Moving from YNAB to Lunch Money: what transfers and what you rebuild by hand

The short version: CSV in, plan rebuilt by hand

Lunch Money publishes a migration guide for YNAB users, and it is built on the same CSV importer you would use for any bank file. The guide says Lunch Money supports migrating from YNAB "or any other app/bank providing CSV exports". The steps are: set up accounts, download transactions from YNAB, go to Transactions, click Import, choose Upload a new file (CSV or PDF), pick the destination account, map columns, categories and accounts, then review and import. [1]

What does not come across is the plan. Lunch Money says you set up the budget manually: choose a budgeting period, enable rollovers and optionally enter starting balances. [1] YNAB's export also leaves out targets and category notes. [2] Treat the move as two jobs: a file job for history, and a setup job for the budget.

Export from YNAB and check the file

In the YNAB web app, click your plan name at the top of the left sidebar and choose Export Plan. You get two files, one for the plan with categories and category groups, one for transaction history, as CSV, or TSV if your currency uses a comma for decimals. Export is web-only. [2] Copy the folder before editing anything; YNAB says you cannot export and re-import a plan, so the export is your only snapshot. [6]

Lunch Money documents a 3MB file size restriction and processes 10,000 rows at a time. [3] A household that logs 150 transactions a month generates about 1,800 rows a year, so five years of history is roughly 9,000 rows. That fits in one pass by row count, but check the file size, and splitting by account keeps each import easy to verify.

Map the YNAB columns to Lunch Money fields

Lunch Money needs three things on every row: a date, a payee (header payee or description) and an amount. Notes, categories and tags are optional; tags can be a comma-separated list. It prefers dates as YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY-MM-DD and can learn other formats. [3] Any column left as Do not import is skipped, and each Lunch Money field can be used only once. [3]

Amounts are the one place to slow down. Lunch Money accepts three notations: a single signed amount column, two columns for debit and credit (or inflow and outflow), or an amount plus an amount-type column. In the two-column format it reads every number as absolute, so the column, not the sign, decides direction. [3] If your YNAB file has separate outflow and inflow columns, map them as the double-column format and you do not need to compute a signed amount. On the review screen, Fix dates and Flip types correct mistakes before anything is saved. [3]

Build categories before you import

You can create categories during import, but Lunch Money suggests setting them up first if your category system is complex, and warns that category groups cannot come through the CSV. [1] The fastest route is the Custom (Advanced) option under Add preset categories, which takes plain text: one category per line, a leading dash for a subcategory, and properties in square brackets such as [income], [exclude_from_budget] and [exclude_from_totals]. [4] Here is a minimal example for a typical YNAB layout, written as you would paste it:

Bills / -Rent / -Electric / Everyday / -Groceries / -Dining out / Paycheck [income] / Payment, Transfer [exclude_from_budget][exclude_from_totals]

Each slash above stands for a new line. Check the preview before clicking Create; a red warning icon means a name is already in use, and Lunch Money will otherwise add a numbered suffix. [4] Two properties trip up YNAB movers. New categories default to expense, so income categories need Treat as income switched on. [1] And a transfer category should have both Exclude from budget and Exclude from totals enabled. [7]

Transfers, card payments and splits

A YNAB transfer between two accounts in your plan arrives in Lunch Money as two separate transactions, one in each account. Lunch Money's YNAB guide says a transfer category with the exclusion properties keeps them out of totals, and that you can group the pair afterwards. [1] Grouping does not change the underlying transactions; the group gets its own date, category, payee, notes and tags, and the members are hidden from the default Transactions view. [8] For transfers you enter from now on, Create transfer makes both sides at once, groups them automatically and categorizes them as Payment, Transfer. [9]

Card payments follow the same pattern: both sides in the transfer category. Without that, a $1,200 card payment would sit on top of the $1,200 of purchases already counted on the card.

Split transactions need checking by hand. The Lunch Money importer does not document a split column, so review how splits appear in your YNAB file and decide whether to import the lines as they are or re-split the important ones after import. Lunch Money will not save a split unless the parts add up to the original amount. [8]

Rebuild rules and the budget

Rules do not migrate, but Lunch Money builds some for you: changing a transaction's category creates a match-exactly rule automatically unless you turn that off, and renaming a payee can suggest a rule. [5] Rules can match on payee, notes, category, amount range, day range and account, and can set category, payee or notes, add tags, split a transaction or link it to a recurring item. They run on synced transactions and on CSV imports, where Apply Rules is on by default. [5][3] Lunch Money suggests importing one month first so rules build up before larger imports. [3]

For the budget, pick a period first. Lunch Money lets you set a custom budgeting period, but warns that changing the period later deletes all old budgets. [10] Then choose each category's rollover option: same category, general pool, or do nothing, which is the default and discards leftover money. [10] YNAB users expecting money to stay in a category should pick same category. Remember the mid-month rule from Lunch Money's guide: if income for the month is already recorded, subtract it from your starting balance so it is not counted twice. [1]

Cutover checklist

The duplicate rule and the saved configuration both come from Lunch Money's import documentation. [3] CSV files are processed in your browser and are not stored; only the reviewed transactions are sent to Lunch Money's servers, while PDF statements go to a third-party converter. [3]

• Export the YNAB plan on the web and keep an untouched copy of both files.
• Write down every YNAB target and category note; neither is exported.
• Create Lunch Money accounts, then categories using the category import text, with income and transfer properties set.
• Import one month into one account with Apply Rules and Skip Duplicates on; Lunch Money treats rows as duplicates when date, payee and amount all match exactly.
• Import the remaining history account by account, saving the column configuration so later uploads skip the mapping steps.
• Group transfer pairs and recategorize card payments to the transfer category.
• Set the budget period, rollover options and starting balances; subtract income already recorded this month.
• Run both apps for one month, compare category spending weekly, then cancel YNAB.