Bring your history from YNAB

What comes across#

From a YNAB export, the import brings in:

• Transactions: every transaction in your register, with its date, payee, amount, memo and status.
• Transfers: both sides of each one, linked, the same as a transfer you enter here.
• Split transactions: one transaction carrying its split lines, each in its own category.
• Categories: YNAB's groups become parent categories, and its categories become the subcategories under them. You decide where each one goes.
• Flags: each flag color becomes a tag, like #Red flag.
• Budgets: what you assigned each month. One month becomes your budget going forward, and past months show in Budget vs Actual.

Exporting from YNAB#

In YNAB on the web, open your plan's menu and choose Export Plan. YNAB saves a zip file holding two files: your register and your plan.

On the Import page, choose the zip. If your computer already unzipped it, choose the two files inside.

YNAB's help on exporting a plan (opens in a new tab)

Files from the old YNAB 4 desktop app are a different format, and the Import page turns them away.

Your accounts#

For each YNAB account, you choose one of four things:

• An account you already have: its YNAB history goes in before the day Forecast Commander started tracking it.
• A new account: it starts from YNAB's starting balance, so its balance today matches YNAB's.
• A new account, archived: for an account you've closed.
• Skip it: its transactions stay in YNAB.

A new account needs a type, such as Checking or Credit Card. YNAB's export doesn't say which kind each account is, so you pick. The Import page shows what the file suggests, like money owed when you started tracking the account in YNAB.

Pick carefully. The type decides whether a balance is money you have or money you owe.

Your balance today stays the same#

Importing into an account you already have doesn't change its balance today. Forecast Commander works backward from today's balance to find where your history starts, and moves the account's starting balance to match.

So an imported account's Starting Balance changes. The review shows the new figure before anything is saved.

If that starting point looks wrong, like a checking account that would have started deep in the red years ago, part of the history may be missing from the export, or today's balance here may be off. Cancel, check both, and try again.

Import once, when you switch#

History goes in only before the day Forecast Commander started tracking each account. Anything after that day stays as you entered it here.

If you keep using YNAB for a while and import again later, the newer transactions on accounts you already have are skipped, and the review counts them.

Matching your categories#

Every YNAB category is listed with how many transactions it holds. For each one, pick a category you already have, a new category, or Uncategorized.

Two buttons do the bulk of the work. Use same-name matches pairs each YNAB category with one of yours that has the same name. Create the rest as new categories makes new ones for everything left, under parents named for your YNAB groups.

Ready to Assign is where YNAB puts income. Most people leave income uncategorized here, so pick Uncategorized or one of your own categories for it.

Credit Card Payments is how YNAB sets money aside for a card. Here a card's balance is tracked directly, so those categories stay in YNAB.

Flags become tags#

Each YNAB flag you used becomes a tag. A red flag becomes #Red flag, and the tag goes on every transaction that carried the flag, including both sides of a transfer.

Rename them on the Import page before you import. Once they're saved, a tag keeps its name.

Your YNAB budgets#

YNAB's plan file holds what you assigned to each category every month. You choose which month becomes your budget going forward: the last full month, or the current one if you've finished assigning it.

Past months are kept, so Budget vs Actual can show them. That works when your budget periods run monthly from the 1st. If your periods follow your paycheck, your spending history still comes across and your past budgets stay in YNAB.

For each category you can carry leftover money into the next month, the way YNAB does. The carry starts from what YNAB showed as available at the end of the last full month.

If a category already has a budget here, you choose between yours and YNAB's.

Months you assigned ahead in YNAB stay in YNAB. Your budget going forward is the month you chose.

Payments to a loan#

YNAB can count a payment to a loan as spending, like a car payment filed under Transportation. Here, a payment to a loan is money moving between your own accounts, so it doesn't count as spending.

Those payments come across as linked transfers. The review shows how much YNAB had counted as spending in each category, so you know why a budget like Transportation may look lower here.

Uncleared transactions#

Transactions still marked uncleared in YNAB come across as cleared, so your balance here counts them the way YNAB's working balance does. The review says how many there were.

When dates could be read two ways#

YNAB writes dates in the format you chose in its settings. If every date in your file could be read two ways, like 03/10/2026, the Import page shows both readings and asks which is right. It never picks one for you.

Pausing, continuing and undoing#

A long history goes in a piece at a time. If you close the tab partway, the import pauses and your balances stay right. Open the Import page again to continue with the same file, or to undo what's there.

Undo removes everything the import added: its transactions, plus the accounts, categories and tags it created that nothing else uses, and its budgets, unless you've changed them since. If you've changed some imported transactions since, you choose whether to keep those. Your balance today stays put through an undo too.

Importing the same file a second time adds nothing.

How much fits#

Your whole account has to fit in a backup. If your YNAB history is too big for that, the review offers the earliest start date that fits, and the older part stays in YNAB.

If your account is read-only#

Importing needs an active subscription, because it adds to your account. A read-only account can still read everything. If your account is read-only, the Import page says so before you choose a file, with a link to the Billing tab. Your past imports are still listed there.

If a subscription lapses partway through an import, the import pauses. Once you subscribe again, you can continue it or undo it.

After the import#

The last step links to Reports with the dates set to your history, and to Transactions showing just the import.

It also offers Find the bills in this history. It looks for the bills and paychecks that repeat and lets you add the ones you recognize as recurring rules, so your forecast starts from them.

Your file stays on your device#

Your YNAB file is read in your browser. The file itself never leaves your device. What reaches Forecast Commander is the list you approve on the review step: accounts, transactions, categories, tags and budgets.