Raynab

Overview

You Need A Budget, or simply YNAB, is a budgeting app popular for its focus on budget managing tenant called The Four Rules.

Raynab is an extension allowing YNAB users to manage one or multiple budgets directly from within Raycast. The aim is to reduce friction and allow you to stay on top of your budget at any point in time.

Getting Started

You will need a YNAB account to use this extension. If you don’t you can start a new trial.

Credentials

Raynab is powered by the YNAB API. In order for the extension to work, it needs to have access to your account via your Personal Access Token. Here are the steps necessary to obtain them:

1. Sign in to the YNAB web app and get to the "Account Settings".
2. Locate and navigate to the “Developer Settings” page.
3. Click on the “New Token” section button under the “Personal Access Tokens” section.
4. Enter your password and click “Generate” to get an access token.
5. Open a Raynab command.
6. Follow the instructions and paste your Access Token in the token field.

Budget Selection

Given that YNAB can be used to handle multiple budgets, in order to properly use the extension across its 5 commands, you must select the budget you would like to have access to.

The Select Active Budget command lists all your budgets. The currently selected one will display a checkmark on its right. To change it simply press Enter and the selection will be saved locally. Once that's done, you're set 🎉

You can change the active budget at any time using the command. For most people with only one budget, that won’t be necessary after the first time.

Commands

List Transactions

This command will list your transactions for up to a year. It is the heart of Raynab as this will probably the place where you will spend most of your time understanding your inflows, outflows, and transfers.

Transaction Item

By default, each transaction is presented from left to right:

• A green plus sign for inflows, and a red minus sign for outflows.
• The name of the payee.
• The amount of the transaction (either positive or negative).
• A set of optional icons to highlight specific transaction attributes:
  • A transfer icon for transfers between two accounts.
  • A magnifying glass icon for unreviewed transactions.
  • A lock icon for reconciled transactions.
  • A coins icon for split transactions.
• How long ago it occured relative to today.

Transaction filter dropdown

By default, Raynab will show all past transactions. However, it is useful to isolate unreviewed transactions in the list view, and take a peek at scheduled transactions—occuring in the future.

The transaction filter dropdown (⌘ + P) allows you to modify the list view to switch between past, unreviewed, and upcoming transactions.

Detailed View

Pressing Enter (↵) will show the transaction detail view which provides more information about the selected transaction.

Transaction List Actions

Inspect Transaction

• Toggle Details (↵): Give a detailed view of the transaction

  • For regular transactions:
    • Account name
    • Amount
    • Date
    • Category, or categories if split transaction
    • Status
    • Flag
    • Memo
  • For scheduled transactions:
    • Account name
    • Amount
    • Frequency
    • Next transaction date
    • Category
    • First Occurence
    • Flag
    • Memo

• Edit Transaction (⌘ + ↵): Edit any of the provided transaction information:

  • Date

  • Amount

  • Payee Name

  • Memo

  • Flag

    Editing an unreviewed transaction will automatically mark it as reviewed.

  • Open in YNAB (⌘ + O): Open the current budget in the YNAB Web App.

    YNAB doesn’t have a specific view of the transaction, this will simply direct you to the transaction view for the associated account.

  • Toggle Flags (⌥ + F): Show or hide flags for all transactions

    Flags are hidden by default as they are optional for users of YNAB

Update Transaction

• Delete Transaction (⌥ + ⇧ + X): Delete the currently selected transaction. This is a destructive action
• Approve Transaction (⌥ + A): Only available on unreviewed transactions, this action helps you mark them as approved as quickly as possible
  • In case YNAB recognizes the transaction and already has a category assigned, Raynab will mark it as approved as is after a prompt
  • Otherwise, Raynab will redirect you to the Transaction Edit view where you can update it manually

    Note: If you want to approve a transaction which has the wrong category assigned by YNAB, use the Edit Transaction action (⌘ + ↵)

    💡: Switching to "Unreviewed" allows you to quickly approve transactions in one place just like in YNAB.

Change List View

Actions in this list are behind submenus. Each action will show a checkmark icon when selected. Click on the same action to deselect it.

• Set Grouping (⌘ + G): Group transactions in sections by a given criterion

  • Category: The category of the transaction
  • Payee: The counterpart name
  • Account: The account of the transaction

• Set Sorting (⌘ + S): Sort the transactions

  • Amount ascending
  • Amount descending
  • Date ascending
  • Date descending — This is the default. Will return to this state if nothing is selected.

• Set Timeline (⌘ + T): Allow to change the time period of the listed transactions

  • Last day

  • Last week

  • Last month

  • Last quarter

  • Last year

    To prevent an empty list view, if you try to select a period in which a transaction hasn’t occurred, it will automatically select the closest period at which there is at least one transaction. For example, if the last transaction occurred 2 days ago and you try to select Last Day, it will fall back to the last week's timeline. So on and so forth, but will stop if no transactions are available in the last year. When opening the Command for the first time, we make this check for you.

• Set Filter (⌘ + F): Filter the transactions by inflow or outflow

  • Inflow: Positive transactions are shown

  • Outflow: Negative transactions are shown

  This action is superseded by the advanced search feature, more on that below, but I’ve decided to keep it.

Other

• Create a new transaction (⌥ + C): Allows you to quickly create a transaction and automatically update the list if successful

Advanced Search

My personal favourite feature about the extension. Advanced Search makes use of modifiers to filter the transactions list to match the query. It is mainly inspired by Slack and Google search features.

Here are the available modifiers:

• account Only show results for the given account name.
• type Can either be “inflow" or "outflow”. This is similar to the Filter submenu mentioned above.
• category Only show results for the matched category name.
• amount Only show results which match the exact amount.

Let’s say you would like to search for a transaction at your favourite restaurant, Taco Bell (I won’t judge).

• Typing Taco Bell will show you all the results for a payee matching that query.
• Typing Taco Bell account:chase checking will show all the transactions for "Taco Bell" in your "Chase Checking" account.
• Typing Taco Bell account:chase checking category:vacation will show all the transactions for “Taco Bell" in your “Chase Checking" account that were registered under "Vacation”.

As you can see, you can combine modifiers with your query, but what if you wanted to show all of a payee’s transactions which did not occur in a particular account.

Negative modifiers are the same as normal modifiers, but instead they will exclude all transactions which match their input.

• Typing Taco Bell account:chase checking -category:groceries will show Taco Bell transactions but not those you have filed as "Groceries” by "mistake”.

You don't need to enter a payee name before using modifiers. For example type:inflow will show all transactions with non-negative amounts.

Note: The payee name must happen before any modifiers otherwise they will be ignored. Typing account:chase checking Taco Bell will show all transactions in your Chase Checking account.

Unreviewed Transactions

This menu bar command, when activated, will allow you to visualize how many uncategorized, or unapproved transactions are present in the selected budget broken down by account.

Clicking on any of the menu items will open the List Transactions command filtered by unreviewed transactions.

Create Transaction

File a new transaction into your budget by entering its related information.

The following fields are required:

• Date
• Amount (Must be a non-zero floating point number)
• Payee Name
• Category

Schedule Transaction

Create a new scheduled transaction which will be applied at the specified future date with an option for repetition.

The following fields are required:

• Date
• Amount (Must be a non-zero floating point number)
• Repeats (defaults to "Never")
• Payee Name
• Category

List Accounts

Display a list of all accounts associated with the selected budget.

Account Item

Each account is presented from left to right:

• A green icon when the account is considered “On Budget”, red otherwise
• The name of the account
• A link icon denoting the status of “Direct Import Linking” for that account:
  • Grey: The account isn’t linked
  • Green: The direct import is functioning
  • Red: There is an error with the direct import

Account List Actions

• Show Related Transactions (↵): Take a peek at recent transactions on the selected account

• Create New Transaction (⌥ + C): Create a new transaction on the selected account:

  • Amount
  • Payee
  • Date
  • Category

• Open in YNAB (⌘ + O): Open the current account in the YNAB web app.

  YNAB doesn’t have a specific view of the transaction, this will simply direct you to your budget. If this behavior changes in the future, we will change the redirect to lead to your account.

View Active Budget

Gives access to the current monthly budget information by listing its different categories along with their balance and state.

Category Item

Categories are grouped in their original category group. Each category is presented from left to right:

• The category name
• The category's goal target (Optional)
• The remaining balance to date. The tag will have different colors depending on the current shape of the category:
  • Neutral: Grey
  • Funded: Green
  • Underfunded: Yellow
  • Overspent: Red

Budget View Actions

Inspect Budget

• Show Details (↵): Give a detailed view of the category

  • Balance
  • Activity this month
  • Budgeted
  • Goal Target, if any
  • Category Status (Optional)
  • Goal created
  • Percentage completed
  • Months to go [to complete the goal]

• Show Monthly Budget (⌘ + ↵): Show additional information about the monthly budget

  • Budgeted
  • Activity this month
  • Age of Money
  • To Be Budgeted
  • Income

• Show Related Transactions (⇧ + ⌘ + ↵): Take a peek at recent transactions on the selected category

• Open in YNAB (⌘ + O): Open the current budget in the YNAB Web App

• Toggle Progress (⌘ + ⇧ + P): Show or hide progress bar for category goals.

  Categories with no goals or associated progress will show as N/A

Modify List View

• Edit Category (⌘ + E): Edit any of the provided transaction information
  • Budgeted Amount

    This is the only available form field due to a restriction of the current YNAB API

• Create New Transaction (⌥ + C): Create a new transaction in the selected category
  • Category: The category of the transaction
  • Payee: The counterpart name
  • Account: The account of the transaction

More about transaction forms

Transfers

When marking a transaction as a transfer, you will be asked to select an account to transfer from, and an account receiving the amount instead of a payee name.

Account transfers do not have a category in YNAB, and therefore can not be split transactions.

Split Transactions

Split transactions are transactions with multiple categories. Transactions are automatically converted to split transactions when adding more than one category in the picker.

By default, Raynab will distribute the total evenly between the created categories as you add them to the list.

Category total and Auto-Distribute

The sum of all amounts for each category must always be equal to the transaction total amount. If that's not the case, Raynab will prompt you to adjust either the total or distribute them evenly across the categories for you. This function of Raynab is called "Auto-Distribute" from the feature of the same name in YNAB.

With multiple categories selected, you can trigger "Auto-Distribute" yourself at any point by using the "Distribute Total Equally" action.

In addition, when only two categories are selected, Raynab will balance the category amounts when making a change so that when one increases, the other decreases to match the initial transaction's total.

Editing existing split transactions

Due to a limitation of the YNAB API, existing split transactions cannot be edited.

Payee Names

By default, when editing an existing transaction, you can only select a pre-existing payee name. While this covers most of the use case for transaction edits, it is useful to have an option to manually set a new payee name.

The "Show Payee Textfield" action (⌥ + P) will allow you to replace the payee dropdown with a text field and vice-versa.

Author

Charles De Mount is a Designer & Software Developer who previously worked at SuperHi and Vercel. Send pets pics or angry messages on Twitter (@nogocharli), and job opportunities on LinkedIn.

Special thanks to the Raycast team and their ever growing API!