things come across exactly. A few work a little differently here, and this page explains each one.

Different names, same idea​

  • YNAB's Ready to Assign is called Ready to allocate.
  • Goals are called targets. YNAB's export doesn't include goals, so set your targets again in the new budget.

What comes across​

  • Accounts: credit cards become credit cards, each linked to its payment category. Tracking (off-budget) accounts, loans included, become Assets and liabilities accounts. Every other account becomes a Checking account; you can change an account's type afterwards.
  • Transactions: dates, payees, amounts, memos (as notes) and their cleared, uncleared or reconciled state.
  • Split transactions stay split.
  • Transfers between two accounts stay transfers. A few can come across with only one side: see One-sided transfers.
  • Reconciliation adjustments become balance adjustments.
  • What you assigned each month (from the Plan file) becomes what you allocated each month. Without the Plan file, your transactions still come across, but your monthly allocations don't.
  • Hidden categories come across archived.
  • Scheduled transactions (dated after your export) become upcoming transactions. Scheduled expenses without a category are left out.
  • Flags: a colour flag becomes the transaction's colour. A flag with a custom name becomes a tag with that name.

Why some numbers can differ from YNAB​

When your budget is ready, we compare every account balance and every category's available amount with YNAB. Account balances normally match. Some categories can differ, and that's expected:

  • Credit card spending: in Beyond Budget, all spending on a card moves to the card's payment category. YNAB moves only the part your category had money for.
  • Overspending: in Beyond Budget, an overspent category carries its negative balance into the next month until you cover it. YNAB resets it to zero each month and takes it from Ready to Assign.
  • A transfer with only one side changes one account's balance but not the other's. See One-sided transfers.

Limits​

  • Payees: if you have more payees than a budget can hold, we keep your most-used ones and put the rest under “Other payees”. Each of those transactions keeps the original payee name at the start of its notes.
  • Tags and upcoming transactions: we bring as many as a budget can hold, and the review screen tells you if any were left out.
  • Currency: amounts come across as they are, never converted. If you pick a currency different from your export's, only the label changes.

Fixing a difference​

  1. Open the new budget and find the account or category the summary named.
  2. Check that month's transactions against YNAB: a one-sided transfer or a card payment is the usual cause.
  3. Correct it like any other transaction, or use More › Support › Sync & refresh if a balance looks out of date.

If something still doesn't add up, contact us from More › Support and we'll look at it with you.