How to move your history from YNAB
YNAB gives you a zip file rather than a spreadsheet, and there are two tables inside it. Only one of them holds your transactions, which is the first thing to get right.
How to bring it in
- 1. Export your budget from YNAB. You get a zip file.
- 2. Open Money Talks, go to Settings and tap Import Data.
- 3. Choose YNAB from the list of apps.
- 4. Pick the zip exactly as YNAB gave it to you. There is no need to unzip it or hunt for the register inside.
- 5. Read the preview. It shows how many transactions will be added, which categories are new, and every row that was skipped along with the reason.
- 6. Confirm.
The file you need
YNAB exports a zip archive holding two CSV files: a register and a budget table.
You have the right file if its first line looks like this:
"Account","Flag","Date","Payee","Category Group/Category","Category Group","Category","Memo","Outflow","Inflow","Cleared"This is the register, the file with your transactions in it. You do not have to unzip anything: hand Money Talks the zip and it takes the register out itself.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to unzip the YNAB export first?
No. Hand Money Talks the zip as it came out of YNAB. It finds the register inside and reads that, and ignores the budget table that sits next to it. Unzipping first works too, in which case pick the file whose name ends in Register.csv.
Why are the amounts in two separate columns?
YNAB writes spending in Outflow and money received in Inflow, each with a currency symbol attached, and puts a zero in the other. Money Talks reads whichever column holds a real number and takes the direction from that, so nothing arrives with the sign flipped.
Will my categories keep their emoji?
Yes, on the part that comes across. YNAB writes each category three ways in the export, and Money Talks reads the leaf name, so Bills: Utilities arrives as Utilities with its emoji intact. If two of your groups share a leaf name they merge into one category, and the preview lists every category it is about to create, so you see that before confirming.
Do my budgets come across?
No, and that is deliberate. The zip holds a budget table, but YNAB budgets are built around assigning every unit of money a job, which does not translate into another app's rules without changing what the numbers mean. Your transaction history comes across in full, and you set budgets up on top of it.
What comes across from YNAB
- Every transaction with its date, payee and memo
- Categories, as the leaf name, with the emoji you put in them
- The direction of each row, read from whichever of Outflow and Inflow holds a number
- The account each transaction came from
What does not come across
- The budget table - The zip also holds a per-category budget table. Money Talks imports your transactions, and budgets you set up fresh, because a YNAB budget is built around rules that do not map onto another app one-to-one.
- Flags - YNAB's colour flags have no equivalent in Money Talks. Memos come across in full.
- Cleared status - Whether a transaction was reconciled with your bank is a YNAB workflow detail. The transaction itself comes across either way.
- Your accounts themselves - Each transaction remembers the account name it came from, and the preview lists the names it found. Money Talks does not recreate the accounts or their balances.
The export is a zip with two tables in it
Most apps hand you a CSV. YNAB hands you a zip, and inside are two files: a register, which is your transactions, and a budget table, which is the amounts you assigned to each category.
The register is the one with your history in it. Its name ends in
Register.csv, prefixed with your budget’s name and the date you exported.
You do not need to know any of that to import. Give Money Talks the zip as it came, and it takes the register out and leaves the budget table alone.
Outflow and Inflow instead of a sign
YNAB does not write a negative number for spending. It writes two amount columns and puts your money in one of them.
"Outflow" "Inflow"
$50.00 $0.00 <- a 50 expense
$0.00 $5000.00 <- income
Both carry a currency symbol, which is a small detail that breaks tools expecting a bare number. Money Talks reads the symbol off, takes whichever column holds a real value, and gets the direction from that.
Categories written three ways
The export repeats each category in three columns: Category Group/Category with
the full path, then Category Group and Category split apart. Emoji in the
names survive the export and come across as you wrote them.
Money Talks reads the last of those, the leaf name on its own, so
Bills: Utilities arrives as Utilities.
That is worth knowing if the same leaf name appears under two groups. A
Subscriptions under Bills and a Subscriptions under Fun arrive as one
category holding the transactions of both. The preview lists every category it
is about to create, so you can see the merge before you confirm and rename one
of them in YNAB first if you would rather keep them apart.
Why the budget table stays behind
YNAB’s method gives every unit of money a job this month. Its budget numbers mean “assigned”, not “planned to spend”, and the two are only the same until you move money between categories mid-month, which is the whole point of the method.
Importing those numbers as spending limits would produce budgets that look right and behave differently. Your transaction history is the part that transfers cleanly, and it is the part you cannot recreate by hand.