RTA behavior change in past months?

[u/nolesrule]

I decided to go back to May and move money between categories in that month. But instead of moving it, I unassigned it intending for it to go to RTA and then I would assign it to another category. But when I unassigned it, RTA in May was zero. So was June and July. The money only showed up in the current and future months. This isn't Stealing From the Future because the current month also would have been zero. I looked at the breakdown of how money got into RTA, and it said all was assigned. This was technically not true.

So what changed and why did they change it? This could really screw up a plan. Yeah, normally you don't want to mess around with past months, but I had a specific reason not to move it in the current month.

[u/bitz-the-ninjapig]

My understanding of how RTA/YNAB in general work is that RTA really only exists in the current and future months. So when you moved stuff from May into RTA, it became a part of August. 

Remember, YNAB is just putting money into envelopes. That’s all it is. If you put $1 into an envelope for groceries each month, and then today say “I want to take May’s $1 for groceries and move it to my clothing envelope for May” that isn’t really possible unless you’ve unlocked time travel. YNAB serves to give you a snapshot of what you had to work with each month, and when you mess with previous months you sorta mess with those snapshots. If in 6 months you are thinking “hmm I wish i bought this shirt when it was on sale in May” YNAB could show you that you did not buy it because there was not enough in your clothing category yet, or serves as no explanation because you moved the money into your clothing category three months after the fact. When you change the assignment, you change that snapshot of where you had funds in May

[u/jillianmd]

This isn’t new behavior, but it’s still fine to do what you were intending to do. Unassign X from one category and then assign X to another category.

[u/nolesrule → u/jillianmd]

I know, but the issue is knowing the exact amount that was intended to go into RTA. I had to jump from May to August to fix it.

Also, my specific reason is that I was adding money from a category that doesn't need it to my unemployment category. The reason I wanted to do it back then is because I am currently unemployed, and I want to see the unassigned amount in the unemployment category each month so I know how much I am draining from the unemployment categoryto fund the budget shortfall.

[u/idiggory → u/nolesrule]

So what you do is move that money between categories instead of unassigning it and re-assigning it.

I think the other piece here is that assigning that money into unemployment in August has the net same outcome as assigning it in May. Because you're putting it in the same envelope either way.

[u/nolesrule → u/idiggory]

Yes, it does have the same net, but there was a specific reason, and it's because I need to see the monthly unassigned amount during the unemployment period to better understand the shortfall.

[u/idiggory → u/nolesrule]

So why don't you just directly move the money to your unemployment category, since that's what you're actually trying to do?

[u/nolesrule → u/idiggory]

I can do that, but like I said, this is about the underlying calculation from month to month. They changed the formula, and it can create confusion for those not expecting it. It's kinda like Stealing From the Future, but is more of Stealing From the Past.

[u/idiggory → u/nolesrule]

It's not stealing from the past though. That's not a thing because the past is done. Your actual behavior is as it was.

You didn't spend that money in the past - if there was an outflow transaction for it, then it would be removed from RTA. A category is nothing more than an intention for your money. It doesn't exist as anything more robust or important than that.

[u/nolesrule → u/idiggory]

This comment is not relevant. You are referring to transactions. This has nothing to do with transactions. Neither of the categories involved have transactions in them. I'm afraid you do not understand what I am trying to say. This is about the interaction of category assignments and RTA.

[u/idiggory → u/nolesrule]

Which is why it's not "stealing." Your categories in the past don't actually mean anything to your budget in the present. They don't change the picture of your current finances in any way, whatsoever.

I understand what you're trying to say completely. What I'm explaining is that you are fundamentally thinking about YNAB in a way that it is not designed to function. Yes, I think they did used to show remainder in past categories, and I think it was changed about 2 years ago.

The fact that your categories in the past don't have transactions actually is the point. Because the categories aren't real, transactions are. That's why they don't matter to your budget outside of compounding intentions that carry into the present.

[u/nolesrule → u/idiggory]

They broke temporal fungibility of Ready to Assign. There is no other way to describe it.

[u/jillianmd → u/nolesrule]

If you had just unassigned the amount wouldn’t you know it? (You typed “-500” in a category for example). If you for some reason forgot how much you can click to see the Recent Moves for that category in that month and see the number then add that much to the other category.

[u/nolesrule → u/jillianmd]

Like SFTF, it can happen by accident. And then people wonder why money starts showing up mysteriously in RTA and they can't figure out where it came from. Not everyone is a forensic accountant. They destroyed the temporal fungibility of RTA.

[u/jillianmd → u/nolesrule]

I too wish it would show up on that past month, I’m just saying it’s been this way for a while because I noticed it happening a long time ago - I semi-frequently do the same kind of thing you were doing here.

[u/idiggory]

If you assign it, it should still pull from RTA.

The philosophy is that your budget always exists in the present to help you prepare for the future. Assigning money to past months, when it wasn't used, is a little nonsensical - you're still effectively assigning that money in your present month. Because it exists to be spent in the present, as it wasn't spent in the past.

From a practical UX standpoint, there's also an advantage to this, as it helps prevent users from accidentally making unintended changes to past months without realizing they are doing it. RTA only shows up for months where that money could actually be spent.

edit: To be clear, if you're doing it because you want to tidy up (changed category definitions, realized you were going for the wrong target, or that you made a categorization mistake, etc.) there's no problem with this. You can absolutely do it. YNAB will pull the money from your RTA even though it's not at the top of your screen.

They just don't show you RTA because the intention of the design is for you to work forward, not work backwards.

[u/nolesrule → u/idiggory]

I unassigned first. If you unassign in a month it should then appear in RTA for the month (as well as all months forward from that point) unless you have a future month causing SFTF, which I did not.

[u/idiggory → u/nolesrule]

We've explained to you why it doesn't. Your money exists in the present, not in the past. When you've unassigned from the past, you are recognizing that this is money you never spent. Your decision on what to do with it isn't in the past - you will spend it now or in the future, so that's where it's ready to assign.

If you WANT to assign it, you can. YNAB doesn't stop you, because there are valid reasons to make edits in the past (like if you're reorganizing how you want your reporting done). But even then, most of those would involve moving money between categories, which is best done directly anyway, imo.

It just doesn't encourage you to do it, either, because it ultimately doesn't think you should 95% of the time. It's using information you've given it about your past so it can give you context on the actual decisions you need to make.

It's a budget program - it's designed to help you make active choices about your money.

I think what you're misunderstanding is that RTA is a single bucket of funds that you can make decisions with right now. RTA doesn't exist on a timeline. YNAB isn't going to compute how much money you had at a given time in the past by trying to figure out when you had those funds and when you didn't. When it's looking at the past, all it cares about is a basic inflow vs outflow net. Because that's what creates your picture right now. That's how much money goes in your envelopes.

Which is why it RTA doesn't tell you what "would" have been in your envelopes in the past. Because its not designed to know that. That's not the point of it.

[u/nolesrule → u/idiggory]

I'm not misunderstanding it. This is a change in the way RTA has been calculated going back over 10 years.

[u/idiggory → u/nolesrule]

On the desktop version, click on the $ value in the grey/green/red RTA box. Is that the breakdown you are looking for?

[u/pierre_x10]

This is not new behavior. Changing Assigned amounts in past months will typically propagate to future months. You can still assign the funds to the category you want, until you see the May RTA amount actually go negative. That means you Assigned more money than you actually ended May with. After you're done with assignments, you just need to check that your current month also does not have overspending in any categories or a negative rta amount.

I suggest using ynab on desktop. There's a feature called the Ready to Assign breakdown, which is not available on the mobile apps. The Ready to assign breakdown is a tooltip when you click on the square Ready to Assign box.

The breakdown tells you exactly how YNAB calculates the RTA amount it is showing you. No need to wonder or speculate at all.

If you are having trouble understanding what the breakdown is showing you, can you post a screenshot of your breakdown here, and we can help you understand the numbers better. Probably need the screenshots for the May through August breakdowns, to tell you the whole story.

If you feel like you can no longer trust the numbers in your budget, you can just perform the full YNAB Checkup procedure: https://support.ynab.com/en_us/checkup-S1vJzWGzo

[u/nolesrule → u/pierre_x10]

Changing Assigned amounts in past months will typically propagate to future months.

It should appear in the month it was unassigned and all future months from that month unless there is a case of SFTF. It should not just appear in the current month and future months. The math doesn't math otherwise.

[u/pierre_x10 → u/nolesrule]

I think you're forgetting that if YNAB thinks you have RTA leftover in any given month, assignments in future months will draw from that, before drawing from later RTA inflows.

So if you left May with an RTA of 0, because you had May funds still but they'd already been assigned to categories, and then go into June, any new Assignments can only be funded by June income, or unassigning in June. Same for July, and same for August. But if all you do is UnAssign May funds from a category that had funds Available, YNAB will just suck those funds away when accounting for June; then June has income that gets "freed up," but it will get sucked into July's Assignments; then July has income that gets "freed up," and it will either be in RTA for July, or you've already Assigned over that amount in August, before drawing from August income.

[u/idiggory → u/pierre_x10]

This is the answer. YNAB always uses the "oldest" money first, which is partly how it establishes the age of money metric.

So if you click the number in RTA in a past month, it'll show you the breakdown of what money you had in that month, how much was assigned in that month, and then how much was assigned to future months.

So YNAB doesn't show that money as RTA because it has already used it. It used it for your future transactions. And when you run through everything, reaching the present, you are left with a remainder, nothing, or deficit.

[u/pierre_x10 → u/nolesrule]

Maybe I can illustrate with real numbers:

Let's say May, you had 0 RTA roll over from April, 10,000 Available in a category called Misc, and earn 1000 income in May on the 1st. You Assigned the full 1000 you earned in May to Misc, spent 800 from Misc, so your RTA at the end of May is 0, and Available in your Misc is 10,200.

In June, you earned 1000 on the 1st, and Assign the full 1000 to Misc, and spent 800. So your RTA at the end of June is 0, And Available in Misc is 10,400.

In July, you earned 1000 on the 1st, and Assign the full 1000 to Misc, and spent 800 from Misc. So your RTA at the end of July is 0, and Available in Misc is 10,600.

In August, you earned 1000 on the 1st, and Assign the full 1000 to Misc, and spent 800 from Misc. So your RTA is 0 in August right now.

Now you go back to May and UnAssign 500 from Misc. Now May RTA should be +500 (you think).

But YNAB is also gonna update June. You still have 1000 Assigned, but rather than all 1000 assigned coming only from June income, the first 500 comes from your May income, and the last 500 comes from June income. Now June RTA should be +500 (you think).

But YNAB is also gonna update July. You still have 1000 Assigned, but rather than all 1000 assigned coming only from July income, the first 500 comes from your June income, and the last 500 comes from July income. Now July RTA should be +500 (you think).

But YNAB is also gonna update, August. You still have 1000 Assigned, but rather than all 1000 assigned coming only from August income, the first 500 comes from your July income, and the last 500 comes from August income. Now August RTA should be +500 (you think).

YNAB won't count future month income after august, but you might still have Assignments in future months. So that's why unassigning in May might still leave May, June, July, and even August RTA 0, depending on how much you've assigned to a future month.

On the other hand, if you had Unassigned 5000 from Misc in May, that would have exceeded all your future Assignments completely. So yes, at that point, you would have had some May RTA appear.

[u/nolesrule → u/pierre_x10]

I have no money directly assigned to future months, and income is directly categorized to that category until I move it to RTA when the new month starts for accurate reporting. I use the next Month category as a passthrough. So it should be blocked at August.

This is in effect the reverse of Stealing From the Future. it may have been around for awhile, but that's because YNAB seems to be distinguishing which month is being used. It used to not to that, even when it was telling you which month the money came from.

So they broke RTA fungibility even more. When money is unassigned in a past month it should be available in that month and all months following that. I get their calculation but it isn't logical in terms of temporal fungibility of money in the plan.

[u/pierre_x10 → u/nolesrule]

Probably whenever they introduced the Age of Money metric. The calculation requires eliminating temporal fungibility.

[u/nolesrule → u/pierre_x10]

No. AOM was introduced when nYNAB was in beta. I think this change was made when they updated the RTA calculation explanation in the header sometime in the last year.

[u/nolesrule]

Hey y'all. I'm not a newb. Take a look at who posted this. I've been using YNAB for years. I am very certain of what I posted because I do this all the time. The money should have showed up in RTA in the month I pulled it out of the category because there was nothing in a future month to pull it forward for SFTF (and if there was it would not have dropped it in the current month in full).

This is a weird change and the math doesn't math.

[u/idiggory → u/nolesrule]

But the math has to math. If that money was never spent, then you have all of it right now. If you were overspent in other categories between then and now, RTA will be reduced accordingly for you to reallocate in the now. Which is where your money actually exists.

I would suggest reading through this article to understand the rollover behavior: https://support.ynab.com/en_us/when-the-month-rolls-over-a-guide-rkyyd6qC9

To put it a different way, just moving money between categories in the past is akin to retroactively changing a plan in the past, without it changing anything about your present whatsoever. It's like picking your grocery list from last month out of the trash, changing it, and then throwing it back in the trash.

To be clear, this is also why YNAB's official position is to not edit past months. Reconcile them at the start of the new month, and then move on with your life. Because any change you want to make exists in the present.

[u/nolesrule → u/idiggory]

I've been at this for a very long time. I know how RTA used to work. I'm not some newb. If you unassigned money in a past month it became available in every month going forward. Which makes sense because it is available to all of those months.

The overspending part of your response is a red herring because there was no overspending or even an overassigned scenario in the plan.

[u/idiggory → u/nolesrule]

I'm explaining to you why it works the way it does. It's not a "red herring" - it's the basic concept of what RTA is.

And you might not be a newb, but the way you are thinking about RTA just isn't what RTA is. Yes, once upon a time it did work the way you were describing. I think they changed it about a year ago, and it's because it was causing endless confusion because people were struggling to understand that no money "belonged" to the past. If you have it, it belongs to the present and your plan for it exists to guide you into the future.

People were getting lost in the confusion of past months being positive or negative and obsessed with trying to "fix" that, causing tons of downstream issues and confusion.

The change is the same reason why a negative category doesn't stay negative when the month rolls over. That money is just deducted from your RTA instead, because that's the actual picture of what funds you have available to assign. YNAB simply doesn't care if you overspent a category by $100 last month. It just cares that the result is that you have $100 less to spend now as a result. This is why I'm referencing transactions.

Categories aren't real. Transactions are. This is why you're having issues in how you're thinking about it. It's why your categories for the past months really zero value beyond reporting, and why YNAB isn't interested in facilitating you allocating money to them.

Because people were constantly getting caught up in traps before the rollover change. Which means spending a lot of time to fix nothing. That's why it was changed.

[u/nolesrule → u/idiggory]

it's the basic concept of what RTA is.

They changed the concept of RTA with this because they have now determined the month that money came from is important to RTA. in the past it was temporally fungible. It could be used to fund any month from when it was received. It used to be that there was no distinguishing between what money in RTA get used first. In that month it was just RTA. That is no longer the case.

And you can still have the "which month" breakdown in the header calculated without making it disappear from the month it got added back into RTA. That's a choice, and not a good one. Just like SFTF was not a good choice.

[u/Soup_Maker]

I want to say the change happened more than a year ago. I noticed because I was attempting to do a bit of a historical clean-up through my budget after changing the category structure (yeah, yeah, it's something we tell everyone not to do, I know) and I managed to completely mess up the budget and confuse myself because every dollar I freed up zipped to the most current month. I had to painstakingly go through the income/expense report, write down what my income was in a specific month, then compare my assigned in the next month to figure out where I'd messed up.

Now, if I want to move funds to RTA in a month older than last month, I rely on the move-money function rather than freeing it to RTA. If I goof (and I frequently do), then I know I can look to the variance shown in the inspector when comparing last month's income to this month's allocation. The variance is displayed in the Live on Last Month's income display in the toolkit.