YNAB ChatGPT Categorizer

Oh YNAB, you presume too much. The idea - brilliant. The app - it insists upon itself. Every other app that costs ~100 $/mo automates, visualizes, and summarizes far better.

Fine! YOU WIN! I do, in fact, need a budget...

This repo uses ChatGPT to auto-categorize transactions, and mark them with a visible blue flag in-app. State between runs is serialized to a local SQLite DB to avoid unnecessary API calls.

Instructions

Transactions already tagged with categories will not be considered.

Uncategorized transactions will attempt to be matched to Categories that fall in Category-Groups that start with "[Auto]" (case-insensitive).

In the example shown in the image, the categories eligible for auto-categorization are "Entertainment", "Dining", "Shopping", and "Gas".

Transactions that have been auto-categorized are marked with a blue flag.

Cost

You'll need to bring your own OpenAI GPT token. At the moment GPT 3.5 is $0.50 / 1M input tokens, and $1.5 / 1M output tokens [pricing page]. For me, each uncategorized transaction uses about ~85 input tokens, and ~2 output tokens. All things considered, very cheap.

YNAB is 99 $/yr, and you don't pay any extra for an API key. You're rate-limited for 200 requests per hour. Each script run uses 3 requests. Meaning you can run this script every minute if you want.

Build & Deployment

Docker

docker build -t aelzeiny/ynab-gpt .
docker run \
    -e OPENAI_API_KEY=$OPENAI_API_KEY \
    -e YNAB_API_KEY=$YNAB_API_KEY \
    -v ./db.sqlite:/app/db.sqlite \
    aelzeiny/ynab-gpt

Crontab, every 5 minutes (absolute paths recommended)

crontab -e
*/1 * * * * docker run -e OPENAI_API_KEY=$OPENAI_API_KEY -e YNAB_API_KEY=$YNAB_API_KEY -v ./db.sqlite:/app/db.sqlite aelzeiny/ynab-gpt > path_to_logs.log

Unsolicited App Reviews

I spent time in YNAB, Copilot, and Monarch and came out with a clear winner for my existing needs. Copilot was a VERY close second. I tried 3 apps for a few weeks, and here are my opinions.

• YNAB -> Best for Budgeting. It’s in the name. But I wish it automated more.
• Copilot -> Best for visualizations, auto-categorization, recurring expense tracking, dashboards, and overviews. But I wish it was better at budgeting and goals.
• Monarch -> Most well-rounded. But I wish it did better at auto-categorization & recurring expenses & budgets instead of targets.