How to use Moneylight
Last updated:
Everything you need to set up, use and understand your forecast. New to Moneylight? Start with chapter 02. If something does not look right, jump to chapter 07, which is organized by what you see on screen.
What Moneylight does
YNAB tells you what you have right now. Moneylight tells you what you will have weeks ahead, so you can see whether the bills and paychecks ahead of you leave enough in your accounts. It reads your YNAB Plan and rolls it forward week by week: paychecks come in, bills and everyday spending go out, and each week ends on a projected balance.
YNAB shows you the next time a scheduled item comes around. Moneylight projects every occurrence out to the end of your horizon, so the week where rent lands on top of an annual insurance bill shows up as the tight week it is, well before you get to it.
Moneylight has read-only access to YNAB. It never writes to, edits, or moves anything in your YNAB Plan. Everything you set up here (bills, paychecks, thresholds, one-week changes) lives in Moneylight, not in YNAB.
You forecast one Plan at a time, and switching between Plans keeps the setup you did on each. Weeks run Sunday through Saturday in your own time zone, and you can look anywhere from 1 to 104 weeks ahead.
What Moneylight reads from YNAB
Four things, and each one feeds a different part of the forecast:
- Account balances, for the accounts you pick: they add up to the first week's Starting funds.
- This month's category balances: they set the current week's necessities, and they are what a pending credit-card charge is measured against.
- Recent transactions: they are how Moneylight can notice that a bill has been paid.
- Scheduled transactions: these feed the credit-card side and nothing else. A scheduled charge on a card you pay in full, the payment on a card you carry, and the 💳 badge all come from here.
Your bills, paychecks, necessities and savings rules are Moneylight's own rows. The importer seeds them from your YNAB categories, and after that they are yours: you set each one's amount, schedule and dates, and editing one changes nothing in YNAB.
You can click through a finished forecast on sample data in the live demo (opens in a new tab), with no signup and nothing connected to a real Plan.
Your first forecast
Your first forecast has four stages: connect YNAB, choose a Plan, complete the setup checklist, and check the result. Work down this chapter in order.
Connect YNAB and start your trial
On the welcome screen, click Connect YNAB. You are sent to YNAB to sign in and approve access. Moneylight asks for read-only access only, so YNAB shows that it can view your data and not change it. Approve, and you land back in Moneylight, signed in.
That starts a 14-day free trial with no card required. Nothing locks or charges during it, and what happens at the end is in Your trial and subscription.
Choose your Plan
Moneylight lists the Plans on your YNAB account. If there is only one, it is picked for you. Otherwise click Make Active on the one you want to forecast. You can switch later, and Moneylight keeps the setup you did on each Plan, so going back and forth loses nothing. If a Plan you just made in YNAB is missing, click Refresh Plan List from YNAB.
Set up your forecast
Moneylight now shows the Set Up Your Forecast checklist. Choosing accounts is required; do the other steps now or later.
Choose your accounts (required)
Before you start: Knowing which of your accounts hold money you actually spend.
- Click Choose Accounts on the checklist. It opens Forecast Settings.
- Under Accounts, tick the checking, savings and cash accounts whose balances should count as money you can spend. Leave out a savings account you do not intend to touch: whatever you tick becomes your Starting funds. Closed accounts are hidden until you click Show Closed Accounts.
- Under Credit Cards, tick a card only if you
want it counted, and answer How do you pay this card? for
each one: In full each month or
I make payments. The two behave very differently, and
Credit cards explains how.
Forecast Settings: the accounts that feed the forecast, how you pay each card, and your thresholds. - Leave Warn Below and Danger Below at $500.00 and $0.00 for now. You can tune them once you have seen a few weeks.
- Click Save Settings.
You'll know it worked when
The forecast's Current Balance card matches the combined balance of the accounts you ticked, and the week cards show numbers instead of a setup prompt.
Add your paychecks
Before you start: Each paycheck's amount, how often it lands, and the date of the next one.
- Click Add Paychecks, then Add Paycheck.
- Enter the name and Amount.
- Choose how it Repeats and set the Next Date: your next payday, today or later. If it repeats twice a month, the second date is set for you, 15 days apart in the same month, just like YNAB.
- Click Add Paycheck at the foot of the form to save it, and repeat for a second income if you have one.
You'll know it worked when
Each paycheck appears on the week card of its next payday, and the Next Paycheck card at the top of the forecast shows a date. A paycheck dated today or earlier shows struck through: it is already in your account balance, so counting it again would double it.
Import your bills
Before you start: An idea of which YNAB categories are real, dated bills.
- Click Import Bills. Moneylight lists your YNAB categories, grouped the way YNAB groups them.
- Tick the categories that are real dated bills. On a long Plan, type part
of a name into Find a category to narrow the list; your
ticks stay put while you search, and Select All applies
only to the rows you can see.
Importing bills from YNAB. Find a category narrows a long Plan. - Click Continue. On the details step, set each row's Next due date, which is required, and check the amount. Moneylight prefills it from the category's YNAB goal target, or from this month's budgeted figure if the category has no goal. A category with neither prefills blank, and a blank amount imports as a $0 bill by design, so type the amount over it.
- Click Import Selected.
You'll know it worked when
Each bill sits on the week card of its next due date and is counted in that week's Bills total.
Next: Import fewer than you think. Start with the eight or ten bills that decide whether a week is tight: rent or mortgage, the car, the utilities, insurance, childcare. Everything else can wait, and a first import of thirty rows is what turns a ten-minute setup into an afternoon. You can add the rest whenever you like, and turn off anything you brought in by mistake.
Import necessities (optional)
Before you start: A rough monthly figure for groceries, gas and the like.
- Click Import Necessities and tick the YNAB categories that are everyday spending rather than dated bills.
- Click Continue, then set each row's Amount and Period. Monthly is the usual answer; Moneylight smooths whatever you enter into a weekly figure, so $400 a month for groceries becomes about $92 a week.
- Click Import Selected.
You'll know it worked when
Every week card carries a Necessities row. This week's will not match your weekly figure, and that is deliberate: the current week uses what is left in the YNAB category instead.
What you should see
Open the forecast and check these five things:
- Current Balance equals the combined balance of the accounts you ticked. If it does not, see Starting funds do not match YNAB.
- There is one week card per week of your horizon. The default is four; type a different number into Show and click Update.
- Next Paycheck shows a date rather than a dash. A dash means no paycheck falls inside the weeks you are showing.
- Each bill sits on the card of its next due date, and this week's paid ones are struck through.
- This week's Necessities row shows what is left in your YNAB categories, not your weekly figure. Later weeks show the weekly figure.
If a line does not check out, When something looks wrong is organized by exactly that: the symptom first, the reason second.
Every week
Once the forecast is set up, a quick weekly check keeps it current: four things, in the order you would do them.
Refresh from YNAB
Before you start: Having already made your changes in YNAB.
- Click ↻ Refresh from YNAB at the top of the forecast.
You'll know it worked when
The change you just made in YNAB is on the forecast: a new balance, a new transaction, an account you added.
Next: You will not need this often. Moneylight holds the forecast's data for a minute at a time and your account, category and payee lists for five, so it catches up on its own shortly after you edit YNAB. Refresh is for when you do not want to wait.
Mark what cleared
Before you start: Knowing which bills have actually left your account.
- On this week's card, click the checkbox beside a bill you have paid. It goes green, strikes through, and drops out of that week's Bills total.
- Look for any check you did not make. A grayed check with a wavy underline and a dashed strike is Moneylight's, not yours: it matched the bill to a payment in YNAB.
- If that payment was not this bill, click the check to put the bill back into the week.
- Tick off any One-off items that are done in the same pass.
You'll know it worked when
Every bill still counted against this week is one you genuinely have not paid, so the week's ending balance is the number you would act on.
Next: How a bill gets marked paid explains when Moneylight will tick one for you and when it deliberately will not.
Read the low week
- Read Lowest Balance and the Week of date under it. That is the tightest point in the weeks you are showing.
- Look at the marker on the chart. It reads Tight Week when that low point falls under one of your thresholds, and Lowest Point when it does not, which is the difference between a week to plan around and a week that is simply the smallest.
- Read Bills Due Before Lowest Balance: everything still unpaid between now and that week, so you know what is going out before you get there.
- Scan the week cards for a getting low badge (amber, under your warn threshold) or a low badge (red, under your danger threshold).
You'll know it worked when
You can name the week that is going to be tight and the amount that gets you through it, without adding anything up yourself.
Adjust one week
Before you start: One week that is different from the pattern.
- Every date and amount on the grid is a button. Click the one you want to change.
- Type the new amount, or pick the new date, and save. Only that occurrence moves; the recurring bill or paycheck behind it is untouched.
- To undo it, open the same row and click Reset to Default for an amount, or Reset to Scheduled Date for a date.
- For a week you will not be shopping, set that week's necessity to $0 the same way. For a car repair or a refund, open + Add one-off item on the week and enter it; you can mark it done later, which keeps it visible but out of the total.
You'll know it worked when
The week you edited and every week after it re-run immediately, so the new ending balances are on screen before you look away.
Set up and change things
Everything you set up lives under Your Money in the sidebar: Bills, Paychecks, Necessities and Savings. The pages use the same basic add, edit, deactivate and delete pattern.
Add a bill
Before you start: The amount, and the next date it is due.
- Open Bills in the sidebar and click Add Bill.
- Enter the name and Amount. A bill can be $0 if you want a placeholder to fill in later.
- Choose how it Repeats and set the First / Next Due Date. If it repeats twice a month, the second date is set for you, 15 days apart in the same month, just like YNAB.
- Optional, and worth it on anything that recurs: pick its
YNAB Payee so Moneylight can mark the bill paid from the
matching transaction, even when the amount varies month to month, like a
utility. Tick Autopay if it pays itself, and
set an Effective Start or Effective End
if it only runs for a stretch of time. A YNAB Category is
optional too, and does a different job from the payee, which
How a bill gets marked paid
explains.
The Bills page, where you add and manage recurring bills. - Click Add Bill at the foot of the form.
You'll know it worked when
The bill appears on the week card of its next due date, inside that week's Bills total, with a ⚡ badge if you ticked Autopay.
Next: Import the rest from YNAB instead of typing them.
Import bills from YNAB
Before you start: Your YNAB categories, and each bill's real due date.
- On the Bills page, click Import from YNAB.
- Tick the categories you want as bills. Use Find a category to narrow a long Plan; ticks survive a search, and a group's Select All applies only to the rows currently visible. Clear unticks them again. If you reload or go back partway through, your picks come back on the details step.
- Click Continue.
- On the details step, set each row's Next due date, which is required, and check the prefilled amount. It comes from the category's YNAB goal target, or this month's budgeted figure if the category has no goal; a category with neither prefills blank and imports as a $0 bill, which is by design.
- Watch for two blocks above the rows. Possible Duplicates means a selected category already has a bill on it, which is allowed. Counted Twice means it is already tracked as a necessity, so importing it here would subtract the same money from your forecast twice. Either go Back to Categories and untick it, or click Import Anyway if you meant it.
- Click Import Selected.
You'll know it worked when
Each imported bill is on the Bills page and on the week card of the due date you set.
Next: Necessities import the same way from the Necessities page.
Add a paycheck
Before you start: The amount and the date of the next one.
- Open Paychecks and click Add Paycheck.
- Enter the name and Amount.
- Choose how it Repeats and set the Next Date: your next payday, today or later. Twice a month behaves as it does for bills, the second date 15 days after the first in the same month.
- Click Add Paycheck at the foot of the form.
You'll know it worked when
The paycheck lands on its week card and lifts that week's ending balance. A date today or earlier shows struck through instead, because that money is already in your account balance.
Next: A paycheck can trigger a savings rule.
Add a necessity
Before you start: A YNAB category and roughly what you spend from it.
- Open Necessities. Click Add Necessity to enter one by hand, or Import from YNAB to bring in several categories at once.
- Enter the Label and Amount.
- Choose the Period the amount is in: Weekly, Every 2 weeks, Twice a month, or Monthly. Moneylight smooths it into a weekly figure, so $400 a month for groceries becomes about $92 a week.
- Pick the YNAB Category. This one is required: it is how the current week reads what you have left rather than what you planned.
- Click Add Necessity at the foot of the form.
You'll know it worked when
Every future week card carries the weekly figure in its Necessities row, and the list shows each allotment's amount with the weekly figure beside it.
Next: Necessities and the current week explains why this week's number is different.
Add a savings rule
Before you start: The amount you move, and which paycheck moves it.
- Open Savings and click Add Savings Rule.
- Enter the name and the amount.
- Leave the paycheck on (every paycheck), or pick one specific paycheck if the transfer only follows that one.
- Click Add Savings Rule at the foot of the form.
You'll know it worked when
A Savings Transfer row appears on each week a matching paycheck lands in, and only on those weeks.
Handle a card you carry
Before you start: A credit card you pay down over time rather than in full.
- Open Settings and find the card under Credit Cards.
- Under How do you pay this card?, choose I make payments, then Save Settings.
- Back on the forecast, the card's balance is no longer subtracted from
every week. It shows as a Card debt line instead, and the
payment you have scheduled in YNAB appears as its own dated row under
Card payments in the week it falls. If you carry two or
more cards, Card debt shows the total, then one row per
card.
Two cards you carry: the Card debt total, one row per card, and the note under the card with no payment scheduled. - If you have not scheduled a transfer to that card in YNAB, the week says No payment scheduled in YNAB. With more than one card, the note sits under the card that is missing a payment. Either schedule it in YNAB, or open + Plan an Extra Credit Card Payment on any week and enter an amount. If you carry more than one card, you pick which one first.
- An extra payment behaves like a one-off item: edit its amount, move it to another week, mark it done once it posts in YNAB, or remove it.
You'll know it worked when
The week the payment falls in drops by that amount, and the Card debt line steps down from that week forward.
Next: Credit cards covers what changes, and what Moneylight deliberately does not model.
Turn something off, or delete it
- On any of the four pages, click Deactivate on a row. It drops off the forecast and keeps its setup, and Activate puts it back. This is the right move most of the time.
- To remove something for good, deactivate it first, then click Show Inactive to bring the row back into view.
- Click Delete on the inactive row. The confirmation names the item and, when anything rides on it such as paid marks or one-week amount and date changes, names those too.
- Click Delete Permanently. That cannot be undone.
You'll know it worked when
The row is gone from the list and from every week card. One thing will not delete: a paycheck that still triggers savings rules. Moneylight names the rules and asks you to move them to another paycheck or remove them first, because a rule left without a paycheck fires on every paycheck instead, and that would change your forecast silently.
How Moneylight counts
A week can start higher than the week before it ended. This week's necessities do not match the weekly figure you entered. A bill you have paid still shows unpaid. All three are deliberate, and this chapter explains each one.
Starting funds and ending balance
The first week's Starting funds is the combined balance of the accounts you ticked under Accounts, read from YNAB. Nothing else feeds it.
Every later week starts from the week before it, and this is the part worth knowing: it chains from that week's cash before the credit cards. Ending balance, the number printed at the foot of the card, is that same cash after subtracting what you owe on the cards you pay in full, including charges that have not posted yet.
So the two differ by exactly the card balance, and a week can start higher than the week before it ended. That is not a rounding error and nothing is being double-counted: the ending balance answers "what is really mine", and the starting funds answer "what is in the account". Moneylight prints the same note under the grid whenever you have a card configured.
Credit cards
Moneylight handles cards differently depending on how you pay them.
If you pay the card in full: its balance is subtracted from every week's ending balance, because that money is already spoken for. The CC Balance row is a snapshot of what you owe today, repeated in every column; it does not grow week by week.
If you choose I make payments: the card is shown as Card debt instead. Its balance is never subtracted. The payments you have scheduled in YNAB become cash outflows in the weeks they fall, and Card debt steps down as those payments land. Each card's debt is tracked on its own, so a payment to one card comes off that card only.
Moneylight does not model interest or minimum payments. Card debt reflects the payments you actually schedule or plan.
What the six pending-charge tags mean
On a card you pay in full, expanding CC Balance lists the scheduled charges behind it. Each one carries a tag saying where its money already lives, so the week's math can add up without counting anything twice.
- Counted in Necessities: already covered by a Necessities row in your forecast.
- Counted in Bills: already covered by a bill due this week in the same YNAB category. A category holding both a bill and a necessity reads Counted in Bills and Necessities.
- Counted in CC Balance: not a necessity or a bill, but the money is set aside in a YNAB category.
- Partial: part of that category's envelope is already counted in Necessities or Bills; the rest is in CC Balance. If the envelope holds less than the charges, the difference is not set aside anywhere and lands on your card balance when it posts.
- Not counted: the YNAB category is empty, so the charge is not counted in your week totals or in CC Balance. It lands on your card balance when it posts.
- Pay-down: a scheduled payment toward the card. Shown so you can see it, but it does not move the forecast, because checking and the card both update on the next YNAB sync after it clears.
A total under the list splits the scheduled charges between what is already in Necessities or Bills and what is left in CC Balance, and adds a third term for anything that is in neither rather than folding it quietly into one of the other two.
What an extra card payment does to the numbers
An extra payment you plan on a carried card counts as cash out of that week, exactly like the scheduled one, and steps the Card debt line down from that week forward. Marking it done stops it counting, because at that point it has posted in YNAB and is already in your balance.
That is what makes it a way to test a payoff idea rather than a note to self: drop a bigger payment on a week, slide it earlier, and watch both your ending balance and your remaining debt respond before you commit any money. Adding one is in Handle a card you carry.
Necessities and the current week
A necessity is entered as an amount and a period, and Moneylight converts it to a weekly figure. Every future week uses that figure.
The current week does not. It uses what is actually left in the matching YNAB category this month, so a week where you have already done the shopping reads lower than your weekly average, and a week where the envelope is empty reads $0. That is deliberate: what is left is a fact, and what you plan to spend is an estimate. Using the estimate for a week that is half over would subtract money you have already spent a second time.
Two details follow from it. If several necessities point at one YNAB category, that category holds one real pool of money, so its balance is divided between them in proportion to their weekly amounts and counted once. And a one-week amount you set yourself wins over both, including a $0 you set for a week you will not be shopping.
How a bill gets marked paid
Two things can strike a bill, and they are tried in this order. The first one that applies wins.
- You marked it. Clicking the checkbox is final, in both directions: a bill you tick stays paid, and a bill you untick stays unpaid even if the rule below would have struck it.
- Moneylight matched it to a YNAB transaction. The transaction has to be in the same calendar month as the bill's due date, dated today or earlier, within 10% of the bill's amount, and it has to match every YNAB id the bill has linked. A bill with a linked payee has one exception: if the transaction is the only payment to that payee that month, it matches at any amount. This is recomputed every time the forecast loads and never stored, so correcting the transaction in YNAB corrects the strike by itself.
Moneylight only strikes a bill once its due date arrives, so a bill you pay early stays unpaid until then unless you tick it. Autopay strikes nothing on its own: the ⚡ badge says the bill pays itself, and Moneylight still waits for the payment to show in YNAB.
The match has a guard worth understanding, because it is why a bill you have paid can still show as unpaid. A bill linked to a YNAB category and nothing else does not auto-clear when either of these is true:
- another live bill shares that category, so a matching charge cannot say which of them was paid;
- the category carries other spending that month the bill does not explain, which makes it a general-spending envelope rather than a dedicated one.
In both cases Moneylight leaves the bill standing. That is the safe direction: an unstruck bill stays visible as money still going out, and one click marks it paid, where a wrong strike quietly inflates the balance and hides the shortfall the forecast exists to show.
Linking the bill's YNAB Payee is the way around it. A payee says which charge the bill is, so the guard no longer applies and the bill clears itself again. It also clears a bill whose amount varies, as long as that payee has only one payment that month. That is the reason to set one on a utility, or on anything that shares a category with your general spending.
Thresholds and savings
Warn Below and Danger Below are yours to set, and they default to $500.00 and $0.00. A week whose ending balance falls under the warn level turns amber with a getting low badge; under the danger level it turns red with a low badge. The same thresholds decide whether the chart's marker reads Tight Week or just Lowest Point.
A savings rule subtracts its amount in the week its paycheck lands, and the Savings Transfer row appears only in those weeks. A rule set to every paycheck fires once per paycheck in the week, so a week with two paychecks carries it twice.
Reference
What each control, card, row and symbol is called, and what it does.
Forecast controls
- Show N weeks then Update: how many weeks the forecast covers. Anywhere from 1 to 104; the default is 4.
- Hide and Show on the chart: collapse or expand it. Moneylight remembers your choice. Collapsing folds the summary cards away too, but the same numbers stay on a compact strip, so nothing is lost.
- ↻ Refresh from YNAB: pull your data again. Moneylight holds the forecast's data for a minute and your account, category and payee lists for five, so this is what you use after changing something in YNAB.
Summary cards
- Current Balance: what your chosen accounts hold right now, before any forecasting.
- Lowest Balance and Week of: the tightest week in the range you are showing, and when it lands. It can be this week.
- Bills Due Before Lowest Balance: the unpaid bills due between now and that week, so you know what is going out before it.
- Next Paycheck: your next payday from today. A dash means no paycheck falls inside the weeks you are showing.
Week card rows
Every week card is built in this order, top to bottom:
| Row | What it is |
|---|---|
| Starting funds | Your cash at the start of the week |
| Paychecks | Every paycheck landing that week, added in |
| Bills due | Each bill due that week, with its date |
| Bills total | The unpaid ones, added up and taken out |
| Necessities | Everyday spending for the week, taken out |
| Savings Transfer | Any savings rule a paycheck triggered |
| One-off items | Anything you added to this week alone |
| Card payments | Scheduled and extra payments on a card you carry |
| CC Balance | What you owe on cards you pay in full, one snapshot |
| Card debt | What you would still owe on your carried cards that week |
| Ending balance | Everything above, minus the pay-in-full cards |
The card's header shows the week's dates, its Pay Dates, and a low badge if it has one. Expanding CC Balance adds a Balance owed by card list when you have more than one card. With two or more cards set to I make payments, Card debt shows the total, then one row per card.
Symbols and badges
The same list is in the app, under What the symbols mean at the foot of the forecast.
| Symbol | What it means |
|---|---|
| ☐ / ✓ | Mark a bill paid, or a one-off item done. Paid means the money already left your account, so it stops counting against that week. |
| Gray ✓ with a wavy underline | Moneylight ticked this bill, not you, because a matching payment showed up in YNAB. Click it to put the bill back if that payment was not this bill. |
| Struck through | Already paid or received, so it is part of your current balance and is not counted again. |
| ⚡ | An autopay bill. It pays itself, so there is nothing for you to do when it comes due. Moneylight marks it paid once the payment shows in YNAB, or when you tick it. |
| 💳 | Queued on a credit card in YNAB. |
| getting low / low | The week's ending balance is under your Warn or your Danger threshold. |
| Edit | Dates and amounts on the grid are buttons. Click one to change just that occurrence. |
Settings
| Field | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts | The accounts whose balances become Starting funds | None |
| Credit Cards | The cards the forecast counts, each with How do you pay this card? | None |
| How do you pay this card? | In full each month, or I make payments | In full each month |
| Warn Below | The week turns amber under this | $500.00 |
| Danger Below | The week turns red under this | $0.00 |
| Show Closed Accounts | Reveals closed accounts while you pick. Not saved | Off |
Save Settings applies the changes to the active Plan, and the forecast picks them up the next time it runs.
Repeat schedules
Bills and paychecks share one list of twelve, under Repeats:
| Daily | Weekly | Every 2 weeks | Every 4 weeks |
| Twice a month | Monthly | Every other month | Every 3 months |
| Every 4 months | Twice a year | Yearly | Every other year |
Twice a month is the one that needs a rule: you set the first date and the second is placed 15 days later in the same month, which is YNAB's own behavior. The 5th pairs with the 20th, and the 25th pairs with the 10th.
Necessities are not dated, so they have four Period values instead, and they only change the units you type the amount in: Weekly, Every 2 weeks, Twice a month, Monthly. Whichever you pick, Moneylight forecasts the weekly figure it smooths to.
When something looks wrong
Find the symptom that matches what you see. If it is not listed, email hello@moneylight.app.
A bill still shows unpaid after I paid it
Moneylight only strikes a bill on its own when it can tell which charge paid it. A bill linked to a YNAB category alone does not auto-clear when another live bill shares that category, or when the category carries other spending that month the bill does not explain. Link the bill's YNAB Payee and the guard no longer applies, or just click the checkbox to mark it paid. A payee also clears a varying amount if it is the month's only payment to that payee. See how a bill gets marked paid.
A bill is struck through but I have not paid it
A gray check with a wavy underline means Moneylight ticked the bill, not you, because it matched the bill to a payment in YNAB. If that payment was something else, click the check to put the bill back. If the bill shares its YNAB category with other spending, link the bill's YNAB Payee so the match names the exact charge. See how a bill gets marked paid.
Starting funds do not match YNAB
Starting funds is the sum of the accounts you ticked under Accounts in Settings, and nothing else. A savings account you did not tick is not counted, and closed accounts are hidden from the picker until you choose Show Closed Accounts. Credit cards are handled separately, in Credit cards.
Next week starts higher than this week ended
That is the credit card. Ending balance subtracts what you owe on the cards you pay in full, so it answers what is really yours. The next week's Starting funds is your cash before the card, so the two differ by exactly the card balance. See starting funds and ending balance.
This week's necessities do not match my weekly amount
The current week is the one week that does not use your weekly figure. It uses what is actually left in the matching YNAB category this month, so a week where you have already done the shopping reads lower. Every future week uses the weekly amount. See necessities and the current week.
I imported too many bills
Open Bills, click Deactivate on the ones you do not want, and they drop off the forecast with their setup intact. To remove one for good, click Show Inactive, then Delete on the inactive row. Next time, import the eight or ten that decide whether a week is tight and add the rest later. See turn something off, or delete it.
A category is counted twice
A YNAB category held as both a bill and a necessity comes off the forecast twice. The import screen and the add form both flag it under Counted Twice before you save. Remove one side: either deactivate the bill, or deactivate the necessity. Keep whichever matches how the money actually leaves, a dated payment or an ongoing burn rate.
The import created a $0 bill
That is by design. The importer prefills the amount from the YNAB category's goal target, or this month's budgeted figure if it has no goal. A category with neither prefills blank, and a blank amount imports as $0 so the bill exists for you to fill in. Open Bills, click Edit on the row, and set the amount.
I set the 5th and expected the 20th
Twice a month is a pair of dates 15 days apart in the same month, which is YNAB's own rule. The 5th pairs with the 20th and the 25th pairs with the 10th. You set the first date and Moneylight sets the second. See repeat schedules.
The forecast will not load
Read the message. Your YNAB connection has expired means the grant lapsed: open the Account page and choose Reconnect YNAB, which keeps every bill, paycheck, necessity and setting you have. YNAB is busy right now and YNAB isn't responding right now are both YNAB's end. Wait a moment, then use ↻ Refresh from YNAB.
Next Paycheck shows a dash
There is no paycheck left inside the weeks you are showing. Raise the number in Show N weeks and click Update, and it reappears as soon as the horizon reaches your next payday. A dash never means Moneylight lost a paycheck.
It says "No payment scheduled in YNAB."
A card you have set to I make payments takes its cash outflow from the payment you schedule in YNAB, so with no scheduled transfer to that card there is nothing to count. If you carry more than one card, the note sits under the card that is missing a payment. Either schedule the transfer in YNAB, or use + Plan an Extra Credit Card Payment on the week you intend to pay. See handle a card you carry.
A week is red but I have money in savings
Only the accounts you ticked under Accounts feed the forecast. If the savings account is not ticked, its balance is not in Starting funds, and a week can read red while the money exists. Tick it in Settings if you would count it, or leave it out if it is money you do not intend to spend.
How do I handle a YNAB sinking fund?
A dated fund, like insurance, property tax or Christmas, goes in as a bill on its due date, so it comes off the week it is due. An undated fund, like car repairs or an emergency fund, stays in Starting funds, because it is real cash when you need it. Raise Warn Below to cover it, or untick the savings account in Settings if the fund lives there. Never add a fund as a necessity: the current week subtracts everything left in its category.
Will this change anything in YNAB?
No. Access is read-only. Moneylight reads your Plan to build the forecast and never writes to YNAB. Everything you set up here (bills, paychecks, thresholds, overrides) lives in Moneylight.
Account and billing
Everything below is on the Account page, reached from the bottom of the sidebar.
Your trial and subscription
Connecting YNAB starts a 14-day free trial. No card, nothing locked, and nothing to cancel if you walk away. Current pricing is on the pricing section of the homepage.
In the last four days of the trial a banner appears at the top of the app. If you have no card on file it offers Add a Card; if you have one it says so and offers Manage Billing, because a paid subscription starting silently is not something you should find out about from a statement. Moneylight also emails you when the trial ends.
If the trial runs out with no card, the forecast locks rather than disappearing. The page that replaces it is Restore Your Access, and it offers whichever route applies to you: Pay Invoice for a subscription that already exists, or Start a New Subscription. Your bills, paychecks, necessities and settings are all still there.
Once you are subscribed, Manage Subscription on the Account page opens the Stripe billing portal, where you can change your card, switch between monthly and annual, download invoices, or cancel. Canceling keeps your access until the end of the period you have already paid for, and the Account page says which date that is.
Lifetime Access is a one-time purchase that replaces the subscription entirely: no renewals, and all future updates included. It is limited to 100 licenses and ends on December 31, 2026, whichever comes first, and the offer appears in the app once you have actually used Moneylight, so the free trial is the way to it. There is no subscription to manage afterwards, so the Account page shows no billing portal for it.
Refer a friend
The Refer a Friend panel carries your personal link and code, and Copy Referral Link puts the link on your clipboard. It is there for every account, trial included, so you do not have to be paying to earn.
When someone you referred becomes a paying subscriber, you get a free month, applied automatically as a credit against your next invoice. A trial start is not the trigger, which is why the panel counts friends who have joined separately from months earned. You can refer as many people as you like, up to 12 free months in a rolling year.
Reconnect or disconnect YNAB
Reconnect YNAB refreshes Moneylight's access. Use it when the forecast stops loading and says your connection has expired: everything you set up is untouched, and reconnecting the same YNAB account picks up exactly where you were.
Disconnect YNAB deletes Moneylight's stored access and stops it reading your data. You stay signed in, and your Plans, bills and settings are kept, so reconnecting later restores everything. To also remove Moneylight from YNAB's side, manage your authorized apps in your YNAB account settings (opens in a new tab).
Two smaller things live on the same page. Your time zone is detected from your device and shown at the foot, and it is what decides which day the forecast treats as today. Log Out is at the bottom of the sidebar on every page; it ends the session and leaves your YNAB connection in place.
Delete your account
Delete My Account removes your Moneylight account and everything in it: your YNAB connection, your Plans, bills, paychecks, necessities, savings rules and every one-week change. You type DELETE to confirm, an active subscription is canceled immediately so you are not billed again, and Moneylight emails you a confirmation.
It cannot be undone, and it changes nothing in YNAB. If what you actually want is to stop Moneylight reading your Plan, use Disconnect YNAB instead and keep the account.
That is the whole forecast
That is the whole forecast: the accounts you picked, the paychecks and bills you set up, and what each week ends on. You can click through it on sample data in the live demo (opens in a new tab), or start a free 14-day trial and point it at your own YNAB Plan. No card required.
Still stuck? Email hello@moneylight.app.
14-day free trial, no card required.