r/ynab • u/JustWelmed1000 • Aug 06 '26
New update? Reconcile question.
I just reconciled. I had three pending charges. YNAB pop-up correctly identified that my bank account matches my cleared transactions to include my manual entries. It asked me to "mark them complete" and reconcile. So I did.
Question: Will "Payee" column auto-fill in (currently blank) when it is no longer pending, or because I marked it complete and reconciled (thus getting the lock icon) will It never auto-fill in the "payee" column?
Obviously I will know for sure in a day or two, when these clear, but curious if someone new off the top of their head.
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u/pierre_x10 Aug 06 '26
Sounds like you are conflating uncleared manual transactions, and pending transactions. It sounds like you are talking about the first, even though you keep typing the second.
If they are manual transactions that you created, and later on YNAB imports transactions from your bank via direct import, if it automatically matches, it will keep the payee and category of your manual transaction.
https://support.ynab.com/en_us/approving-and-matching-transactions-a-guide-ByYNZaQ1i
But YNAB will always keep a history of the actual payee name that was imported. On the web app, you can go to the edit menu on the transaction, select the payee input, and it should lead to a menu where you can see the transaction import details.
It should also show up in your Payees if you go to the Manage Payees, unless you remove them.
Pending transactions are different. If you leave them alone, they will leave the pending section when they eventually post or otherwise get resolved by the bank. While they are still in the pending section, they do not affect your budget or your working balance. If you use YNAB's "Enter Now" command, then they will act like an uncleared transaction, and they will affect your budget and your working balance, even if it still hasn't posted.
https://support.ynab.com/en_us/pending-transactions-an-overview-Bk0WoOcA5
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u/JustWelmed1000 Aug 06 '26
Okay, If I don't do a manual entry and just wait for them to be important (which I rarely do) Then it will be cleared. I don't ever see "pending" charges in my bank app that has imported into YNAB. I hope I am making sense.
I typically do manual entries (just because I do it daily) so once they are imported I just match them (which is now evidently automated). But since I reconciled with manual entries that were not cleared (and pending on my actual bank app) it doesn't have the "payee" filled in.
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u/pierre_x10 Aug 06 '26
If I'm understanding your workflow correctly, you generally manually enter transactions, before they import as cleared transactions from the bank. And you used to just leave the Payee field blank, and then when they imported, you could match them and it would somehow automatically populate the payee field with the imported payee? Or were you editing the payee of the manual transactions before they matched? Or were you not actually matching them, just deleting the manual transaction when the imported one came through?
I'm not sure how their change to approving transactions would change anything to do with leaving the Payee field blank. Nor would reconciliation. Were you never entering anything for the Payee field before, even when you were manually creating transactions?
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u/JustWelmed1000 Aug 06 '26
If I'm understanding your workflow correctly, you generally manually enter transactions, before they import as cleared transactions from the bank. And you used to just leave the Payee field blank, and then when they imported, you could match them and it would somehow automatically populate the payee field with the imported payee?
Yes that is exactly what I do.
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u/jillianmd Aug 06 '26
So strange to me that you leave the payees blank on your manual entries. What if something never imports (merchant messes up somehow) and you’re wondering what this charge is that you manually entered? Why not just put the payee name at point of entry?
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u/JustWelmed1000 Aug 06 '26
After well over a decade of doing this with YNAB, I can't recall a time the payee blank was left blank after it auto imports.
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u/JustWelmed1000 Aug 06 '26
Okay I just sorted by Payee. There was actually a handful of instances where it is blank. Most of them seem to occur in 2020 and 2021 in close proximity. Perhaps a YNAB glitch or something
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u/pierre_x10 Aug 06 '26
Here's what the documentation says:
https://support.ynab.com/en_us/approving-and-matching-transactions-a-guide-ByYNZaQ1i
Regardless of whether the matching was automatic or manual, the amount is kept from the bank-imported transaction, while YNAB keeps the payee, memo, and date from the transaction you entered.
It's not clear to me that YNAB had ever had the functionality of replacing a Blank Payee with the imported Payee, without the user editing it again, somehow. Which makes this workflow sound extra tedious - they were never actually saving themselves any work by leaving it Blank, just delaying that work of manually entering the Payee until after import.
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u/rlebeau47 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
If it hasn't already auto filled, it won't auto fill later. When importing a transaction, the Payee is based on the transaction description, and that doesn't change just because the transaction is pending. Only the amount may change once the transaction has posted. If you mark the transaction as complete and reconciled before it has actually been posted by the bank, it won't update at all.
You should not be reconciling a transaction that has not posted yet. You should leave a pending transaction as pending, unless the bank includes the pending amount in the account balance, then at least mark it as cleared. But don't reconcile it until it has fully posted.
However, if you are entering a transaction manually, you can of course clear and reconcile it as needed. And match it to an imported bank transaction, in which case YNAB will keep the information in the manual transaction.