How to get back on track with YNAB (without doing a Fresh Start)

If it’s been a few weeks since you categorized and approved transactions in YNAB, it might feel overwhelming to catch up. You technically don’t have to catch up. You could start over with a Fresh Start, but your transaction history would be archived. The Fresh Start can be a great thing to do if you’re months behind. But if it’s just a few weeks, you can get caught up.

As a professional organizer, I know that the key to getting past overwhelm is to break a project down into small bites. Here’s how I suggest you approach catching up in YNAB.

1. Select one account and categorize and approve all transactions. Pay close attention to them; don’t just approve the cateogories YNAB offers. Pay special attention to transfers from one on-budget account to another. (Remember, they don’t require categories.)
2. Reconcile that account. Try not to do a reconciliation balance adjustment. Instead try to fix any discrepancies.
3. Move on to each of the other accounts, one at a time. After you’ve categorized and approved every transaction, reconcile the account. Take breaks. Stay hydrated.
4. Now it’s time to move to your spending plan. If there’s any money in Ready to Assign (RTA), assign it. I recommend you do it in this order:
   • Cover overspending
   • Fund underfunded categories
   • Assign the rest of the money
5. If you’ve run out of money in RTA before covering all your overspending, move money from other categories to cover that overspending. Ideally you won’t have any red or yellow bubbles in your Available column.
6. Once your overspending is covered, do a YNAB checkup, so you can trust your budget. Just move forward to the farthest month you can in your spending plan. Then look at the amount in the Available column in that’s month’s summary (located in the right sidebar in the desktop app, near the top of the screen). Compare that number to the total of your Cash accounts in the left hand sidebar. If the two numbers match, then everything is okay. This support document provides more detail on doing a YNAB checkup. If your numbers don’t match, you may need to contact YNAB support. (Links are in the support document.)

If all this feels like too much, go ahead and do a Fresh Start. When you do that, your categories, accounts and targets are carried over to the new spending plan but all money is put in RTA for you to assign. In the future, you’ll have to look at your archived budget to see you the transaction history from the pre-Fresh Start budget.

But maybe give catching up a try. Start with just one account and see how it goes. It may be easier than you think!