--- title: "YNAB Integration" description: "Connect AI agents to YNAB budgets. Agents read budgets, accounts, categories, and payees, and create and update transactions so every dollar gets recorded the moment it moves." url: https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/ynab date_modified: 2026-08-04T10:04:16-07:00 --- # YNAB [Finance](https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/category/finance-accounting) Connect AI agents to YNAB budgets. Agents read budgets, accounts, categories, and payees, and create and update transactions so every dollar gets recorded the moment it moves. [Verified](https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/verified "What does verified mean?") · 9 actions · API key · available [YNAB website](https://ynab.com/) · [Platform Documentation](https://api.ynab.com/) · Capability data verified 2026-07-28 1. An expense arrives as a form submission, receipt email, or new spreadsheet row 2. The agent parses the amount, date, and merchant, and converts the amount to milliunits with an outflow sign 3. List Payees matches the merchant to an existing payee so a typo does not spawn a duplicate 4. List Categories resolves the right category id for the spend 5. The budget owner confirms the amount, sign, payee, and category before the ledger changes 6. Create Transaction records the spending in the matching account 7. A confirmation posts with the category's remaining balance for the month ## What This Integration Enables YNAB's method only works when every dollar gets a job the moment it moves, and that discipline is exactly what breaks first when life gets busy. FlowRunner agents hold the discipline for you. They read budgets, accounts, categories, and payees, log transactions from whatever source the money announces itself in, keep existing entries reconciled, and push balances out to the sheets and channels where decisions actually happen. - Log expenses from [Google Sheets](https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/google-sheets) rows, receipt emails, or expense forms as they arrive - Record [Stripe](https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/stripe) payouts as inflows in the right account automatically - Pull recent activity with incremental sync into a running finance-tracking sheet - Surface uncategorized or unapproved transactions in [Slack](https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/slack) for a quick review - Update amount, category, payee, or cleared status as part of a reconciliation flow The connector handles YNAB's sharp edges so your flows do not have to: amounts convert to milliunits, outflows carry the negative sign, payees resolve by id before name, and the Since Date filter keeps syncs incremental instead of re-reading the whole ledger. The deeper win is trust. A budget only changes behavior when its numbers are believed, and numbers are believed when they are complete and current. An agent that records every expense the day it happens, and routes every ambiguous entry to a person instead of guessing, produces a ledger the household or the team actually consults before spending, which is what separates a budget from a diary of regrets. ### Without FlowRunner **Spending logged in batches**: Receipts pile up and get entered Sunday night, if at all, from memory **The budget lags reality**: Category balances reflect last week, so this week's decisions run on stale numbers **Review means opening the app**: Uncategorized and unapproved transactions wait until someone goes looking ### With FlowRunner **Every dollar recorded as it moves**: Expenses flow from forms, receipts, and payouts into the ledger the day they happen **Balances you can act on**: Account and category balances sync to your sheet, current enough to trust **Review comes to you**: New, uncategorized, or unapproved transactions surface in your channel with one-tap context ## Use Case Scenarios ### The expense that logs itself the same day A row lands in the expense tab of [Google Sheets](https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/google-sheets): $54.99, software, vendor name. The agent converts to -54990 milliunits, matches the vendor against List Payees, resolves the Software category, and queues the entry for a one-tap confirmation. Create Transaction writes it, and the reply shows the Software category has $23 left this month. The budget knew before the credit card statement did. ### Payouts that arrive already recorded When [Stripe](https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/stripe) completes a payout, the agent creates the matching inflow in the checking account: positive amount, payee Stripe, income category. When the deposit clears the bank, reconciliation is a comparison of two numbers that already agree, not an archaeology project across processor dashboards and bank statements. ### The weekly review, prepared for you Every Friday, List Transactions runs with a Since Date of last Friday. Anything uncategorized or unapproved posts to the family or team [Slack](https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/slack) channel as a short docket: payee, amount, account, best-guess category. Replies drive Update Transaction to categorize and approve each one. The weekly review shrinks from an evening in the app to two minutes in a thread, and the budget stays trustworthy, which is the entire point of having one. ## Human-in-Loop Highlight Create Transaction writes directly into the ledger that decides what you can afford, and YNAB's milliunit convention makes it a place where small agent errors become large money errors: 54990 is $54.99, 549900 is $549.90, and the difference is one repeated digit. A mis-signed amount is worse, because an expense recorded as an inflow inflates the money available to budget, and the humans downstream will assign those phantom dollars to real categories and spend them. So the confirmation gate sits directly on the write: the agent presents the parsed entry, "Outflow $54.99, payee Figma, category Software, account Business Checking," with the sign and decimal rendered in plain currency, and the budget owner taps confirm. The parsing, payee matching, and category resolution were the agent's job. Vouching for the number that changes what the budget believes is yours. Agent processes routinely Detects exception requiring judgment Clear match Continues automatically Ambiguous Routes to human via preferred channel Human decides Agent resumes with decision ## Agent Capabilities 9 actions ### Budgets 2 - **List Budgets** Lists all budgets on the account with name, currency format, and last-modified timestamp, optionally with accounts inline. The returned id, or the special value last-used, targets every other operation. - **Get Budget** Retrieves one budget with all related data: accounts, categories, category groups, payees, and months. The full snapshot behind dashboards and audits, with amounts in milliunits. ### Accounts 2 - **List Accounts** Lists a budget's accounts with name, type, on-budget flag, and current balance, including closed and deleted accounts with flags. The id source for transaction writes. - **Create Account** Creates a new account with a starting balance in milliunits, negative for debts such as a credit card. Used when a new card or bank account joins the budget. ### Categories 1 - **List Categories** Lists all category groups and categories with budgeted, activity, and balance amounts for the current month. The resolution step that turns "software" into the right category id. ### Transactions 3 - **List Transactions** Lists a budget's transactions with optional type and Since Date filters, negative amounts as outflows and positive as inflows. The incremental-sync read behind reports and review sweeps. - **Create Transaction** Creates a single transaction with amount in milliunits, payee by id or name, and category. The write this connector gates with a human confirmation, because it changes what the budget believes. - **Update Transaction** Updates an existing transaction by id as a partial update: only supplied fields change. The reconciliation tool for amounts, categories, payees, and cleared status. ### Payees 1 - **List Payees** Lists all payees including transfer payees with their linked account ids. The match step that keeps one merchant from becoming five slightly different payees. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What can FlowRunner do with YNAB? FlowRunner agents can run List Budgets, Get Budget, and List Accounts in YNAB, plus 6 more actions. ### Does connecting YNAB to FlowRunner require OAuth? No. YNAB connects to FlowRunner with an API key, no OAuth flow required. ### Can YNAB trigger a FlowRunner workflow automatically? YNAB doesn't currently expose triggers in FlowRunner. It connects as an action step inside workflows started by another trigger. **Work at YNAB?** This integration exposes YNAB to AI agents on every FlowRunner plan, including through MCP, at no cost to you. [See what FlowRunner offers integration partners](https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/partners), including how to keep this page current. --- Markdown version of https://flowrunner.ai/integrations/ynab. Site index: https://flowrunner.ai/llms.txt