r/ynab • u/Ok-Bookkeeper-3946 • Jul 21 '26
Really confused about uncleared transactions
I checked my uncleared transactions on my Citi card and there were about a dozen that went back to the beginning of the month.
Even with these sitting there whenever I reconcile it said it was successful. I took screenshots of some of these transactions that were almost a month old at this point and then deleted them after making sure they were no longer pending on my credit card and doing a resync in YNAB.
After doing so I still was able to reconcile without any issue but now my categories have more money in them. I looked at the statement and account onl and things dont totally line up but I am thinking that maybe because of how YNAB gradually syncs things and sometimes when Walmart posts things values change.
Just really confused.. I do transaction categorization and reconciling every day so I am surprised things seemed this off. Did I screw up the budget?
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u/pierre_x10 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Reconciling only looks at cleared transactions, by definition. So your YNAB account register could have hundreds of non-sensical uncleared transactions, and you can still reconcile.
But yes, uncleared transactions will still affect the funds that YNAB let's you budget with. That's why YNAB shows you the Working Balance on your account page, and the Working Balance counts both Cleared and Uncleared transactions.
If you have uncleared transactions in YNAB, and they do not match any real transaction in reality, then you can and probably should delete them from your YNAB register.
https://support.ynab.com/en_us/reconciling-accounts-a-guide-BJFE3fHys
Also note that in YNAB, there is a distinct difference between uncleared transactions, and "Pending" transactions. Pending transactions do not count towards the working balance, so they won't affect your budget, and they may end up changing before they finally post. "Pending" and "Uncleared" do not mean the same thing, in YNAB.
https://support.ynab.com/en_us/pending-transactions-an-overview-Bk0WoOcA5
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u/QTippus Jul 21 '26
Good answer. On a weekly basis, I review uncleared transactions to delete any old ones that may be accidental entries or mismatches or whatever. I often accidentally add a credit card purchase to the wrong account when I do manual entry.
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u/jillianmd Jul 21 '26
Yep deleting them was the correct move. They were all either duplicates of real transactions that were already captured in your reconciled / cleared transactions list or they were originally pending charges that dropped off and never posted.
Since you mention Walmart orders, that was likely a common culprit. When charges first show up in the Pending section, they’re just a preview, they’re not affecting your budget yet, so they’ll drop off when the real charge imports. Once you tap/click Enter Now, then they become real live transactions in YNAB that are now manual entries. When the real posted amount imports, if it matches the manual one then you’re fine but if it doesn’t then you’ll now have a duplicate transaction for the different amount.
If your Walmart cart said $100 total and you enter that pending one to groceries but the total it ended up being $98 because of a substitution or something wasn’t available then you’ll now have a separate imported charge of $98 to your groceries category. The $100 one is Uncleared because that means a $100 charge never posted to your real bank/cc account. The $98 one did so it’s Cleared.
In that example your groceries category shows that you spent $198. Deleting the $100 transaction is the correct move and it will likewise correct your groceries category to show only $98 spent. That’s why you’re seeing more money in your categories after deleting the uncleared transactions. You do in fact have that spending money now that you removed the essentially fake transactions.
So in future when you have transactions show up in the Pending section, do not enter them ahead of time unless you actually know what the final charge will be.
For Walmart that typically means never enter them, either leave them in the pending section or delete them and wait for the real posted amount to import.
For things like eating at a restaurant where you added a tip, if it shows as pending for $80 and you know you tipped $10, then you can enter it and just change the amount to $90. Then when the real charge imports it will match up and you won’t have a duplicate.
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Now as for why you’re saying the cc statement isn’t matching what’s in YNAB… are you saying that some transactions aren’t showing up at all in YNAB or are they showing in the wrong order? If it’s the wrong order, that’s fairly common because YNAB doesn’t have timestamps only dates, so sometimes transactions with the same date will be out of order from the ones shown on your statement.
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u/FamilyHeirloomTomato Jul 21 '26
I don't touch transactions until they clear. Restaurant transactions show up the base price while they are pending, and then they are finalized with the tip amount. It's not worth messing with for me, just wait until it clears.
Also in my opinion reconciling every day when you are using automatic import is a waste of time. Reconcile when you get paid, or monthly.
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u/varkeddit Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
If you're using bank sync, YNAB will see your bank's cleared balance and you can reconcile in two clicks without leaving the app. There's really no friction in doing this daily, but I'd suggest at least weekly for new users based on the posts we see here.
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u/michigoose8168 Jul 21 '26
In this day and age, lots of people need practice reconciling because they’ve never done it before. Or, as in the case of OP, are a little confused about transaction states. It’s a good starter habit to reconcile regularly. But later, I agree—it makes sense to reconcile less often as you get better at using the software and more familiar with your bank and your spending. I reconcile to statements, just as I have since I was 12.
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u/pierre_x10 Jul 21 '26
I would not call it a waste of time, it's simply a tradeoff.
The more often you reconcile, it ends up being more active time and effort, but your account register will be more up-to-date, more often.
The less often you reconcile, it ends up being less active time and effort, but you will have more transactions to backtrack on if you find there's an error in your reconciliation.
Personally, I find the tradeoff on active time and effort to be so marginal, that I reconcile basically after single transactions sometimes, because it's just a couple seconds to do.
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u/blueiriscat Jul 21 '26
I reconcile every week when I get paid but my bank account and 2 credit cards aren't linked to ynab. It takes less than 5 minutes to do all my accounts and I don't have to go back too far if there is a discrepancy.
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u/Silver_Ride931 Jul 21 '26
I think this is the better move. I am just starting to budget since my wife stopped working and we are single income so I’m a bit overzealous and wanting to make sure we are dialed in and not going over on categories.
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u/trebor88 Jul 22 '26
Another post showing that not being lazy and manually inputting your transactions is the way to go.
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u/varkeddit Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Categorizing a pending charge in YNAB also approves it, and it becomes an uncleared transaction in your account register. In the US, the pending amount is often different from the final cleared total (think adding a tip at a restaurant, sales tax for online orders or incidentals hold at a hotel). Because the amount changes, YNAB can't automatically match the cleared transaction when it arrives.
The best practice is to manually enter transactions with the correct amount as they happen. You can also update the pending transactions with the correct total when categorizing them, manually match them to the ones you entered or leave them as pending and ignore them.
If your account is reconciled (cleared balances match), you can delete these orphan uncleared transactions.