Managing Payees in YNAB | Automatic Categorization, Renaming Rules, and More 

It's not exclusive, but a little bit. 🌻 Hannah

100% 😂

lol, yep. Turns out I am in this club too!!

You and the rest of us. Wonderful nerddom unite!! ✊ 🌻 Hannah

And way less creepy than popping someone else's zit or peeling their sunburn. But just as satisfying. (Did I say that out loud?🥴) 🌻 Hannah

Awww, thanks Deb!! 🥺 🌻 Hannah

Yep. Never touched that feature. Auto payers are good enough lol

Gotta start that marriage off on the right foot, ya know?! 🌻 Hannah

YAY! So glad!! And thank you! It's important to make potentially overwhelming topics as light-hearted and enjoyable as possible, am I right?! 🌻 Hannah

Also migrated from Mint and it does take some initial study but now that I've got myself grounded it is SO MUCH BETTER than Mint!! I also found some videos by @mappedoutmoney and of course Reddit to be helpful in offering other ways to organize with YNAB. I will say I find the phone app to be pretty confusing (and limited) still, and decided to just stick with the web

It took me 3 tries to stick with it! The learning curve is steep! I switched from mint a few years ago and never missed it!

I joined Nick True's "Ahead in 100" group which is a money coaching program that trains in YNAB and then how to ACTUALLY have a healthy relationship with money

🙃 🌻 Hannah

@@YNABofficial Loved the intro!

RIGHT?! That was a big day for me, too. 🌻 Hannah

Back in my day we YNAB’d in Excel! ❤❤❤

Yes! Those more generic payees that could easily fit into ten different categories can get annoying! That's when I just flip that auto-cat switch right off 😂 Is there a way to search all payees that don’t have transactions attached?

I was browsing YNAB Reddit at 3 in the morning two nights ago, so you won't be alone 🙃 🌻 Hannah

​@@YNABofficial There's a YNAB reddit?!? 🤯

No Piggly Wiggly where I'm at, but I try to circulate popular and recognizable store names for all our different viewers around the country 😂 🌻 Hannah

Yes! BenB of the Budget Nerds does this too!! 🌻 Hannah

i do that too. Along with gas stations. I just dont put anything in the memo.

You + Me = the same. 🌻 Hannah

👊 Nugs. He gets it. 🌻 Hannah

We do too!

Great tip! Thanks for mentioning that!! 🥰 🌻 Hannah

You are the kindest 🥺 I appreciate the love and support! 🌻 Hannah

YAY! Who knew so many people were itching to clean up their payees!? So glad to help! 🌻 Hannah

YAY!! I literally learn new things about YNAB almost every time I make a video 😂 You're not alone! 🌻 Hannah

Woo hoo!! Club's getting a little bigger every day! 🌻 Hannah

😂😂 🌻 Hannah

Woohoo! Not me crying at your kindness or anything 🥺 🌻 Hannah

YAY! It can definitely be hard to follow along with a video tutorial, so any way I can make it easier I'll try to do! 2018?! You sound like a champ! Way to go!! 🌻 Hannah

😂🐷 🌻 Hannah

YAY! Woulda ya look at that timing. 🌻 Hannah

🤓 🌻 Hannah

Same actually! It's a great practice to do every few months, though! 🌻 Hannah

🤯🤯 dang, you go! 🌻 Hannah

Woo hoo, thank youuuu! Excellent reception of said information! 🌻 Hannah

Too close to gestation. I didn't like it. 🌻 Hannah

Woo hoo! THANK YOU, so much! Thrilled myself as well :P 🌻 Hannah

Well, why am I making this video, then?! 🤣 We should've gotten the pro to teach it!! I'm sure you have a few more tricks up your sleeve than I even shared! I honestly learned most of this just to make this video 😂😬 🌻 Hannah

@@YNABofficial LOL 🤣BTW, have you guys ever thought of making a video about the Reports tab? Like how can we utilize our Reports since it is part of YNAB? We always hear about how to budget but what about the reports? Nobody ever talks about the Reports tab!!!! 🤔

Same same. And if anyone asks, no, I did not have over 700 payees before this video started... 🌻 Hannah

WOO HOO! 🌻 Hannah

*us both weeping over our payees list* 🌻 Hannah

Ahhhh. Makes sense of my Midwest HyVee and Kroger (which we actually call Dillons in my town!) 🌻 Hannah

WOW. Amazon getting all wonky in our payees. It feels like they do EVERYTHING these days-groceries, TV, music... whats next?! 🌻 Hannah

Ooof, I will need to take a big long nap before I make that video. But, on the list it goes! 🌻 Hannah

There's not an official way to do it in the app, but some YNAB Redditers have figured out any easy way how! www.reddit.com/r/ynab/comments/1632rik/any_way_to_bulk_remove_old_payees/ 🌻 Hannah

🏹 🌻 Hannah

The best way to categorize refunds is to use the same category you assigned the purchase to.

​@DonetteJohnson I've been in the situation where I returned something and immediately bought the correct thing, but because the refund took forever to come in, my category was in the negative. So then I have to shuffle money to correct it, but then forget where it needs to be returned to when the refund finally showed up 😢

@@hoffmanakify Perhaps make a note in the memo for the refund transaction that you took money from (category name) to fund the overage. That way when you go to reconcile you'll see the note and remember to move that money back to the right category.

😎😎😎 Also, favorite restaurant on Mass: GO! 🌻 Hannah

@@tressasmith Ahh! I cannot lie, I'm a Papa Keno's girl myself 🥰 Zen Zero is our take-out go-to! And Basil Leaf when we're feelin' boujee! 🌻 Hannah

A blessing and a curse, being a die hard YNABer is. 🌻 Hannah

Heyo! This is great feedback to pass back to our team! Feel free to write into our customer support and let them know what features you'd like to see that are missing. We're always building and improving so many different pockets of the app, so our team is busy busy, but we love to know what you guys are craving on the user end! 🌻 Hannah

@@YNABofficial Hi Hannah. I’ll try again. I’ve submitted this before though. I assume it’s one of the least used features and just never gets priority.

Well, we get LOADS of feature requests all the time, so sending one in doesn't guarantee it'll make the list, but the more a request is submitted, the more often it's getting on our radar! 🌻 Hannah

Target, of course! 🌻 Hannah

Hmmm... I will admit I'm not an expert with renaming rules. I taught all I know in this video 😂 I *do* know that for those who use direct import, on the web app you can click on any transaction, click the payee, and to the right of the payee you'll see a little "i" icon. If you click on this, it will tell you exactly letter for letter how the transaction was imported into YNAB, and how YNAB renamed it. For example, we just bought a couple items from Walmart. When I click the info icon, I can see that the payee was imported into YNAB as "WM SUPERCENTER #484", but YNAB simplified the payee to just "Walmart" before entering it into our budget. If you look at the payee name info for some of your Amazon transactions or your Kindle transactions, you may be able to find some key words among that are always included in your Kindle transactions but not your Marketplace transactions, and set a renaming rule for that. Just an idea on where to start! Honestly though, if you're not already a part of the reddit community, I feel like people in the /ynab reddit forum would be all over how to hack your renaming rules to handle this exact issue! I don't dabble much in renaming, so I'm of little help 😂 🌻 Hannah

I don't believe so-YNAB needs these to function, and they sit at the top to make entering transfer transactions easier. Good feedback, though! 🌻 Hannah

Girl. If anyone gets it, it's us 😂😂 🌻 Hannah

And better yet sort by number of transactions

Oooh! Always feel free to write in your feature requests/ideas to our customer support! 🌻 Hannah

Yeah, that's kind of similar to my Venmo dilemma. That's more so has to do with how PayPal functions-it's also essentially just a money transfer app, so the bank doesn't actually process any vendors or merchants when processing a PayPal transaction. You *may* be able to see some of that info imported into the memo though! Not sure. 🌻 Hannah

That is unfortunately miles over my head 😂 You can write into customer support and ask! They're real smart and techy with those things! 🌻 Hannah

Our idol. A legend. 🌻 Hannah

🤷‍♀️ You tell me. 🌻 Hannah

Combine all misspelled versions of the same payee into one! Just make sure the payee name at the top of the managing payees window is spelled right before combining! If you tend to misspell it a LOT, you could even use an "is" renaming rule for the way you tend to misspell it so that it will correct future misspellings for you. 🌻 Hannah

@@YNABofficial oooh the is rule is definitely the way forward. Thanks for the tip.

WELP, you can do what I did: go to a craft store, buy a white porcelain piggy bank, spray paint him ballet slipper pink, and paint on the smirkiest little smile in the world. I love him so much! And he's one of a kind! 🌻 Hannah

🙃 🌻 Hannah

... whoaaaa. I would love to see people discuss this. 🤺 🌻 Hannah

Do you just leave every transaction as "Payee needed"?

I only have the payees filled out for the transactions that require it (like transferring from checking to savings) 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don't believe so, but if you're frequently buying from Amazon when you're at *home,* one workaround is to turn geotracking on for your Amazon payee when you're at home. You're basically telling YNAB "Amazon is located at my house," so whenever you start entering a new transaction at home, it will recommend all the payees located closest to you, and Amazon will pop up. You can learn more about it here! support.ynab.com/en_us/geo-payees-on-mobile-a-guide-SJTbcVks 🌻 Hannah

@@YNABofficial oh, interesting! Thank you, that's a great idea

Suggestion: Try adding an underscore prefix e.g. _Amazon Another Hot tip: For those that you wan to move to the bottom of the payee list (i.e. all those turned-off for popping up on the suggestions category list in a transaction entry) I add a “z_” prefix e.g. z_Gas Station. It lumps all of those that I rarely use (or would never use again) at the bottom. Easy to click through those to ensure they are also excluded from suggestions.

@@NettieFIRE great idea, thanks!

Ooooh, that's even better! But you've always been a YNAB pro, you always have GREAT ideas and comments! Thanks for sharing! 🌻 Hannah

Because you're one of us. 🖖🏽 🌻 Hannah

Sure does! 🌻 Hannah

These days, I'm sure a lot of users stick primarily to the phone! But YNAB on the desktop is AMAZING and so big and I will never get over the use of a mouse vs my own thumbs! 🌻 Hannah

😂 We're trying to improve our app all the time in any ways we can! It's mostly just working with imported bank information-we can't really control how it comes in to YNAB, only what we can do about it after! But I also enjoy the job security, can't lie about that one 😂 🌻 Hannah