I'm switching from Quicken Desktop to YNAB

Why I chose YNAB

As of spring 2024, YNAB is still the only cloud-based money management aggregator that offers a running balance. The closest I could find to that was Quicken in the cloud, but Quicken in cloud requires that you have a desktop installation of Quicken as well, so what's the point?

YNAB's marketing approach seems to be all about it being in charge of your budget for you. I don't need that, never did, never will. But everything else about YNAB seems to be giving me a close match to what I used to run in Quicken desktop, only...dare I say it...YNAB is a little better. Truth be told, it's a retrofit, and it takes some work, especially if you want to import from Quicken, and I'm still in the middle of that, but am happy so far.

First to do

If you're like me, and all you want from YNAB as a banking register aggregator that can also run some reports, then maybe you don't want all the budgeting.

As a decades long Quicken desktop user, I am pleasantly surprised by YNAB's design (outside of the budgeting function) because it closely matches design which I scaffolded into Quicken over the years. A few examples:

1. YNAB lets you record annual payments. Apparently it will remember that you said a payment is annual
2. YNAB lets you "prime" your bank registers with future transactions that the bank doesn't know about yet

When setting up YNAB, they take you through a tutorial that is also a budget setup. If you can't find a way around that (I couldn't find it) just let them make you set up the budget. At any any point after the setup, you can delete those category groups (such as Needs, Bills, and so forth.)

YNAB does require category groups, under which you can add categories. As a former Quicken user, I want all my categories to be on the same level. Therefore I did something kludgy but not too bad. What I did was create a category group called "A." Everything is under the category called "A."

Warning: Do not delete any created budgets. A deleted budget deletes all your registers. There's a way to archive a budget, which might serve your needs better. 

Once you've created your budget, if you don't really want to see those numbers, there's a way to unassign money.

Export from Quicken

These steps are for one bank register at a time

1. Decide the start and end date you want to export. YNAB suggests importing data that’s no older than one year.
2. YNAB can import the following formats: QFX, OFX, QIF and CSV files. 
3. Go into Quicken desktop
4. File-->File Export-->QIF file
5. Select in the dropdown the account you want to export
6. Include in export: only the transactions. Uncheck anything else
7. Select the start and end date that you want
8. Choose where you want to save it to. I chose a designated desktop folder with the name of the file being the same name as the account
9. Once everything in the popup window looks correct, click OK
10. Now you should see the QIF file, properly named, on your hard drive.

Import into YNAB

These steps are for one bank register at a time.

1. Create an account in YNAB if you haven't already. 
2. You will see that the balance is the account balance the day before the original register began. You will want to change that.
3. So now you will want to edit the starting balance date in the register. It should be the date you want your account to start from.
4. I think it's best before doing the import to export and then delete the existing transactions from YNAB, or if I want to leave them, then make sure the export doesn't include the dates of the existing entries. 
5. Mark all the existing transactions in YNAB, and then choose export to export what you have in CSV form to set aside, in case you want to start over.
6. Follow the recommendation from YNAB at the top of this post for editing dates
7. Click on File Import-->Choose File
8. Make sure in that popup window that YNAB is using the correct date format
9. React to any other questions in the popup
10. In the popup under Options, select Import Memos and Adjust to Local Time
11. If you can't see the Import Button, make your browser screen size smaller
12. Click import
13. If the balance above was correct, the account in YNAB will match your current balance shown in that program.
14. Now it's time to do cleanup. See the recommendations below for cleanup

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YNAB's Recommendations for Reference Only

This section is excerpted from an email reply to Linda from Laura W. at YNAB Support help@ynab.com. Read this first. 

Importing historical data can cause performance issues in YNAB, so we suggest importing data that’s no older than one year. I also recommend creating a separate money plan set aside for your history, and a new one that you’ll use going forward, which will make learning and using YNAB easier.

To Import transactions

1. Create an account in YNAB. You will see that the balance is the account balance the day before the original register began.
2. So now you will want to edit the starting balance date in the register. It should be the date you want your account to start from.
3. YNAB can import the following formats: QFX, OFX, QIF and CSV files. Export the data from the program into one of the file types listed above.
4. Import the downloaded file. If the balance in Step 1 was correct, the account in YNAB will match your current balance shown in that program.

To Clean up the register

To categorize transactions, click the blue View banner at the top of the account register.

Tips to speed this up:

1. Click the header of the inflow column. Click the checkbox to the left of the transaction row and select all inflows. Click Categorize > Inflow: Ready to Assign in the action bar at the bottom of the screen.
2. Click the header of the payee column to bulk categorize transactions by payee.
3. There will be transactions you are not sure how to categorize. Assign them to the most logical category.

To clean up the money plan 

When you click on the Budget tab, you will see overspending in each category. That’s because YNAB expects you to assign money and spend. In this case, we’ve entered all the spending, but haven’t assigned the money yet.

Use Auto-Assign to correct this:

1. Navigate to the first month. Click the Underfunded button in the right sidebar.
2. Repeat in each month there is data.