Announcements

September 6, 2022: Closing to new sign-ups and ending support

I've closed this app to connecting new accounts, and will be ending support going forward. For the reasons why, please read on.

It's clear at this point that YNAB has more-or-less abandoned the YNAB API which this app depends on; there have been no bug fixes or improvements in nearly two years. This means there is no way I can address some of the shortcomings of this app, such as the way currencies interact with goals, and support for loan accounts, since those require updates to the YNAB API. Having this app built on an abandoned foundation makes me reluctant to put any time or effort into improving it, since the rug could be pulled out from under it any time.

Moreover, while Patreon donations cover the direct costs of running the app (e.g. server, bandwidth, etc.) and a some time to address support requests and keep things humming, they do not provide enough funding to put any significant work into improving or updating the app.

I cannot in good conscience recommend that new users start depending on this app under these conditions, which is why I've disabled connecting new accounts.

I do not have any plans to shut down the app as long as Patreon is covering the direct costs, but will not be supporting it going forward. Existing users should be fine for now, but I expect at some point YNAB will make some kind of change that breaks this app. At that point, unless it's a simple fix, the app will stop working on its own and I'll have to shut it down.

With all the above said, if you are currently using this app I would recommend that you migrate away from it when it's opportune (e.g. next time you do a "fresh start" in YNAB). See the How to Handle Multiple Currencies in YNAB for YNAB's blog post with ideas for to work with multipole currencies. I personally have been using their option 1 (separate budgets for each currency) since the beginning of 2022, and it's working reasonably well for me.

I hope this app has improved your life up to now, and I'm sorry for the inconvenience of ending support, but YNAB's abandonment of its API leaves me with little choice.

May 1, 2021: Account and transaction changes

There are two major updates that may effect your budget:

Difference accounts are now matched by exact account type

Prior to this change, the the difference account's type only had to partially match the foreign account's type (debit: checking/savings/cash, credit: credit card/line of credit, or tracking: asset/liability). This has turned out to cause trouble with net worth in some cases, so we will now match by the exact type.

Note that partial matching is still supported, so your existing account setup will continue to work, but a suggestion will be displayed to add an exactly matching difference account. Support for partial type matches may be removed at some point in the future.

Difference transactions are now created for transfers to/from foreign accounts

Prior to this change, transfers to/from foreign accounts were ignored, and we relied on adjustment transactions to keep things in balance. This meant that, in some cases, YNAB could not track budget category amounts correctly. In the case of credit card payments that could lead to payments not being attributed to the the Credit Card Payments budget category fot the credit card difference account. For transfers to tracking accounts, the converted amount was not attributed to the original transaction's budget category.

This change means the best way to make a transfer between currencies has changed slightly. In a nutshell, you should assign the "leftover" amount to the Exchange Rate Adjustments <CUR> payee for the source account's currency and your exchange rate adjustments budget category (which will be filled in automatically by YNAB when you enter the payee), rather than as a transfer to the difference account. See the transfers between currencies help for more details about how to structure transfers between currencies now.

Note that the old way still works, but will result in extra adjustment transactions being created automatically to bring things back into line.

Due to this change, putting <CONVERT> in an account's nickname/notes will no longer longer have any effect, since difference transactions are now always created for transfers. However, you may still put <NOCONVERT> in a transaction's memo to prevent creating a difference transaction.

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