Moving from YNAB to Monarch: export, import and rebuilding your categories

What moves, and what you rebuild by hand

A YNAB-to-Monarch move has two halves. Transaction history moves as a file. Your plan, meaning your targets, the money sitting in each category and the habits you built around them, has to be rebuilt. YNAB's export produces two CSV files, one for the plan (including categories and category groups) and one for transaction history, and YNAB says the export does not include targets or category notes. [1] On the other side, Monarch says budgets and aggregate cash flow totals cannot be imported. [2]

So budget an afternoon for the file work and an evening for rebuilding the plan. The table shows where each piece ends up.

Step 1: export from YNAB and freeze a copy

Exporting is web-only in YNAB. In the web app, click your plan name at the top of the left sidebar and choose Export Plan. The download is two CSV files whose names start with "YNAB Export - [plan name]". If your currency uses a comma as the decimal mark, YNAB produces tab-separated TSV files instead. [1]

Before touching the files, copy the folder somewhere you will not edit and name it with today's date. That untouched copy is your fallback if the reshaped file goes wrong. YNAB also says exporting is a one-way street: you cannot export and re-import a YNAB plan. [3] Keep your YNAB subscription active until the cutover month in step 6 is over.

If you only want recent history, YNAB lets you select transactions in an account register (or All Accounts), click More in the action bar and choose Export Transactions; that file name starts with "Selected Transactions for [plan name]". [1] A shorter history means a smaller file and less cleanup.

Step 2: reshape the transaction file into Monarch's columns

Monarch's importer needs headers named Account, Amount and Date, in any order. Account can be left out if you import straight into one specific account. Category, Tags and Notes are optional, and Monarch ignores columns it does not use. [2] Debits and credits share one Amount column: money out takes a leading minus sign or parentheses, money in has no symbol. Monarch says any standard US date format works. [2]

YNAB's export article does not list the transaction file's columns, so open your copy and check them. If your file has separate outflow and inflow columns (the same split YNAB uses for its own file imports [3]), add a new column called Amount with the formula inflow minus outflow. An outflow of 58.12 becomes -58.12; a paycheck inflow of 2,400.00 stays 2400.00. Then rename or copy the remaining columns as shown below and delete anything you do not want imported.

Step 3: import into Monarch one account at a time

Importing is on Monarch web only, not the mobile app. Go to Accounts, choose Add Account, pick the option to import transaction and balance history, then import transactions. One file can cover one or several accounts; you review the suggested column mappings, assign categories, tags and account names, then choose how to handle overlap with transactions Monarch already has. [2]

The overlap choice matters most when the Monarch account is already linked to your bank and has a few months of synced transactions. The table summarizes the four options Monarch documents.

• Start with one account and one month of rows. Monarch says CSV imports cannot be undone, so a test costs little and a bad full import costs a bulk delete. [2]
• If Monarch reports that the file is too large, split it into one file per account, then by year or six-month period if one account is still too big. [4]
• After each import, compare the account's balance in Monarch with your bank before moving on to the next account.

Step 4: rebuild categories, targets and budgets

Create your categories in Monarch before importing so the Category column maps cleanly. Monarch arranges categories under customizable groups, which sit under three fixed types: Income, Expenses and Transfers. [5] You then choose between category budgeting, where every expense category gets a planned amount, and Flex budgeting, Monarch's default, which splits spending into Fixed, Non-monthly and Flex buckets. Monarch says you can switch between the two at any time. [5][6]

YNAB users who liked assigning money to every category will usually feel at home in category budgeting. Monarch fills each planned amount with your average spending over the last six months the first time you open the budget, which is useful once history is imported but means the first numbers you see are averages, not your old targets. [5]

Money already sitting in YNAB categories needs a home too. Monarch lets you turn on rollovers per expense category and set a starting balance, so a YNAB category holding $600 for car repairs can start life in Monarch as a rollover category with a $600 starting balance. [7] In Flex budgeting, each Non-monthly category needs rollovers on plus a target amount and frequency. [6]

Step 5: transfers, card payments and splits

In YNAB, a card payment is a transfer that shows once as an outflow from the paying account and once as an inflow to the card. [9] Monarch treats card payments the same way in principle: both the bank debit and the card credit should use the Credit Card Payment category, and everything in the Transfers group is excluded from budgets and spending totals. [8] If imported payment rows land in an expense category instead, Monarch's own example shows spending double-counted. Search for them after import and recategorize both sides.

One habit does not carry over. YNAB automatically moves money into a card's Credit Card Payment category when you spend on a funded category. [10] Monarch's transfers article describes purchases as expenses when made and payments as transfers, but it does not describe an automatic set-aside of that kind, so check your card balance against your cash before each payment. [8]

Monarch's import article lists no split column. [2] For the handful of split transactions that matter, such as a superstore run split between groceries and household, use Split transaction on Monarch web after import; each split becomes its own transaction. [11] For everything older, leaving the parent category is usually good enough.

Step 6: run both apps for one month, then cut over

Pick a start date, ideally the first of a month, and treat the next four to five weeks as a parallel run. Keep entering or approving transactions in YNAB as normal, let Monarch sync, and compare the two once a week. The goal is not identical reports; it is to confirm that Monarch's totals match your bank and that its budget tells you the same story about the month.

• Week 0: export YNAB, save an untouched copy, list every target and category note.
• Week 0: create Monarch categories, import one test month into one account, check the balance.
• Week 1: import remaining history per account; recategorize card payments and transfers.
• Week 1: set planned amounts and rollover starting balances from your YNAB plan.
• Weeks 2 to 4: compare weekly spending totals in both apps; investigate any gap over a few dollars.
• Month end: confirm every account balance in Monarch matches the bank, then cancel YNAB and keep the export files.