Cost Sharing for YNAB

Conveniently manage a shared credit card in YNAB.

Hi fellow YNABer! If you're using a shared credit card or bank account for communal expenses, and want to track it in YNAB more easily, you're in the right place.

A shared bank account or credit card is difficult to track in YNAB without your expenses appearing inflated. Maybe you've resorted to excluding it from YNAB completely. Or, maybe you're throwing the costs into a blanket "shared expense" category, and later divvying up the total - which fixes the inflation problem, but masks where exactly the dollars are going.

Cost Sharing for YNAB enables you to classify your transactions across any number of categories, and then at the click of a button, remove someone else's share of the expenses from each category. No more inflated expenses or catch-all category!

GETTING STARTED

Create a parent category in your YNAB budget named something like "Shared Expenses"
Add desired sub-categories underneath the "Shared Expenses" parent (such as rent, groceries, etc.)
Add an IOU account in YNAB: this account will track what you are owed as a result of maintaining the shared credit card/bank account.
- Click Add Account in YNAB
- Select an account type of Checking (or Cash - this doesn't matter so much)
- Nickname the account something like "Owed from [insert person's name]"
Add the shared credit card/bank account as a YNAB account and sync it with your bank, or add transactions manually. Classify transactions to the shared expense categories you created earlier.
Click Start below. You will need your YNAB credentials.
Follow each step in the app to select your shared costs over a given date range and split a specified percentage of them into the IOU account you created earlier. After you hit "Split Costs," a transaction will be created in your YNAB budget that moves the other person's share of the costs out of your expenses and into the IOU account. You can view the transaction in YNAB afterward (and delete or edit it if needed).
When you're repaid the owed amount, add a transfer transaction from the IOU account to the bank or cash account where you deposited the money. This will zero out the IOU account while keeping your bank account perfectly balanced, as all things should be!

Last updated: April 6th, 2025

This Privacy Policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared when you visit Cost Sharing for YNAB.

PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED

Cost Sharing for YNAB does not collect any personal information. Cost Sharing for YNAB is a custom interface which allows you to view and edit your YNAB budget, so please review the YNAB privacy policy to understand what information might be collected by YNAB in the normal course of viewing and editing your budget.

Data will be obtained from your YNAB budget for the current active session of Cost Sharing for YNAB only, and will not be stored. Cost Sharing for YNAB does not pass the data to any third parties.

Cost Sharing for YNAB is not affiliated, associated, or in any way officially connected with YNAB, or any of its subsidiaries or its affiliates. The developer is a fan of YNAB and wanted to add a custom feature, and so created this application. The official YNAB website can be found at https://www.ynab.com. The names YNAB and You Need A Budget as well as related names, marks, emblems and images are registered trademarks of YNAB.

Cost Sharing for YNAB is an open-source web application. The source code can be viewed at github.com/chelseaSchmidt/cost-sharing-for-ynab.

CHANGES

This privacy policy may be updated from time to time in order to reflect changes to privacy practices or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. Please review it for changes periodically.

CONTACT

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please email cost.sharing.for.ynab@gmail.com.