Auto-Assign: A Guide
March 19 2025 11:30pm • Est. Read Time: 8 MINSimplify assigning money with YNAB's optional Auto-Assign feature, which uses your targets and Scheduled Transactions to allocate funds across categories. Preview the results before committing, and choose from a variety of flexible options. Explore the logic behind options like 'Underfunded', 'Assigned Last Month', 'Spent Last Month', 'Average Assigned', 'Average Spent', and 'Reduce Overfunding', and the web-only options: 'Reset Available Amount' and 'Reset Assigned Amount'.
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Just getting started with YNAB?
When you first create a YNAB account, you're provided a short onboarding tutorial to teach you the basics. If you're presented with a banner or prompt like Next Step, Add Account, or Assign Your Money, you'll need to complete those prompts before being accessing all of the Auto-Assign options listed below.
In This Article
- What to Expect
- Explains what Auto-Assign does and where to find it in YNAB
- Your Auto-Assign Options
- Explains and defines eight Auto-Assign options
- How to Preview Auto-Assign
- Auto-Assigning in Future Months
- Explains what to do once you've fully funded the current month
What to Expect
Using Auto-Assign is the quickest and easiest way to assign funds to your categories. As long as you have targets ↗️ and/or Scheduled Transactions ↗️ set in your spending plan, with one tap, you can give every dollar a job and possibly fund your entire month! When no categories are selected, Auto-Assign options reflect the whole spending plan, not including hidden categories. You can also use Auto-Assign on a specific category (more on that below!).
For a deep dive on the logic behind how the order Auto-Assign uses to fund your categories, check out our Underfunded guide ↗️!
Always Available (but Always Optional)
Remember: Auto-Assign is completely optional! You can always manually assign your money ↗️ if you'd like. You don't have to turn Auto-Assign on or off. It's only utilized if you choose to select the button and options described below.
Where to Find Auto-Assign in YNAB
- Web
- iOS
- Android
On the web, you'll find Auto-Assign in two places:
- It's always available in the Inspector (the sidebar to the right of your budget).
- If you have funds available in Ready to Assign, you can use Auto-Assign from the top of your budget. Click the Assign button to the right of the Ready to Assign amount. From that pop-up window, your Auto-Assign options will be available under the Auto tab.
On iOS, Auto-Assign options only appear if funds are available to assign.
- Tap the Budget tab at the bottom of the app, then toggle on Categories at the top.
- Tap the green banner displaying "Ready to Assign."
- Tap the green banner displaying " Auto-Assign by..." to enter Assign Mode.
- Review your available Auto-Assign options.
Assign Mode has some useful information like:
- How much is available to assign.
- How much more is needed to fulfill targets, scheduled transactions, and overspending.
On Android, Auto-Assign options only appear if funds are available to assign.
- Tap the Budget tab at the bottom of the app, then toggle on Categories at the top.
- Tap the green banner displaying "Ready to Assign."
- Tap the green banner displaying " Auto-Assign by..." to enter Assign Mode.
- Review your available Auto-Assign options.
Assign Mode has some useful information like:
- How much is available to assign.
- How much more is needed to fulfill targets, scheduled transactions, and overspending.
Your Auto-Assign Options
When no categories are selected, Auto-Assign options reflect the whole budget, not including hidden categories. You can also select specific categories, and the auto-assign option will only affect those categories.
There are six options available on web and mobile.
- Underfunded:
This option will assign enough to fund your targets in their order of priority, in addition to covering upcoming transactions and overspending. This number represents the total amount you still need to assign in your budget (just be sure no categories are selected if you're using the web app). If you're interested in learning more, you can take a deep dive into the logic behind the underfunded option ↗️. - Assigned Last Month:
Some assigned amounts don’t change month-to-month. Rent or mortgage, for example. Use this option to assign the same amount as the previous month. - Spent Last Month:
If the previous month’s spending was a pretty good template for the current month, fire up this option. - Average Assigned:
An up-to-12-month rolling average of the assigned value for this category, starting from the first month you assigned money to this category. The current month's budget is excluded. (If you're in your fourth budget month, and you started assigning money to the selected category in your second budget month, it will calculate your average over months two and three.) - Average Spent:
The not-so-hidden gem of Auto-Assign. Spending averages are super-honest ↗️. We’ll show you an average of up to the last 12 months (excluding the current month), starting from the first month in which you assigned or spent money during that 12-month period. Use it as the basis for your budget, and you’ll likely be right on target. - Reduce Overfunding:
If there are any categories in your budget that have more money assigned towards them than they need according to the targets and scheduled transactions in that category, this option will remove the extra money from those categories and send them back to Ready to Assign. This option will only appear if the category is overfunded. If you’re interested in learning more about the logic behind this, we've written a deep dive on underfunding (and overfunding!) ↗️.
There are two options available only on the web.
- Reset Available Amount:
Sometimes it's best to re-prioritize every single dollar in your budget. This button will allow you to do just that. By resetting Available amounts, those dollars will go right back to Ready to Assign. It's like a mini Fresh Start! When you do this, you may notice that some Assigned columns become negative ↗️, which is a-ok, as long as it doesn't happen in a future month. This is not a good option for future months, because it can cause overspending if it is used in the future. - Reset Assigned Amount:
As you might expect, this option will change the value in the Assigned column to zero. If no categories are selected, it will apply to the whole budget—but there's a prompt to confirm that decision.
How to Preview Auto-Assign
If you'd like to know where your money is headed, you can easily preview Auto-Assign.
- Web
- iOS
- Android
- Click on Budget in the left sidebar (located immediately below the name of your budget).
- Verify that no categories are selected.
- Look at the Auto-Assign heading in the Inspector (or the right sidebar). You may need to click on the heading to expand it, revealing all of your Auto-Assign button options.
- Click one of the Auto-Assign buttons (for example, Underfunded, Assigned Last Month, Spent Last Month, etc.).
- A preview of which categories money is being assigned to will be available.
- Confirm by clicking the Assign Money button and Auto-Assign will immediately update your Assigned values.
If you don't like what's been assigned in the preview, you can cancel it and make adjustments to your targets, select specific categories to only Auto-Assign to those categories, or assign money manually. By selecting one or more categories or Category Groups, you can focus your Auto-Assigning efforts. If you select specific categories, you won't be provided with a preview, but the amount of money that will be assigned to the selected categories will be available on the Auto-Assign buttons themselves.
Need to reverse or undo an assignment? You can use the handy Undo button ↗️ to go back.
This preview is only available if you have a green Ready to Assign header (or funds available to assign). These steps won't work if your Ready to Assign header is red.
- Tap the Budget tab at the bottom of the app, then toggle on Categories at the top.
- Tap Assign Money in the Ready to Assign banner to open up Assign Mode*.
- Tap Auto-Assign by...
- Select one of the Auto-Assign options.
- A preview of which categories money is being assigned to will be available.
- Tap Save Assignments at the bottom.
*If you tap on a specific category while in Assign Mode, the option to use the Auto-Assign buttons will be available on that category only above the number pad. You can tap the More button to access additional Auto-Assign options. Tap the option you'd like to apply, and then continue using the Assign Mode Preview.
If you don't like what's been assigned in the preview, tap directly on categories to make changes as you'd like! You can move money around between categories, assign more to certain categories or less to others, but be sure not to assign more than you have (YNAB will warn you with a red Ready to Assign notice ↗️ in Spotlight ↗️ if you do).
New Feature: We’re releasing a few features in stages, including Spotlight on iOS and Android ↗️. Check to determine whether you have Spotlight by tapping the Budget tab on mobile. If you see a Spotlight option in the current month, you have the new feature. If not, you will soon! In the meanwhile, there may be a few differences in the phrasing of our notification banners, but don’t worry; the functionality is the same.
If I Could Turn Back Time...
It's very important to review and confirm the categories and amounts being assigned before saving the assignments because there is not a way to undo in the mobile app! If you'd like to try to retrace your steps, though, you can use the recent moves feature ↗️ to review a record of the money moves.
This preview is only available if you have a green Ready to Assign header (or funds available to assign). These steps won't work if your Ready to Assign header is red.
- Tap the Budget tab at the bottom of the app, then toggle on Categories at the top.
- Tap Assign Money in the Ready to Assign banner to open up Assign Mode*.
- Tap Auto-Assign by...
- Tap one of the Auto-Assign options.
- A preview of which categories money is being assigned to will be available.
- Tap Save Assignments at the bottom.
*If you tap on a specific category within Assign Mode, the option to use the Auto-Assign buttons will be available on that category only above the number pad. You can tap the three dots icon More button to access additional Auto-Assign options. Tap the option you'd like to apply, and then continue using Assign Mode Preview.
If you don't like what's been assigned in the preview, tap directly on categories to make changes as you'd like! You can move money around between categories, assign more to certain categories or less to others, but be sure not to assign more than you have (YNAB will warn you with a red Ready to Assign notice ↗️ if you do).
If I Could Turn Back Time...
It's very important to review and confirm the categories and amounts being assigned before saving the assignments because there is not a way to undo in the mobile app! If you'd like to try to retrace your steps, though, you can use the recent moves feature ↗️ to review a record of the money moves.
Auto-Assigning in Future Months
If you've fully funded all of your categories for the current month and would like to continue using Auto-Assign for future months, you can do so! Check out our article on getting a month ahead ↗️ to learn more about assigning directly to future months!
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