Learning centre · Every week · 7 min · screens from October 2026

Filing with your agent

Filing means putting each transaction into its envelope: every purchase where it belongs, a Costco receipt split between envelopes, the mortgage payment matched to the mortgage. It used to take up your Sunday. Now you ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Kimi to do it in one sentence, and read the summary it gives you.

What you'll do

Bring in a file of transactions from your bank and see them waiting to be filed
Say “file this week” and read what your agent did, and what it left for you
Split one purchase across two envelopes
Read the two separate states every transaction has: whether it is filed, and whether the bank has pending, cleared, or reconciled it

Step 1

New transactions arrive waiting to be filed

A transaction is what the bank reports: a date, an amount, and a payee. Whether you import it or type it in, it appears in the register under To file. Nothing has been decided about it yet: it is not in any envelope, and it does not change Ready to assign. A paycheque is the exception. Money coming in has only one job, which is to be added to Ready to assign, and that happens as soon as it arrives.

What the bank sends is rarely a name you would recognise: PTS*PETRO-CAN 0412 CALGARY means Petro-Canada. On a transaction nobody has named yet, Name it opens a payee rule already filled in from the bank's words. Pick the payee, and an envelope if it always goes to the same one, and save. That transaction, every waiting transaction like it, and every one that arrives later gets the name, and is filed too if you chose an envelope. Rules are kept in Settings → Payees, where you can also rename and merge payees.

The register on To file: two rows waiting, a $900.00 Home Depot purchase from Bow Valley Savings and a $75.31 Petro-Canada purchase on the Northgate Visa — To file: the two transactions the agent was not sure about, a $900 Home Depot purchase from savings and a Petro-Canada fill-up on the Visa. Everything else from the month is already in an envelope.

To file: the two transactions the agent was not sure about, a $900 Home Depot purchase from savings and a Petro-Canada fill-up on the Visa. Everything else from the month is already in an envelope.

The Import transactions dialog: drop a bank CSV or a YNAB register export, or paste the rows — Import reads a bank CSV or a YNAB register export and shows every row before anything is saved. Importing the same file twice is safe.

Import reads a bank CSV or a YNAB register export and shows every row before anything is saved. Importing the same file twice is safe.

here's my Visa export for the month. Import it into Visa and file everything you're sure about

Step 2

Your agent files, and you read its summary

Your agent reads each transaction and puts it where it belongs: Safeway to Groceries, Tim Hortons to Dining out, ENMAX to Utilities. It knows the household's envelopes because it reads them from the budget, not from a list you typed into the chat. When it is done, it tells you what it filed, what it split, and what it left for you. One or two left over is normal. None left over but a wrong guess is not, so a good request says leave anything you are not sure about.

The register showing every row: filed rows with their envelope tags (SportChek in Kids, Skip the Dishes in Dining out), two rows still to file (Home Depot and Petro-Canada), a Costco purchase split between Groceries and Kids, and a $7,114.98 transfer between chequing and savings — The register. A filed transaction shows a tag with the envelope it went into, a split shows each envelope, and a transfer between your own accounts has no envelope.

The register. A filed transaction shows a tag with the envelope it went into, a split shows each envelope, and a transfer between your own accounts has no envelope.

file this week's inbox. Costco goes 70/30 Groceries and Kids. Anything you're not sure about, leave for me and say why.

Step 3

Split one purchase two ways

A Costco receipt rarely belongs in just one envelope. A split files one transaction into several envelopes: $168.31 to Groceries and $72.13 to Kids, and the transaction shows both. The bank still sees one purchase, while the budget records two decisions. Your agent does this when you tell it the rule once (70/30, or “anything at Costco over $200, ask me”), and it can follow the rule next time because the budget shows how earlier receipts were split.

The register showing only the Costco purchases: seven purchases, each split into two envelopes, Groceries and Kids — Costco purchases, split. One transaction, two envelopes, and the two amounts add up to the receipt total.

Costco purchases, split. One transaction, two envelopes, and the two amounts add up to the receipt total.

the Costco run on the 21st was mostly groceries but $72.13 of it was the kids' school stuff. Split it

Step 4

See who filed what

Every entry records which key made it. The Activity screen is the household's shared record: what an agent filed, what a person moved, what the other chat entered on Friday, each line with the name of whoever did it. In a household with two people and two chats, nobody has to ask “who did that?” because the screen tells you. To check your agent's work, choose it under “Who made the change” and Activity shows only what it did, as far back as 90 days.

Activity: nothing needs you, 79 changes in the last 7 days, 65 by you and 14 by your agents; the filters for when and who made the change on the left, with Maya's agent and its 14 changes under Who made the change; a chart of changes each day; and the changes newest first, starting with Maya's agent adding 1 transaction, then Maya applying the cashflow plan Tighter November and saving her plans — Activity. What changed, newest first, each line saying who did it. Under Who made the change, choose one agent to see only its changes.