Good Information: YNAB Cleaned Up These Messy #$%@ Payees

Image this: you’re driving to work and swing by Starbucks to purchase your normal Venti mocha with an additional shot. Don’t fear, you funded your “☕ Fancy Espresso” class, so there’s zero guilt or second-guessing with this buy. Simply pure mmmm.

However later that week, whenever you’re approving transactions, you don’t see “Starbucks.” As a substitute, you see a payee like this:

POS Withdrawal STARBUC #3562 2024-09-14 dbt crd exp on 05/28AUSTIN TX US 

That’s what we at YNAB name a “messy payee.” And we do not like them one bit.

In case your financial institution has ever achieved this to you, you realize it may be annoying to wash it up. And naturally, in the event you’re spending cash with a companion, it’s worse. As a substitute of funding your want farm collectively in your cash date night time, you’ll be combing by way of transactions like against the law scene, accusing one another of spending $350 on ice cream at a store referred to as “Coned,” earlier than one among you realizes that it’s truly your shared “Con Edison” electrical invoice.  

So, here is the excellent news: We mounted a number of these messy payees!

The subsequent time you import transactions, you’ll see extra acquainted names and loads much less junk. And perhaps that is one thing you’ve seen, and I wish to clarify why. It’s additionally an opportunity for me to essentially geek out on the place tech meets serving to folks love how they spend cash, which is my comfortable place.

Why do messy payees exist within the first place?

At YNAB, we wish you to like the way you spend your cash. However in fact, that you must know how you spend your cash, and the place you spent your cash within the first place. Sadly, many banks and retailers make this tougher than it must be. 

Let’s return to that Starbucks instance. Right here’s what it appears like coming into YNAB:
‍POS Withdrawal STARBUC #3562 2024-10-14 dbt crd exp on 05/28AUSTIN TX US 

As your transactions wind their manner by way of the system, from the shop, to a degree of sale system, to the cardboard processors, and ultimately to your account, every firm can add a tiny bit of information to the transaction’s payee, resulting in the monstrosity above.

Most of the banks and transaction suppliers that we use do their greatest to repair this by eradicating a few of the cruft, however you may nonetheless be left with less-than-helpful payees like “STARBU” or “CONED.” Up till not too long ago, this was a reasonably arduous drawback to resolve. Fortunately, we now dwell sooner or later. 

Why has it historically been arduous to repair?

Take a payee like this: 
wholefds bnd 2 10/20 #xxxxx#### buy wholefds bnd 104 bend

It’s considerably easy, albeit time-consuming, to write down a program to do away with a number of the stuff we don’t care about in a payee like that, like dates, xxxx’s, retailer numbers, and many others. After operating a program on the payee above, you’d be fortunate to be left with “wholefds” That’s higher, however in fact, what you actually wish to see in your checklist of transactions is “Complete Meals.” 

It’s fairly straightforward for a human to see that that is “Complete Meals,” however sadly we have now to inform a pc precisely what to do. We haven’t had the luxurious of writing a program that asks the pc, “What do you suppose this messy payee must be?”

Now a few of you is perhaps pondering, “No drawback! Write a program that claims if a payee has ‘wholefds’ in it, simply translate that to “Complete Meals.” Admittedly, that rules-based system works for some payees, however there are hundreds of thousands, billions—one may even say kajillions—of distinct payees. Moreover, this breaks down as quickly as you’ve got a significant variant like “wholefds cafe” or delicate variants like “entire fds,” “entire foo,” and many others. The checklist fairly actually goes on and on.

And that’s only for one grocery retailer. Think about making an attempt to account for each single espresso store location, on-line retailer, and tech savvy Lady Scout that accepts bank cards for her cookies. The system rapidly falls aside.

Why is it simpler to repair now?

Just lately, there have been unimaginable advances in “Giant Language Fashions” (LLMs). LLMs—ChatGPT is an instance many individuals have heard about—are applications that make it attainable to course of language in a “pure” or “fuzzy” manner that we couldn’t earlier than. Whereas conventional applications have to be instructed precisely learn how to flip “wholefds” into “Complete Meals”, new language fashions might be programmed to acknowledge issues that merely look like “Complete Meals”. In truth, in a way of talking, they really do now allow us to write code that asks, “What do you suppose this messy payee must be?” 

So earlier than, that previous messy payee seemed like this:
wholefds bnd 2 10/20 #xxxxx#### buy wholefds bnd 104 bend

And now, the cleaned up payee appears like this:
Complete Meals

The flexibility to course of imprecise language at scale like that is one thing that we programmers solely dreamed of till now. I’ve been programming for YNAB since 2006, when it was nonetheless a wee spreadsheet, and to say I’m extraordinarily enthusiastic about this development in know-how can be an understatement. This has already unlocked issues that had been beforehand not possible, and guarantees to allow a lot extra to your YNAB expertise.

Payee perfection? 

Will all of your payees be excellent from right here on out? Not fairly. For this primary launch, we targeted on the preferred million or so payees, so some retailers may get missed. And naturally, some messy payees will slip by way of since banks are developing with new methods to make payees even messier on a regular basis.

Lastly, YNAB will sometimes acknowledge a payee incorrectly—say, cleansing “American A” to “American Airways”. That’ll be proper 99.9% of the time for 99.9% of individuals, however for somebody like me who frequents “American Armadillo Provides,” it’s a miss. (Don’t fear: My “😍 Fluffy the Pleasant Armadillo 😍” class is effectively funded.) We did our greatest to forestall this in fact, but when one thing like this occurs to you, rename the transaction and YNAB will bear in mind it going ahead. 

Take pleasure in that clear payee feeling

The subsequent time you evaluate your transactions, we hope these cleaner payees can help you spend extra time genuinely reflecting in your spending, and fewer time asking Google or your spending companion what the heck “OTF Charlottesville” was.* Now in the event you’ll excuse me, I’ve acquired some armadillo provides to choose up.

*To save lots of you a while, “OTF Charlottesville” is “Orangetheory Health.”

YNAB characteristic updates are all the time enjoyable, however the factor we’re most enthusiastic about updating is your cash mindset. With the YNAB app and methodology, you may discover pleasure in spending you by no means thought attainable. Strive it free for 34 days!