Importing Excell spreadsheets

[Nixxen]

Hey.

I've been using YNAB for a few days, and I have noticed that you can import transactions from your bank, but only in .OFX .QFX .QIF or .CSV. My bank only saves transaction logs to excel files(.XLS).
Is it possible to add support for importing XLS files, where the user can select which categories to import and attach a category to the different listings being imported?

I have tried doing it the manual way of updating the accounts every time I make a transaction, but that is tedious and time consuming at best.
By importing I'll at least save the time it takes to write down everything(assuming that is how importing works?).

[Mack]

Unless you are making dozens of transactions a day you aren't going to spend too much time putting them in. Plus doing them manually means you can keep even better track of your budget. I find it quicker to just do it manually than log into my internet bank website, then click on their little login button, then put in my username and password and security number and date of first born son and what colour underpants I'm wearing, then click into my statement, then limit the dates, then download the log, then open the log and then you pretty much do almost as much as you would just manually importing it.

[Nixxen]

Well, that's sort of what I'm doing right now, except instead of downloading the statement I use the online statement while adding transactions manually.
I range anywhere from 2-8 transactions a day(every transaction gets a duplicate due to some "Pay some, save some" thing I have set up). In extreme cases more than that, but that's rare.
Finding each transaction and entering the date, payee, selecting a category, optionally adding a memo if it's from a vague category, and the in/outflow takes aproximately a minute.
It's not much, but when that process is repeated for each transaction, every day, I can see myself falling off this budgeting thing quite quickly :P

I've looked into converting the XLS to a OFX(XLS -> CSV -> OFX), but for whichever reason the formating just won't match up when trying to convert from CSV to OFX.

I guess for now I'll just keep adding it manually, and see how long I can keep it up.

[Nixxen]

I have figured out how to convert the XLS to a OFX by using the program iCreateOFX and importing a custom script for my bank from their script list.

After importing and assigning categories I had an idea.
A shame to derail my own thread, but I'd rather not spam the forum with new threads.

Would it be possible to make a ruleset(think email spam filter or folder sorting), where if the payee was named <such and so> then the memo would read <this and that> and the payee would be changed to one of your internal accounts.

The "pay some, save some" thing I have set up makes the imported list a bit of a clean up job.
Essentially what it does is, every time I swipe my card either in a store, online or pay bills - the bank rounds that number up to the nearest 10 and saves the difference to my savings account. Payee is marked as "Fun save", some numbers and the location/reason of the purchase.
Since this isn't an external transaction but rather something that could be categorized as rainy day funds or savings or what have you, each one of those transactions(which equals the actual transactions I make each day) has to be copied to the memo(to know why it was made - It's not necessary but I like to do it just to be able to look back and know if it was a planned transaction or just a random saving), then link the payee to my savings account.

Hoping this could become possible down the road.

[RodeoClown]

Those sorts of systems are kinda hard to deal with (and are redundant) in YNAB - it's easier to just manually budget the extra money to a savings category :)

If it's listed as a separate transaction in the import file, YNAB already has payee rename rules you can use to change them. After importing, just manually change the payee and you will have the option to use it going forward. From the payee settings screen (ctrl/cmd-Y) you can enable autocomplete of memos as well, although that's on an all-or-nothing basis I'm afraid.

[Nixxen]

Wow!
That was just the kind of thing I was looking for.
I didn't realize it was doing it's thing behind the scenes, learning as I was importing things.
Set up some clearer rules for it now so it'll go faster.
Thanks a bunch :D