Personal Finance Software Reviews

YNAB 3 is the new version of the very popular and extremely effective budgeting software known as You Need a Budget. Replacing the previous version (YNAB Pro), YNAB 3 offers a whole slew of new features and improvements. Most noteworthy for Mac users, however, is the fact that YNAB 3 can now run on a Mac! YNAB 3 now runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

YNAB 3 is a desktop personal finance application that does an fantastic job of helping you manage your cash flow by focusing on what I consider the base of any financially sound household: the budget. With many finance applications on the market trying to be all things to all people, YNAB 3 does one thing: budgeting - and it does it amazingly well. Of all the applications I’ve reviewed, YNAB 3 is by far the most effective program to help you get out of debt, save more money, and take complete control of your finances.

Sure, there are shinier applications (Mint) and more complex applications (Quicken)–even more socially-oriented applications (Wesabe)–but you’ll be hard pressed to find an application that dials into the “necessities” of personal finance and gets the job done as quickly as YNAB 3 does.

The new software is brilliant, but the real power of YNAB 3 comes from the budgeting methodology that it’s built around. In fact, YNAB is really more about following a method of budgeting rather than using great software (and great it is). I’d be doing a disservice if I didn’t go through YNAB’s methodology, as the software’s sole purpose is to support its implementation:

Effective Budgeting: The YNAB Methodology

The YNAB methodology is built around what they call the 4 Rules of Cash Flow. I’ll briefly go over each of these rules:

Rule 1: Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Rule one is to stop living paycheck to paycheck by living off of last month’s income. Essentially this means that money that you earn in this month, is available for you to spend in the next month. For example, all of the money that I spend in July is the money that I made in June. Now, obviously to live by this rule, you need to save up one month’s income. Doesn’t sound easy? Don’t worry, YNAB stresses over and over that you do not need to be following this rule to benefit from the software. It is, however, a very effective way to manage your money that I suggest everyone implement! Here are some advantages:

• Being that you always have one month’s income as a buffer in your bank account, you are suddenly much less stressed as you realize that you aren’t living right on the edge of financial ruin. Don’t underestimate how much this can help.
• No more timing your bills with your paychecks - saving you loads of time and tedium. You can now pay all of your bills in one fell swoop!
• Those with a variable income no longer have to “predict” and budget based on your guesstimates of what your income will be. You budget what you already made so you know exactly how much you have to work with.

Again, while it’s not necessary to follow this rule in order to use YNAB 3, I highly recommend it (regardless of what software you use). My wife and I have done it for 2 years and will never go back.

Rule 2: Give Every Dollar a Job

Rule two isn’t anything revolutionary. In fact, it’s a time tested and very effective way to budget. Said differently, “give every dollar a job” is simply using a “zero-based budget.” What this means is that you allocate every single dollar you have for the month to a specific “job.” It could be to buy groceries, pay rent, be saved for an emergency, or for having a night out on the town.

Giving every dollar a job requires you to prioritize your spending because it helps you realize that you only have a finite number of dollars each month. If, for example, you spend more on that fancy dinner date (Entertainment), then you may need to spend less in Vacation.

This zero-based budgeting is the principle behind the traditional “Envelope” budgeting method. In fact, YNAB 3 is envelope budgeting at it’s finest. You could say it uses electronic envelopes. There are other envelope-based software applications out there, but none make it as easy to implement as YNAB.

Rule 3: Save for a Rainy Day

YNAB 3 helps you prepare for both expected and unexpected larger expenses by helping you save little amounts each month that accumulate over time. These expenses might be vacations, Christmas, annual insurance premiums, car repairs, etc. The YNAB 3 software makes this unbelievably simple - it automatically “rolls over” your unspent amount in each category to the next month. For example, if I allocate $50 each month to Car Repair, the amount in that category builds up over time so that when I suddenly need a new $600 radiator, I already have the money set aside to pay cash for it (this happened to me, by the way).

This rule is truly a cash flow lifesaver. It helps you see that even though you have money in your bank account, it’s not always “available” to spend (how many times have we spent that “extra” $100 in our account only to find out we had forgotten about some upcoming (irregular) expense? By following rule 3, your irregular expenses don’t crop up on you (both the foreseeable and the unforeseeable ones). When you’re saving each month you’ll have the cash needed for these expenses.

Rule 4: Roll with the Punches

One of the most common reasons people aren’t consistent in their budgeting is because they overspend in one of their categories. It can be discouraging and can make you feel as though you’re “not doing well with your budget.” Well, overspending here and there is inevitable — it’s going to happen. For that reason YNAB 3 is designed to help you stick with your budget by “rolling with the punches.”

Rule four essentially has you pay yourself back for your overspending before you budget for the next month. The calculations are all done for you, but basically if you overspend by $50 in Entertainment one month, then the amount you have available to spend in the following month — regularly $5,000 — will be $4,950. Your Entertainment category “starts fresh” for the new month. This is effective for the following reasons:

• You are able to spread overspending across all your categories. This sort of “massages” your overspending gently into your budget next month, making it much less painful. For example, if you overspent $500 in Car Repair, in the following month you can spend $25 less in 20 of your other categories, or $50 less in 10 categories (or any mix you choose). Suddenly the large overspending is much more manageable and realistic.
• Rather than having to “punish” one overspent category (and having to dig it out of it’s own hole in the ensuing months), you can start with a clean slate. (YNAB 3 now allows you to choose to carry over the overspent amount for a specific category if you want to.)

The 4 rules that make up the YNAB methodology are what truly make YNAB different (and better) from other budgeting software applications. YNAB 3 combines this extremely effective budgeting method with top notch software to make (in my opinion) the most effective budgeting system available. I’ll now dive into the software itself so you can get a glimpse of what you might expect to see with YNAB 3.

Getting Started with YNAB 3

After a very simple download from the YNAB website, you simply follow the steps to install the software on your computer. YNAB 3 is built on the Adobe Air platform, making it able to run on Windows, Linux, and yes, Mac! Many a Mac user have been waiting for quite some time for YNAB to release a Mac version.

Upon starting up the application, you are presented with this screen:

Being that I’ll be doing this walkthrough from a new user point of view, I chose the “Create a brand new budget file.” Those that have used YNAB Pro or YNAB Basic previously can open their existing budget file to start right where they left off.

Might I add that this graphic is a big improvement on the previous YNAB Pro graphics.

Next you’re introduced with a nice and friendly “Welcome to YNAB” screen:

This welcome screen introduces you to the 4 rules of the YNAB methodology. You’ll notice each rule is hyperlinked - this takes you to the YNAB Help directory and explains in detail what YNAB and its rules are all about. By the way, this help directory isn’t like most other help files that are difficult to navigate and boring to read. These are actually extremely helpful and easy to understand. They even have illustrations throughout to help you learn quicker and easier.

When you’re ready to get going on the software, you may want to check out the “Getting Started Guide” which is also linked on the welcome screen.

YNAB = Excellent Support and Help for Users

This reminds me of a point I’d like to briefly make. YNAB does an extremely good job of customer support through many different means. A quick trip to their support page and you’ll see that they offer a myriad of help options including:

• YNAB University - 10 quick and fun lessons about budgeting. Highly recommended.
• YNAB Quick Start Guide - A one page instruction on how to get going quickly.
• YNAB Online Tutorials - A whole slew of video tutorials explaining how to do just about anything you want.
• YNAB Coaching - Free (yes, that’s right, FREE) coaching live over the internet via a webinar.
• YNAB Forums - A very active and very loyal community willing to help anyone who has a question.
• Much more…I think you get my drift. I’m impressed by the amount of help available to those starting out with the software.

My Experience with YNAB 3

YNAB has done an excellent job in their help and “getting started” documentation, so I’ll try to focus more on the features of the software rather than the detailed “how-to” so as to avoid duplicating efforts and information (while still giving you a good view of what YNAB 3 has to offer).

As you’ll see throughout this YNAB 3 review, YNAB has done a good job of walking you through the software. It has pop up boxes that ask you the right questions at the right time and that tell you important information to help you understand how the software and the (likely new to you) budgeting methodology works.

An Overview of the YNAB 3 Screen

Here’s a screenshot of the first screen you’re given in YNAB 3 (click to enlarge):

On the left are three main tabs: Accounts, Budget, and Reports. We’ll go through each one in detail throughout this review, but here’s a brief summary:

Accounts: This is where your “physical” bank accounts reside. While this tab is selected you can see, edit, add, import, schedule, and search your transactions. You can also now see your working balance on this screen.

Budget: The budget screen is where you allocate your funds to your categories, monitor your spending/savings, and more. This is the real heart of the YNAB system.

Reports: The Reports tab provides a number of a much improved reports including: spending trends, spending totals, and net income/net worth.

You’ll also notice that in the bottom-left corner of YNAB 3 you’ll see a Help tab. This has resources for the most commonly asked questions as well as access to the full Help directory. To save space, the Help tab is also collapsible. Another space saver you’ll find is that you can collapse a portion of the left sidebar by clicking on arrows shown in the third screenshot below:

A Note About Speed

Update:  After having used YNAB 3 for a couple of months now with my own budget data, I’ve found it to be slower than YNAB Pro.  I’m sure the Air platform has much to do with it.  The slowness comes from a delay between clicks.  Those with more data from their previous budgets seem to be the ones having an issue with speed, while those starting fresh don’t seem to see it as much.  The slowness is certainly an inconvenience and I hope it improves soon.  At any rate, YNAB is working on it (they even hired a full time developer to fix it), so it’s only a matter of time before it becomes a non-issue.

YNAB 3’s Budget Tab

We’ll start with the real bread and butter of YNAB: The Budget. Here’s YNAB 3’s Budget screen (click to enlarge):

At the left of the main budget window are all of your budget categories. You can think of these as your spending “envelopes.” Like any quality personal finance software should allow, these categories and sub-categories are completely customizable. You can add to or delete them to you hearts content. You can even drag and drop to change their order or choose to hide the ones you don’t want to see.

The main portion of the budget window is taken up by 3 columns: each month’s set budget amounts (Budgeted), actual spending (Outflows), and what’s left over for each category (Category Balance):

At the top of each month is a tab showing how much you have available to budget for that month. At the bottom is shown how much is rolling over to the next month to be budgeted. You can choose to collapse or expand this tab to show how these figures are calculated.

Budgeting in YNAB 3

I’ll spare you the details on how exactly to do everything in the Budget, but suffice it to say that YNAB 3 does an excellent job of making it extremely easy to set your monthly budget, know exactly how well you’re doing throughout the month, and see how your spending and saving will effect your finances in the future.

Setting Your Budget

The leftmost (Budgeted) column is where you can quickly allocate your funds for each of your spending categories. According to Rule #2, you’ll allocate all of your “Available to Budget” funds until it reaches zero (giving every dollar a job).

If you’d like, you can also use YNAB 3’s Quick Budget feature which automatically fills your budget cells for you. You can tell it to use last month’s budget numbers, last month’s spending, the average spending that you’ve had in the past, or total scheduled outflows this months. If you want to get your budget done quickly or just want a starting point to work from, this is a quick and easy way to do it.  I, however, recommend giving each category at least some thought each month so you can find areas where you can spend less and save more.

See What You’ve Spent

As you enter your transactions throughout the month, YNAB 3 automatically incorporates that spending data into your budget screen so you can see exactly what you’ve spent in each category and where you’ve spent it.

The middle column (Outflows) shows you what you’ve spent from each category. And for those times when the words “Did I really spend that much on XYZ already?!” slip out of your mouth each week, you can see a breakdown of your spending by simply hovering over the spent amount:

And by the way, if you click on a transaction, you’re taken right to that transaction in the Accounts tab to view it in more detail. A nice touch.

Manage What’s Left Over (and What’s Not)

At any given time you can see “what you have left” to spend in each category. The third column (Category Balance) shows a positive number if you still have funds available to spend or a red negative number if you’ve spent more than you budgeted.

Any unspent amount in your categories gets automatically rolled over into the next month’s balance. This is where YNAB really shines in terms of helping you save a ton of money. Your categories build up over time helping you to have money for 1.  those planned irregular expenses (annual insurance premium) or 2. those surprise expenses that you never plan on (replacing a transmission).

For your overspending, YNAB 3 now gives you flexibility in the way you manage it. By default, YNAB subtracts any overspending from the next month’s Available to Budget figure (according to rule #4). In most cases this is best. But if, for example, you want to “punish” a specific category for that overspending in the next month, you can click on the little red arrow next to the negative arrow. This will then carry over that negative figure to the next month for that category.

In the example below I set my Fun Money: His category to carry over the negative balance so that it doesn’t start fresh in the next month (it wouldn’t be fair to my wife’s Fun Money category if it did). Notice how the figures (in the red box) for “Overspending” and “YNAB Buffer for Jan” are affected.

A Few Other Features

Expandable Window: If you happen to have a computer screen with a lot of real estate, you can now see more than 2 months at a time by simply making the YNAB 3 window larger. A small, but welcomed improvement.

Date Slider: You can quickly view the months of your choice by dragging the slider at the top of the Budget screen.

Customizable Categories: I already mentioned this, but thought it deserved a little more attention. With most budget software (and with the previous version of YNAB), your categories are fixed in alphabetical order. YNAB 3 now allows you to drag and drop the master categories or the sub-categories into any order that you choose. Very handy.

Now that you’re fairly familiar with the Budget screen, I’ll introduce you to the Accounts screen:

YNAB 3’s Accounts Tab

As previously mentioned, the Accounts tab is home to the information for all of your bank transactions. Under the main Accounts tab, you will find a smaller tab for each of the bank accounts that you’ve added. You can display or hide any account that you wish.

Adding Accounts

Adding accounts is simple, as expected. These accounts represent your actual bank accounts. After clicking the Add Account button below the Accounts tab, you’re presented with a screen to enter your account name, balance, type of account, etc. You can see below that they offer many kinds of bank account types to manage.

The main window to the right of the account tabs is the Transaction Window, containing all the information for each of your bank transactions. By default the transactions window shows the date, payee, category, memo, outflow (debit), inflow (credit), and a running balance. It also allows you to mark the transaction as cleared or give it a colored flag of your choice.

A great new feature of YNAB 3 is that you can customize which columns appear in the this transaction window. If you don’t want a Memo column, you don’t have to have it. Want a Check Number column? You got it.

Adding Transactions in YNAB 3

Adding transactions in YNAB 3 is extremely simple. You have two options to add your transactions, you can either 1. add your transactions manually or 2. import them from your bank.

Add Transactions Manually

This is one area that I tend to be a little picky in. Being that my wife and I usually add our transactions manually (it helps me feel to the influence/pain of my spending more), the ease and speed of data entry is pretty important to me. This is also one area where YNAB 3 does especially well.

Every piece of data in your transaction can be entered without every having to leave your keyboard to touch your mouse. Also, the fields begin to auto fill as you start to type your data. This all may seem like small things, but trust me, it’s little details like this that cut your budgeting time WAY down and that a good piece of software certainly won’t overlook. Thank you YNAB for paying such attention to detail.

Importing Transactions

For those who would rather skip the data entry, YNAB 3 makes it extremely easy to get all of your bank transactions into YNAB in a flash. YNAB supports the most commonly used file formats from your bank: OFX, QFX, and QIF. Simply download your transactions from your bank, click the Import button at the top, and follow the instructions.

Once your transaction data has been imported into YNAB 3, the software reminds you that you need to review each transaction (indicated by a faint warning triangle). This is your opportunity to rename the payees if you want and to add a budget category to each one.

Scheduling Recurring Transactions

At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find the Scheduled Transaction area. YNAB 3 also offers the ability to schedule recurring transactions so you don’t have to remember them each time they come around. This is just as simple as adding a regular transaction. You can schedule it monthly, weekly, every 3 months, or just about any other time period you can think of.

Search in YNAB 3

One of the great new features of YNAB 3 is the ability to perform very intelligent searches within your transactions. By clicking in the search box at the top right of the application, the screen turns from green to blue, indicating that you’re in search mode (again, a simple but brilliant design).

YNAB 3’s search is quite robust. As you begin to type, it starts offering options for you to search by. For example, when you start typing in “gr” it shows you payee’s that have “gr in the name, categories with “gr”, a ‘gr’een flag, and on and on.

You can also include multiple parameters in your search. For example, in the screen shots below, I searched in the Groceries category, with the Payee name “Costco” and after the date of 12/13/09. It gave me the one transaction that matched all of those requirements.  This can be extremely powerful and helpful if you’re looking for specific transactions.

This is one of the many details that is setting YNAB 3 apart from it’s competitors. Very intuitive and very powerful.

Other Nifty Tools and Tricks

There are a few other well thought out details that I thought I’d briefly highlight here as well.

Splitting Transactions: An absolute essential item for any good budgeting software is the ability to split your bank transaction into multiple budget categories. I may, for example, buy food (Groceries) and an oil filter (Auto Repair) at Walmart in the same transaction. YNAB 3 allows you to quickly and easily split those transactions with a few clicks (it even calculates the remaining amount for you as you add categories).

Transfer Transaction Jump: On a transaction that is a simple transfer of money between two accounts, you’ll find an icon with blue and green arrows next to the “payee.” Clicking this icon will take you to the other side of that transfer (to your other account). As small, but often helpful detail.

Payee Settings and Rename Like Payees: By right clicking on a transaction you can choose to enter the Payee Settings screen where you can customize how you want the data for your future imports to perform. You can also rename like payees very easily for past transactions. Some nice touches.

YNAB 3’s Reports Tab

The new reporting capabilities of YNAB 3 is a big improvement over YNAB Pro’s. Reporting in YNAB Pro was pretty basic and always fell a little short of most other competing software. YNAB 3’s reporting graphs, however, now pack a new punch.

One thing that I really like about YNAB’s reports (that differs from many other software applications), is that you are not only shown a visual graph of your data, but you can simultaneously see the data in a table as well.

That table serves two purposes: 1. to give you easy access to the data and 2. to serve as a selection tool and key to your graph. Each item in your graph shows the corresponding item highlighted in the same color in the table. You can also click any item in the table to “draw” or un-draw that item in your graph. See the screen shots below for a clearer picture:

As you would expect, you can change the date range of your reports by dragging the date slider (or its ends) below the graph to cover the dates you want.  Also, the size of the table and graph can be easily changed with a simple drag of the mouse.

I’ll briefly go over each report that YNAB offers:

Spending Trends

The Spending Trends report is a very useful graph and table that shows you how your spending has changed over time for each category that you choose. Here’s a screenshot:

You can select (in the table) any master or sub-category that you want to be drawn on the graph. This can be helpful if you have an outlier that is skewing your graph (as shown in the screen shots below). Simply deselect that category to take it off the graph.

YNAB 3 also offers 3 “Quick Graph” options where you can choose to graph the top 5 master categories, the top 5 sub categories, or all master categories.

One last note: I also like that they’ve included the percentage numbers next to the items in the table. It’s light enough that it’s not distracting, but there in case you’d like to know.

Spending Totals

The Spending Totals report gives you that often seen pie graph showing your distribution of total spending for your different categories:

You can now drill down into each master category by clicking on it’s piece of the pie. You can then see the sub category spending for that particular master category.

Net Income/Net Worth

The Net Income/Net Worth report is a handy one indeed. It helps you to see a quick view of your cash flow and wealth accumulation over time. Here’s a screenshot:

By default, your Income, Expenses and Net Worth are drawn on the graph. You can quickly see how money has flowed into your life, how it’s flowed out, and how that’s effected your overall net worth. For example, in the screenshot above, you can see that we sold a car in July and bought a (less expensive) car in August.

You can also choose to include Net Income, Total Assets, and Total Liabilities in the graph as well.

Also, all of the above reports can be exported in a .csv format so you can play with the data in Excel as much as you’d like. You can also print the report as well.

eBook: The YNAB Way

If you’d like a very thorough, entertaining, and encouraging explanation of the budgeting methodology behind YNAB, you can purchase the ebook called The YNAB Way for $19.95.

It’s a quick read (only 40-50 pages) that teaches you the why behind the methodology so you’ll understand the why behind how the software works. They’ve made the ebook convincing, outlining in great detail the benefits of this Four Rule methodology.

YNAB 3’s Price and Free Trial

YNAB 3’s retail price is $59.95, a reasonable price to pay for such high quality software. And with the average YNAB user saving around $300 in the first month, it’s well worth the purchase price.

For those wanting to test drive the software before purchase, YNAB offers a 7-day full feature trial to let you see if YNAB is right for you.

YNAB 3’s Money Back Guarantee

If, for whatever reason, you’re not completely satisfied with YNAB 3, they offer a no-questions-asked 30-day money back guarantee.

30 days is plenty of time for you to fall in or out of love with YNAB, so there’s no risk in buying. This kind of money back guarantee is quite refreshing.

The YNAB 3 software is extremely effective and easy to use. It’s simple, and that’s what makes it so powerful. The software itself is very well designed - it’s apparent that a good deal of thought went into even the smallest of details to make the system quick and intuitive.

The level of support that you receive with YNAB is superb. There is a myriad of resources available to you (online guides, video tutorials, live coaching, amazing community forums, direct contact with the founder, etc.) to ensure your budgeting success. This is in stark contrast to most software companies out there.

While the software itself is fantastic, the real power of YNAB comes from the budgeting system that lies behind the software. YNAB’s “4 rules of cash flow” make up what is one of the most effective ways to manage your money that I’ve found. I love the YNAB budgeting methodology because it focuses you on the tasks that actually make a difference in the way you spend and save money.

YNAB states that it is: “Budgeting Twice as Effective, in Half the Time.” And after using YNAB in my family for over 2 years now, I must say that I completely agree. It’s simple, fast, and effective. And it’s sure to save you loads of money.

Try YNAB 3 for Free

Pre-Release Information on YNAB 3

Below is a collection of writings that were based on information that the folks at YNAB spilled out about YNAB 3 prior to its actual release.

I’ve kept this information here for reference in case anyone was interested in some of the developments that lead up to the release.

*Note: The order of the information is sequential, starting here with the oldest info and proceeding with each new update.

Pre-Release YNAB 3 Information

I recieved an email from YNAB the other day about a new version of YNAB that will be coming out later this year. It will replace YNAB Pro and will be called YNAB 3. I get excited just thinking about it.

Public talk of YNAB 3 began on April 9th when Jesse shot a quick comment about the new version on the YNAB blog. A boy did people get excited! I was amazed to see that within only 2 days there were upwards of 70+ comments on the post. It’s great to see just how passionate and supportive the YNAB users are. It’s gained quite a following.

*Note: Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the screen to see the latest updates on YNAB 3 as I’ll be updating this post on all newly released information.

YNAB 3 to Run on Mac

The email was brief but it did mention one thing that made me literally say “Yes!” out loud as I read the email alone in my office. YNAB 3 will run on a Mac.

I’m a Mac user and have been waiting for this day for a while. While I use an emulator to run Windows (and YNAB) on my Mac (in fact, the sole reason why I bought the emulator was just so that I could use YNAB Pro…yes, I like it that much), it will be nice to have a Mac version.

YNAB 3 Screenshot

Until the receipt of this email we knew little about what the new version would entail. Ok, we still don’t know very much, but we do have a screenshot! Here’s the screenshot of the Register in YNAB 3 (click to enlarge):

What’s Different About YNAB 3?

Here’s some differences that I see right off the bat:

• Much better design - Graphically, I’m loving the look of the app.
• You now have on and off budget accounts (allows you to track money that isn’t integrated into your budget). I like it.
• Nice undo feature after some types of transaction editing.
• A search bar
• Easy time frame change buttons
• Nice import button
• A new Working Balance that tracks your bank balance according expenses that have and haven’t cleared the bank
• A slew of other actions that can be done from this screen without having to right-click
• Jesse also mentioned on the forums that you can customize the columns that you want shown. These can include check #, memo’s, etc. That’s awesome!

I can’t wait to see the Budget and Reporting sections of the app.

According to Jesse’s twitter, YNAB 3 is being built on Adobe’s Flex/AIR platform. This should allow for a ton of functionality and some really fun features.

How Much is YNAB 3?

While YNAB hasn’t had to charge for an upgrade thus far, I have to assume that they’ll have to charge something for this new version. It sounds like they’re putting a lot of time, effort, and money into this new version. One thing is for sure: it will be worth it!

YNAB 3 Info

In order to make it easier for the readers to keep up on the latest updates about YNAB 3, I’ll use this one post as a running collection of all the new information that YNAB releases about YNAB 3.

So visit this page often as I’ll be updating it everytime I hear something new about YNAB 3!

New ScreenShot

Saturday while I was downloading YNAB Pro on my new computer, I was asked if I wanted YNAB to keep me up to date on the new YNAB 3. Of course I said yes, but what I wanted to mention here is that they showed a new (although small) screenshot of YNAB 3.

Here it is:

This appears to be the same screenshot as above, but it looks like the right section is the new Reports area. From the little that you can see, it’s looking pretty good!

New YNAB 3 Site on YNAB.com

Many may have noticed that YNAB.com now has a new site design (along with a new 15-Day free trial). The main difference I see as that they no longer have the long sales copy they once had, and instead have a very suscinct webpage that still offers a great deal of information. It looks nice, clean, and to the point.

What you may not have noticed, however, is that they’ve dedicated a section to the new YNAB 3 that’s currently in development. You can see the new YNAB 3 page here.

This will be a great resource for those wanting to keep up on the latest developments of YNAB 3. There are four sections: Screenshots, Features, Video Demos, and Frequently Asked Questions.

ScreenShots

Currently the screenshots sections only contains the same screenshot that I have posted above. I’ll be sure to update when more show up.

New Features

They list a number of new features of YNAB 3. I’ve summarized them here:

• Mac Compatible: A much anticipated benefit.
• Reports: It sounds like some great improvements are being made to the reporting functionality (something that is certainly welcomed since YNAB Pro reports could use some improvements).
• Register Search: They’re adding search in the registry that offers suggestions as you type.
• Undo
• Customizable Fields: You can add or take away columns in the registry as you wish.
• Budgeted Accounts vs. Other Accounts: You can now also track accounts that aren’t part of your budget (loans, mortgage, etc.)
• Flexibility with Rules Three and Four: You will be able to determine how your overage or surplus amounts will affect next month’s budget. (I’m excited about this one!)
• Moving Money Between Categories: Drag and drop money between categories. Nice!
• Advanced Smart-ness: To help you when a mistake has been made or if you need reminding, etc.
• Scheduler Improvements: Apparently better.
• Using Your Screen Real Estate: It sounds like your YNAB window will be “fluid,” allowing you to see more as you increase your window size. This is likely due to the fact that it’ll be written on the Adobe AIR platform.

Video Demos

Scroll down for the links to a sneak peek at the YNAB 3 budget.

Frequently Asked Questions

There’s a brief FAQ section that answers some basic questions about pricing, Mac compatibility, possible release dates, and prepayment for YNAB 3. Be sure to check it out.

I was glad to see that all your current YNAB data from YNAB Pro will easily migrate over to YNAB 3.

So don’t worry, just because YNAB has a new page dedicated to keeping us all updated on YNAB 3, doesn’t mean that I’ll quit on my end. I’ll be sure to update here every time any new information becomes available on YNAB 3. Each new post will have a date icon () so you’ll know if you’ve missed anything since you last visited us.

YNAB 3 Budget Sneak Peek

YNAB just posted two sneak peek video previews of the budget area in YNAB 3! The videos let us briefly see the new look as well as some new features introduced in YNAB 3.

Check out the videos by clicking the links below:

Video 1: Changes in the Look, Categories, and Notes

Video 2: Improvements to the Spent Tooltip and Rule Four.

I’ll briefly go over a few of the cool items covered in the video:

Changes in the Look, Categories, and Notes

Overall Look and Feel - I must say that I’m quite impressed with the overall look and feel of the application from what I’ve seen far. The design is very clean and uncluttered. Everything looks intuitive enough that someone with no previous YNAB experience will easily and quickly feel right at home with the system.

Here’s a screenshot: (click the image to enlarge it)

Account Tabs - They all now appear on the left, rather than on top. You also now have the ability to track on-budget and off-budget accounts. I like it.

Available to Budget - I like how they’ve broken down the numbers so you can now more easily see how it is that your Available to Budget amount is figured.

Expanding Window - One new, very nice feature for those with larger computer screens is that by expanding the YNAB window larger, you can see more columns of your budget. Before you were always restricted to month’s of data.

Categories - The categories are now even more flexible than they were before. You can drag and drop categories or master categories to rearange them, edit them more quickly, add notes, and more.

Improvements to the Spent Tooltip and Rule Four

Spent Tooltip - Previously the Spent tooltip in YNAB Pro showed a list of transactions that displayed where you spent your money. The new Spent tooltip, however, is much better.

Primary among the improvements is the ability to click on a transaction in the tooltip (which is scrollable, by the way) and be taken to the register with that transaction highlighted. This makes tracking down your expenses much faster.

You can also see all transactions for the given category if you choose to. If you, for whatever reason, you choose to do so, you can now also reorder the columns in the tooltip.

Rule Four - This is a huge improvement and one that many will be very excited to see. Previously in YNAB Pro, if you overspent in one category, that overspent amount would be deducted from the total Available to Budget number for the next month.

With the new functionality of YNAB 3, however, you can choose to “rollover” the overspent for a specific category into that same category for the next month. This is totally optional and is done on a category by category basis.

At the end of the video Jesse reiterated the fact that YNAB 3 will be released in 2009 (only a couple more months to go!) and that they are working very hard to get it finished as quickly as possible.

The comments on the videos and the new YNAB 3 are already extremely positive. One commented, “Looks beautiful!” Another wrote in gratitude: “Your team is changing lives!”

Stay tuned, I’ll keep posting the latest and greatest YNAB 3 info as soon as it comes out!

New YNAB 3 Register Screenshot

YNAB released another screenshot of the YNAB 3 register, and it’s looking nice:

As you can see, compared to the first screenshot at the top of this page, there have been a few, exciting changes to the register. Probably most obvious among the changes would be that the Scheduled Transactions is now integrated into the register at the bottom of the screen.

Also very prominent in the screenshot are the warning indications that they have put into place to help you see areas that in your transactions that need some attention. A nice touch. There are also many other little changes that are adding to overall offering. You can tell that the YNAB team has put a great deal of thought into the user experience. It’s truly developing into an one-of-a-kind application.

All in all, I’m excited about the direction that YNAB 3 is going. It will certainly bring some great improvements upon the already very effective YNAB Pro.

FREE YNAB 3 Upgrade!

YNAB recently announced that if you purchase YNAB Pro anytime after September 1st, you can upgrade to YNAB 3 absolutely Free!

So for those of you who have been holding off on buying YNAB Pro because you had plans to buy YNAB 3, your dilemma is now solved. Now is a perfect time to start using YNAB Pro and familiarizing yourself to the YNAB methodology. Then, when YNAB 3 is released later this year (2009), you can upgrade at no cost (via download).

*Note: This may also be your opportunity to get YNAB 3 at a lower cost. YNAB hasn’t announced the pricing for YNAB 3 yet, and it’s possible the the price will be higher than the current $49.95 (it definitely won’t be cheaper). If that’s the case, save yourself some money by buying YNAB Pro now and upgrading for free later! Click here to buy YNAB Pro.

YNAB 3 Pricing Finalized

YNAB announced last week that it has finalized the pricing for YNAB 3! All things considered I think they’ve found some very reasonable price points, both for new and existing customers. Here’s the nitty gritty:

• YNAB 3 will sell at a retail price of $59.95
• Existing customers (who own YNAB Pro or Basic) will pay $39.95 to upgrade to YNAB 3.
• As mentioned in the previous post, anyone who purchased YNAB Pro after Sept. 1st, 2009 will upgrade for FREE.

***But…if you’d like a large discount…you can purchase beta access:

• Existing customers can buy beta access for only $34.95. That’s almost 42% off the retail price!
• New customers can buy beta access for $49.95 ($10 off).
• Or…new customers can simply buy YNAB Pro for $49.95 and upgrade to YNAB 3 for free when it’s released.
• Obviously, anyone who buys into the beta access will get the full version once it’s released to the public.
• If you buy into beta access, you don’t have to use the software — you can just wait for the full release having already taken advantage of the discount.

So, for those that have been waiting for YNAB 3 to come out (either because they want the software for their Mac or because they just want the new features) be sure to buy during the beta period so that you can take full advantage of the sweet discounts!

If you’re a new customer, click here to buy YNAB Pro (and upgrade to YNAB 3 for FREE), or click here to request access to the betatest.

For complete details about the pricing, see YNAB’s Pricing Post.

***Update (12/11/09): Apparently YNAB changed the pricing a bit for those upgrading to YNAB from YNAB Pro and Basic and opting in for the public beta.  They have this table now on their website:

YNAB 3 is Getting Close…

Jesse at YNAB put up a nice little teaser post about YNAB 3 that showed a screenshot of it’s application installer. This leads me to believe that we’re getting very close to the release (or at least the private beta).

He mentioned a possible sneak peak video as well. I’ll be sure to post about it as soon as it’s available.

2 New YNAB 3 Sneak Peak Videos

YNAB released two new sneak peak videos today of YNAB 3! In them we see the updated register features as well as the much anticipated Reports area.

Click on the links below to view the videos:

Video 3: Reports - Spending and Net Worth

Video 4: Register features - search and optional columns

Here’s a brief synopsis of what the videos contain:

Reports

Budget Screen: One improvement that we saw in the last sneak peak videos is that the “Available to Budget” areas contained more data to show how the numbers are calculated. I love this, but was concerned that it took up too much space. Well as you can see in the Reports video, they allow you to collapse those areas to only show the high level numbers. I like it.

Spending Reports - Totals: The upper part of the screen houses a data grid that shows all of your spending in a very familiar format (looks like your budget). The rows are collapsible and the data can be sorted in ascending/descending order as well. Nice touch.

The familiar spending pie graph (that we’re used to seeing in many personal finance software apps) is housed in the bottom part of the screen. YNAB has implemented some very nice functionality here that allows you click on sections of the pie graph to drill down into deeper categories in your budget. Of course, you can see spending amounts listed on the graph as well as when hovering a pie piece.

The graphs use an effective slider at the bottom allowing you to easily choose which time frames of data you want to see.

Spending Reports - Trends: The Trends graphs is a linear graph that shows you your spending trends. Naturally, you can easily change the date range using the same slider as was just mentioned.

What I really like about this graph is it is completely customizable in terms of what spending categories you want to see. They offer a few “Quick Graphs” to show all master categories, top 5 master categories, and top 5 sub categories. But you can also check the box next to any category to add it to the graph.

I also think it’s neat that the data grid also serves as a legend to the graph. Each colored line on the graph corresponds to colored category row in the spending grid. Nice and intuitive.

Other very nice features includes the ability to resize the grid and graph areas to your liking, export the data to Excel, or print the data.

Net Income/Net Worth: This is a nice graph that shows your progress in your net income/net worth.

Register

Optional Columns: We knew they were coming, but here we got to see how it would actually be implemented. As we would expect, it’s very intuitive and easy. Simply click the icon to the right of columns and select which columns you want shown.

Search: YNAB 3’s search looks nothing short of amazing; I was very impressed by its robust search features. I like that it suggests search items as you type (categories, payees, and more).

I also like that you can multiple search requirements to really drill down in the search to find the transactions that you want. Well done.

While some may think it a little thing, I appreciate the fact that when you begin searching, it becomes apparent that you are in “search mode” by giving a green frame to the register.

It’s details like this that YNAB implements that truly make the software easy to use, intuitive, and effective. It’s things like this that set YNAB apart from the competition.

Looking for a Conclusion?

If you’re one of the many who don’t have time to read the full review and have skipped to the bottom of the page looking for a conclusion, you can find my conclusion of the YNAB 3 review here.

The latter part of this review (with the text in gray) is a collection of information that was leaked prior to the actual release of the new YNAB 3 software.  I’ve pasted it here in case anyone was interested in how YNAB 3 came about.

Try YNAB 3 for Free