Using the Toolkit for YNAB

If you use YNAB on your desktop (versus the mobile app), there may be some features you wish it had. These days, YNAB is making lots of improvements and your wishes may be granted, especially if you expressed them through the feature request form.

It’s possible, though, that the Toolkit for YNAB, a free, community contributed, open source browser extension can help you tweak and customize the YNAB desktop user experience to make it even better for you. It’s available as a browser extension for the Chrome and Firefox browsers. Download and activate it and you’ll have access to a large number of features.

To get it, go to ToolkitforYNAB.com and select which browser extension you’d like to download. Then follow the instructions to download it in the appropriate browser. To use it, Click on Open Settings (in Firefox you find that by clicking an icon in your browser URL line that has a white plus sign on a green or red background and in Chrome click on the puzzle piece in the URL line and then select Toolkit for YNAB from the list of extensions). Then you’ll see a dizzying array of options.

Here’s a screenshot of a subset of the choices, showing some of my selections:

If your interest is piqued, go ahead and play with it. In case it’s helpful, here are my top five favorite Toolkit features in order of their importance to me:

• Add Category Filter (found under Budget). This puts a search box at the top of your budget to easily find the category you’re looking for.
• Display Target and Emphasize Overbudget (found under Budget). This adds a column to the left of the Assigned column that indicates the amount of your target. I selected Display target amount and emphasize funded targets as green.
• Show Reconcile Confetti (under Accounts). This gives you confetti when you reconcile. Who doesn’t want that?
• Emphasize Underfunded Targets (found under Budget). This makes underfunded targets blue, so it’s a distinct color from overspent credit card targets.
• Add Days of Buffering (found under Budget). This calculates how long your money would last if you never earned another sent, based on past spending.

The Toolkit offers some reports that you might find helpful, including alternative ways to see Net Worth and Inflow/Outflow. Toolkit Reports shows up as an option between Reflect and All Accounts on the left sidebar.

There are a couple of caveats I want to mention about using the Toolkit. Especially now when YNAB is pushing out small improvements, sometimes the Toolkit interferes. If that’s the case, you’ll get a message from YNAB to turn off the Toolkit. Also, the Toolkit is a volunteer effort and it doesn’t tend to keep up with YNAB’s improvements. So there be options that are no longer available or helpful.

I’ve been using the Toolkit for so long I’ve lost track of what’s a native YNAB feature and what’s a Toolkit feature. It has definitely enhanced my user experience with YNAB. I urge you to check it out when you have a few spare minutes!