How to Export CSV From YNAB to Nethaven

YNAB exports two files when you leave, a Budget.csv and a Register.csv. The Register.csv is the one you want, because it holds every transaction you have ever entered: date, payee, category, memo, and the outflow and inflow amounts. The migration takes about ten minutes, and you do it inside Nethaven’s CSV import, which detects the columns for you. Nethaven also supports budgets, shared budgets, and goals if you want more than a ledger after you arrive.

What does the YNAB CSV export actually contain?

YNAB’s “Export budget data” downloads a ZIP with two files. Only one of them is useful for a migration:

• “Register.csv”: every transaction across every account, one row per transaction.
• “Budget.csv”: the monthly budget plan, category by category, with no transaction detail.

The Register rows carry the columns below. Nethaven’s mapping screen understands them, so the only real work is telling it which YNAB column becomes which Nethaven field:

The amount columns are currency-formatted, like “$15.15” or “kr 30,00”, which Nethaven parses as numbers during the mapping step. If a payee is blank, usually a starting balance or reconciliation row, Nethaven falls back to the memo text for the name.

How to export your transactions from YNAB

The export is only available in the web version of YNAB, so sign in from a browser rather than the mobile app:

1. Sign in to app.ynab.com.
2. Open the budget you want to leave.
3. Open Budget Settings from the menu in the top-left corner.
4. Scroll to “Export budget data” and click it.
5. YNAB downloads a ZIP named like “My Budget as of 2026-08-08 .zip”.
6. Unzip it and keep the file whose name ends with “- Register.csv”.

You only need the Register file. The Budget.csv and the original ZIP can be deleted after the import below, since they hold a full copy of your financial history.

What to set up in Nethaven before you import

The import adds every row to one account and one budget, so those two need to exist first. Create or reuse an account that matches the YNAB register you exported, then create a budget and add the categories you actually use. Fewer, broader categories mean less mapping in the next step, and the import help guide walks through the same preparation.

How to start the import in Nethaven

1. Open the Budgets tab.
2. Tap the + button and choose Import CSV.
3. Select the account and budget for this import.
4. Continue to the file picker and choose your Register.csv.

Nethaven reads the file and reports how many columns and rows it detected before you map anything, so a file that did not parse (for example, one saved as a spreadsheet instead of a CSV) is caught early instead of half-importing.

How to map YNAB columns to Nethaven fields

Every detected column gets a “maps to” dropdown. Date, Name, and Amount (or Debit and Credit together) are required; everything else is optional. For a YNAB Register.csv, the usual mapping is:

• Date → Date
• Payee → Name
• Memo → Notes
• Outflow → Debit
• Inflow → Credit
• Category Group/Category → Category

Leave Flag and Cleared mapped to None. Then use the category mapping step to match each YNAB category value, such as “Food: Dining”, to a Nethaven budget category. Values you skip land uncategorized and surface in the review queue afterwards.

How transfers, splits, and starting balances behave

Three YNAB patterns need a heads-up, because each shows up in the register as something that looks like a mistake:

• Transfers appear as a payee starting with “Transfer :” and an empty category. Nethaven flags internal and fee rows automatically, so they do not inflate your income or expense totals.
• Splits come through as one row per split, with the same date and payee and a memo like “Split (1/2)”. Import them as separate rows, or merge them after the import if you want a single combined transaction.
• Starting balances are a single large row at the top of each account, often with a blank payee. Keep it during the import so the imported history adds up, then you can remove it once the account’s current balance matches.

How to finish the import and check for problems

The final step shows a preview of the mapped rows before anything is written. This is the moment to look for the classic import mistakes:

• Income and expense sides swapped
• Missing dates on one or two rows
• Duplicate header rows that doubled the file
• Rows without a mapped category

Choose whether the imported transactions land as pending in your review queue or as already reviewed, toggle auto-approve if you trust the mapping, and run the import. The progress screen reports how many rows imported and how many failed validation, so nothing silently drops. After a migration like this, a monthly money review is a good habit for catching the stragglers that stayed uncategorized.

What does not come across from YNAB?

Three things stay behind. The budget plan, your monthly category allocations in Budget.csv, does not import; rebuild it once. Scheduled and recurring transactions arrive as ordinary history, not as automation, so you recreate anything that should auto-repeat. And YNAB’s per-transaction flags do not transfer, which is rarely a loss. The ledger, your actual transaction history, is the part that survives the move intact, and from there you can add Nethaven’s subscription tracking, debt and savings goals, and net worth view on top. If you are still deciding whether the switch is worth it, the Nethaven vs YNAB comparison covers where each app leads.