YNAB allows users to have multiple budget files. That feature is fabulous — it means you can have a personal budget file and a budget for each side gig. Or your teenagers can have their own budgets. Or couples can share expenses but also maintain separate budgets.
Whatever floats your boat….
I’m constantly changing back and forth between my household budget and my business budget files. Until recently, this involved a multi-step process in YNAB.
YNAB now offers it’s own native version of Budget Quick Switch. Honestly, they did a pretty good job too. There are aspects of both solutions that I like. If I were Queen, I’d combine the best of both and achieve perfection. Sadly, no one ever asks me.
YNAB’s Quick Switch
YNAB’s version of quick switching still requires an extra mouse move or two but no extra clicks.
Once you open YNAB’s main budget menu (Step 1 below; click on the white down arrow next to your budget name), if you hover your mouse over the Open Budget option, another menu slides to the right showing the names of the last 5 budget files opened. If you have more than 5 budget files and/or more than 5 of them are actively used, you may need to click on the View all Budgets link to access the file you’re looking for.
Toolkit for YNAB’s Quick Switch
The Toolkit for YNAB does a great job of eliminating the extra mouse moves. It also shows a full list of your budget files, not just the last 5 opened.
Now, I know that I’m unusual in the number of budget files I have in my YNAB account. Honestly, I’d just as soon not see the whole list. If I were Queen, I’d take the single-click aspect of the Toolkit’s Quick Switch, add an option to allow the user to refine how many budgets are shown (either based on date, e.g. used within 12 months, or a number, e.g. show 5, 10, all) and, most importantly, I’d remove the “Open” text in front of each budget name. If you look carefully at my examples, YNAB’s budget list only includes the names of the budgets while the Toolkit’s budget list includes the word “Open.”
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