u/Architect-1817

For a while now I’ve been pondering how to handle “perks” from credit cards or other memberships.

The ones that come as “cash back” are easy; I’ve just counted the inbound credit as RTA and assigned it where I want to put it, mostly to the category that generated it. The ones that don’t come through as bank transactions are tougher, for instance one card puts money each month in my uber account but it never hits a bank account. When I’ve used that money I basically count it as free stuff that isn’t tracked in ynab, and it doesn’t’show up in records of how much I spent in that category. The amount is low enough that I didn’t work on a better way to do it, but it can lead to inaccuracies. For instance, recently I used the uber credit on a trip that was reimbursed by my work, so my “passthrough” section for reimbursable expenses in YNAB is going to show more inbound than outbound.

Last week I got the Costco rebate certificate, and just used it on a grocery run. I realized that I don’t want my grocery spending to be off by the amount of the certificate, so don’t want to just let it be “free stuff” that isn’t tracked. I had the idea of entering the certificate as a cash transaction. Inbound to RTA, outbound from Grocery category. I can reconcile the cash account for it, grocery category tracks correctly, and the certificate amount can be assigned somewhere else. Hence, it has been “laundered.” Yay!

I think I will go back and do that for the uber transaction a few weeks ago as well. Is this how you all do it, also?

edited to add paragraphs LOL

Where did I mess up? I have a “campus cash” card that I use occasionally for dining at the campus where I work. I haven’t had it on budget before, usually just refill it and put the amount against my dining category. Today the app was acting up and I managed to load $200 mistakenly. I could just WAM that but it’s a lot for one month. So, I decided to put the card on budget. I went to accounts, add account, selected not linked, gave it a name, categorized it as a checking account, and entered the starting balance of 11.01. Then I entered the 2 deposits of $100 each as inflow transfers to this new account from my CC account. Then I entered the transaction for today’s lunch as spending from the new account. Reconciled the new account. All good, right? Maybe not. I flip back to the “plan” view and now in RTA there is $211.01, which equal the starting balance and the two transfers. I expected to find an RTA of 11.01 to equal adding the “starting balance” cash to YNAB’s available funds. Where did I mess up?

I often pay my CC balances manually at the beginning of the month, even though I have autopay set to “pay statement balance” later in the month. I guess I waited a few days too late this time…I sent a payment to Amex yesterday (Sunday) and this morning found that the autopay hit today, so I have a credit on the account. This isn’t a problem in terms of cash flow, but when I entered the transaction YNAB behaved in a way I didn’t expect. I used the “record payment” button in the Amex account to enter the autopayment amount. YNAB entered *two* transactions - the payment and credit transaction in the account I paid it from. The Amex went red for that amount and RTA went green for that amount. Usually when I enter a payment there is only one transaction created. If I delete the credit transaction they both go away. Questions: why is there a second credit transaction, why did that money end up in RTA, and what do I do to record and fund this properly YNAB? I thought I would have to move money from a funded category to CC, but looks as if I can just fund the CC from RTA. That doesn’t feel right since there isn’t any “new money” anywhere to be assigned. FYI I’m fine just leaving a credit on the account IRL and not trying to get a refund. Help appreciated.