r/ynab • u/YNAB_youneedabudget YNAB Community Manager • 14d ago
[Update] We're adjusting how auto-categorization works
Hey, folks! We're changing how auto-categorization works so a one-off purchase can't override a payee's established category.
Previously, YNAB auto-categorized based on the last category used for a payee. That's a problem when a payee has an established pattern that gets temporarily interrupted. Say your "Grocery Store" payee is almost always "Groceries," but one time you buy a gift card there and categorize it to "Gifts." Next time a Grocery Store transaction imports, it defaults to "Gifts," following the last pick even though that's not what's typical.
So we’re changing that behavior. Now, the default category only changes when 2 of the 3 most recent transactions agree on a different category.
This should stabilize auto-categorization significantly so one-off exceptions don’t change the default. In our Grocery Store example, since only 1 of the last 3 transactions was Gifts, the default stays Groceries.
For payees with fewer than 3 transactions, the default will be the last category used with that payee.
As part of this change, we’re adding some more options in Manage Payees (see screenshot).
- Let YNAB auto-categorize based on payee history (shows an explanation and the current default category)
- Always use my choice. (Set a default that never changes.)
- Do not auto-categorize [payee name].
This release began rolling out on all platforms on August 17 and should be out to everyone soon if all goes well.
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u/Aerodynamics 14d ago
It was so annoying when I’d go to enter a gas transaction for Costco, and when I typed Costco as the payee it would pull up all of the split transactions from my last Costco run. Would have to manually remove the categories individually and it was super annoying.
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u/Aggressive_Will_7703 14d ago
I made two payees for this reason. Costco and Costco Gas. It was too annoying otherwise.
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u/amerikiwi93 14d ago
I did this as well, but this doesn't help when the transaction is automatically categorized as Costco rather than Costco Gas.
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u/pfifltrigg 14d ago
My Costco Visa imports Costco Gas and Costco as separate payees. Costco Food court is still just Costco but the gas station imports as gas
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u/superbad 13d ago
I leave food court with the other Costco expense. I earned that by surviving Costco.
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u/rlebeau47 14d ago
I did this for Costco, Ralphs, and Vons. Even they do this on their own receipts, so just treat them as separate businesses.
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u/turn8495 14d ago
⬆️ I did this with a bunch of my categories. Costco, Costco Fuel, Costco Cr.Cd., Costco 'Dining' (food court, which I categorize to keep myself honest about how much I eat out) Costco Business...you get the idea.
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u/pdxwanderer4 14d ago
Yes, the defaulting to a one-off split is so annoying. I hate when I have a random split to what’s normally just “groceries” and then the next time it defaults to that split. It takes so many clicks to remove the split and assign the correct category.
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u/mtciii 14d ago
Really wish this included splits, though. It’s annoying that if the last category was a split, then it is a split the next time, too, ignoring the new default logic.
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u/mintardent 14d ago
Wait yes! One off splits are the main reason I would want this functionality…why wouldn’t they include that?
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u/Codac123 14d ago
I’m glad you’re updating that. Seems like a bad decision to make it the last one, but glad you finally figured that out. I would probably go as far as taking the category with the plurality for a payee, but up to you of course.
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u/QTippus 14d ago
Agree, plurality could be good, but then you would have to think about plurality of what number (or time period) of transactions. 2/3 is a big improvement yet simple. Two transaction categorizations is enough of a pattern to change the remembered category. Much better than remembering last category, as you say.
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u/sir_fixalot13 14d ago
Can you please add Manage Payees to mobile? I almost exclusively use YNAB on my phone and it's frustrating that I can't update this list unless I use the browser version.
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u/TheRealSeeThruHead 14d ago
Such an obvious change surprised it’s taken this long
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u/JeeeezBub 14d ago
Had a book to write first
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u/Intelligent-Owl-8885 12d ago
Gotta pay them developers one page at a time.
…at that price they must be developers from fiver.
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u/mgm97 14d ago
Can we have a payee default to split transaction between 2 categories?
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u/YNAB_youneedabudget YNAB Community Manager 14d ago
The "Always use my choice" option will only let you pick one category right now.
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u/mgm97 14d ago
Any chance you could add an option for split categories in the future?
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u/YNAB_youneedabudget YNAB Community Manager 14d ago
Possibly! I'll pass this idea along to our product team.
This form will send your idea to them as well. It will also ask some more questions on how you'd use it.
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u/moreindirection 14d ago
I love this, happens to me all the time when I buy a sandwich for work lunch at Trader Joe’s
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u/ruck_my_life 14d ago
Any chance you'd consider factoring in the amount of the transactions as well?
Thinking about your example... I get get gas a couple times a week at $50, but 4-5 times a week I stop inside for a Monster that're $6. With this logic in place, depending on when I need gas, I might have $50 taken from my Coffee budget or $6 from my Gas budget.
I'm still in the same boat of having to manually keep tabs on how transactions at the gas station near me is allocated.
Generally this seems like a good addition, I'm just thinking that it's a fairly easy copy-paste if you already have this logic developed.
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u/CheesecakeIll7006 12d ago
Just create a second payee and your problem is solved. Just add “gas” and “food to the end of your payee name, ie. “Kwik Trip Gas” as the payee for your gas purchases and “Kwik Trip Food” as the payee for your monster purchases.
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u/ruck_my_life 12d ago
I have my Chase card connected through. It just says Kwik Trip whether it's at the pump or inside the store, and I have to manually swap between Coffee and Gas.
I totally would go this approach if I were still logging things manually, which I do for my checking when I pay Chase in full every month. But aside from category that connector has been pretty solid.
Maybe I'm trying to solve for an edge case, but I'm wondering because it would be super powerful if you could combine both vendor and price for the purposes of automation.
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u/ModernMargaretSanger 14d ago
What will be the default or will I have to make the choice for each vendor?
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u/Buddy_Kane_the_great 14d ago
u/YNAB_youneedabudget I'll personally zelle you $200 if you find a way to correctly auto categorize Amazon purchases XD
Good change though, always nice to save some time.
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u/c0LdFir3 14d ago
Amazon doesn't have an API to pull in transaction data, but this might not be too difficult with scraping:
https://github.com/alexdlaird/amazon-orders
I know you were kidding, but now I'm tempted to put it together myself, hah.
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u/pypipper 14d ago
Suppose I have two subscriptions with Apple, one for iCloud and one for Apple TV. I have two YNAB categories for each subscription (one for iCloud and one for Apple TV). iCloud costs 9.99 and Apple TV 12.99 and are monthly recurring. Would this system allow the two monthly transactions to assign the right category every time?
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u/varkeddit 14d ago
No, there's still only one "default" category for each payee (with the option of having NO category assigned). Your example would be a good use case for making recurring transactions with the categories pre-assigned to each.
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u/pypipper 14d ago
Thanks @varkeddit and @PichaelSmith, so if I do that, the auto-import would be able to tell and not duplicate? I am not certain if the recurring subscriptions happen exactly the same day of the month, what if is off by 1-2 days?
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u/varkeddit 14d ago
YNAB should match the imports to the transactions you entered in the amounts are the same and the come in +/- 10 days: https://support.ynab.com/en_us/approving-and-matching-transactions-a-guide-ByYNZaQ1i#matching
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u/Grizknot 14d ago
Yes, I do this for recurring paypal donations which appear just like purchases but are not. also for a recurring zelle transaction
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u/PichaelSmith 14d ago
You could just setup two recurring transactions to solve that. Add the transactions and set them to repeat monthly.
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u/popsicle-physics 14d ago
That's great!
I would love an option to split based on price. In general, if I spend less than $10 at the gas station it's snacks, and if I spend more than $10 it's gas. That's a lot more complicated though, I know
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u/darthdiablo 14d ago
Welcome change. Before this change. I almost never categorize one off purchases because I didn’t want to go thru the trouble of figuring out some time later I had several transactions miscategorized because of a single one off categorization
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u/Dakine_Lurker 14d ago
How about matching to target amounts as well? I make several payments to apple a month and invariably the wrong one is chosen. They all have different dollar amounts.
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u/jillianmd 14d ago
Those are best to set up as repeating scheduled transactions so there’s no guesswork and the imports can just match up to them.
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u/Dakine_Lurker 14d ago
Hmm. I suppose that’s fair, but there’s really no guess work if the auto category takes payer and amount/targets in mind too. It’s one more step you have to make per goal setup.
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u/jillianmd 14d ago
Right but that’s asking for them to add additional functionality which may or may not happen. Scheduled transactions have long-since been the solution for multiple Apple/paypal/etc recurring charges. Not just as a ‘workaround’ but that’s one of the primary uses of scheduled transactions.
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u/ryanleal1764 13d ago
Can you guys please an auto assign option that simply funds this months targets? Shocked it’s not a thing!
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u/YNAB_youneedabudget YNAB Community Manager 12d ago
Does the Underfunded auto-assign option work for you?
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u/ryanleal1764 12d ago
It does - but the problem is that funding underfunded doesn’t show you how off you really are from your targets. I would love for both options to exist. I would fund targets first and then adjust as needed to cover overspending. Auto underfunding always leaves me questioning how far off I was from being on target
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u/ExternalSelf1337 13d ago
Wow, an update that actually improves the app. What a nice change of pace!
I also like the ability to tell it not to auto-categorize certain payees, that's been really handy for payees like Amazon or Venmo.
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u/theconk 12d ago
That’s great. Can we talk about payees as well? Mine keep changing away from what they are, messing with categorization too. For example, “Apple One” and “Apple Cash” get confused with “Apple” and then I have to manually change each one even though the proper name was in the imported transaction.
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u/jillianmd 12d ago
In the payee manager, set up renaming rules (bottom of the screenshot in the post). For your Apple One payee, add a renaming rule as “is” ‘Apple One’. Then do the same for your Apple Cash payee.
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u/theconk 12d ago
Why do I need rules to rename when the name is already named? (I know this sounds snarky, but genuine question.)
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u/jillianmd 11d ago
The renaming rules are what guide any imports. So it tells any imports that come over as “Apple One” to only stay as that name exactly and not to try to rename to “Apple” or anything else, and then since it sticks to this payee, it’ll also follow the categorization rule you choose for it.
This particular example sounds odd as if I’m saying for every single payee to add an exact copy as the renaming rule. In most cases renaming rules are where you want a different payee than the imported one and/or when it may import different ways but you want it to always be a specific payee.
A common example is regardless of whether it imports as Amazon or Amazon Marketplace or Amzn or Amazon.com you want it to just say ‘Amazon’ and never auto-categorize then you can accomplish all of that with a payee called Amazon with two renaming rules of Contains: “Amazon” and Contains “Amzn”. But let’s say you also have an Amazon prime subscription and you want that one to auto-categorize to the relevant subscription category. If they normally import as Amazon Prime, then they’re going to get renamed to just Amazon and not auto-categorize. But you can add an Amazon Prime payee and use a renaming rules of IS “Amazon Prime” and that will override the other renaming rule and work as you desire, keeping the Prime payee.
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u/theconk 11d ago
This is helpful, thank you. I’ve been down this road before and it’s not sustainable so I gave up. This is more recent though, so I wonder if something changed like this post was about.
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u/jillianmd 11d ago
What do you mean it’s not sustainable?
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u/theconk 11d ago
It’s a recurring thing and they never stay put; I can merge or delete or clean up rules and next time I check they are all a mess again.
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u/jillianmd 10d ago
Ok, well if you’re not using any renaming rules then that’s why you keep getting messy payees. You hats why was confused when you said it wasn’t sustainable because I thought you meant using the renaming rules wasn’t sustainable. If you haven’t used any renaming rules then that’s the answer to it being sustainable long term.
To clarify, when you say not sustainable, are you saying you’ll clean up and combine similar copies of a payee but then you’ll wind up with more copies later on? If so then yeah a good renaming rule or two would prevent the copies from continuing to pop up.
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u/TrekJaneway 14d ago
Great, now can you have it not auto assign an account it was categorized to? Y’all keep putting purchases under a card I used over a year ago to get the point, and have hardly used since, but oh boy does YNAB want to put everything on that card!
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u/Savings-Plankton7871 14d ago
Oh I very, very much prefer this. The switching as soon as the category changed on one transaction constantly messed with me whenever I had an off-purchase.
Maybe it was only an issue for certain kinds of vendors, but it was very annoying for those.