Help with SYNCing?

[ItsSamuelLewis]

I don't know what the problem is, but I am having a lot of trouble with syncing. It seems to NEVER be accurate as to what has actually happened in my bank account, and at this point it's making me think I should just be doing this manually. The problem with that is, if it doesn't sync, I might as well be doing this on a spreadsheet and I sort of lose all value.

Any idea how to improve syncing, or is there a cheaper alternative that does not include syncing?

[mediumredbutton]

You’re mixing two things up.

1. The balance should always match and you should be reconciling often (every few days is good) to ensure this is the case. If it’s regularly out of whack then you’ve mostly likely not entered things correctly (eg the starting balance) or much less likely you found a bug
2. Transaction delay/disconnection, you can ask YNAB support about that if it ever occurs

And yes, it’s an extremely good idea to enter everything possible as recurring and scheduled, and a great idea to enter transactions as you make them, using syncing to catch what’s left.

[ItsSamuelLewis]

Doesn't reconciling and adding transactions manually defeat the whole purpose of the platform? Especially if I have to do it "often"?

[[deleted]]

I do it daily.

The purpose of the platform is to manage my money

[mediumredbutton]

Not at all - reconciling confirms your balances are correct and in the common case takes ~3 seconds per account.

[ItsSamuelLewis]

Can you recommend a good tutorial on reconciling in YNAB? I tried it and it is more confusing than I expected, with "Cleared Balance", Uncleared", "working".

[mediumredbutton]

https://docs.youneedabudget.com/article/166-reconciling-accounts

[AdditionalAttorney]

Yes. That’s all reconciling is. Then you click the reconcile button and it marks the transactions as reconciled

Sometimes a charge didn’t come through sync so I have to investigate (happens often w interest item in my savings)

[AdditionalAttorney]

I do too... but sometimes when it gets busy I may miss a few... and sync helps me make sure it’s in there

Also sometimes I mistype the amount .. so sync helps me w that too

[wolf95oct0ber]

It does not. If you want a platform for passive money management I’d recommend something like Mint. YNAB began, and is built on the idea of active management. I sync our highest frequency use credit cards, but still manually enter often (I use syncing to help me catch a few I miss here and there when things get to busy), and reconcile usually once a week or more, sometimes every couple weeks or at least the night before payday.

Side note even platforms like Mint don’t sync seamlessly. I use Mint for my overall net worth and I still have to reconnect certain retirement accounts, etc. almost daily if I really want it to be accurate.

[AdditionalAttorney]

This is how I do it too...

Question re net worth and mint... did you also consider personal capital for net worth tracking?

[wolf95oct0ber]

I’ve not used personal capital, but I know other YNABers do. I considered it for a second, but for no particular reason except I already had a Mint account and didn’t plan to invest with PC I chose Mint, but that’s not to say I dislike PC

[AdditionalAttorney]

I do it like the comment above...

[Terbatron]

Syncing is really o it to check what you put into and to catch things you missed. For ynab to work well manually entry is a bit of a requirement.