YNAB

The YNAB MCP server acts as a bridge between personal finances and AI assistants. It allows users of the popular "You Need A Budget" (YNAB) software to securely connect their financial data to AI-powered tools like Claude Desktop. Instead of manually exporting spreadsheets or switching tabs to check a balance, this tool enables an AI to look up how much money is left in a specific category or summarize recent spending habits just by asking a question in natural language. For developers and power users, this server provides a structured suite of tools that expose the YNAB API to Large Language Models. It includes capabilities to list all available budgets, fetch detailed transaction histories, and retrieve category groups. The server handles the heavy lifting of data retrieval, providing the AI with granular information—such as monetary amounts represented in milliunits for high precision—which allows the LLM to perform accurate financial calculations and reasoning without manual data entry. The integration is designed for seamless deployment using the `uv` Python tool manager and can be easily configured into any MCP-compatible client. By providing tools like `GetBudgetCategories` and `GetBudgetSettings`, the server allows an AI to understand the specific organizational structure and currency preferences of a user’s budget. This makes it an essential utility for building personalized financial advisors or automated bookkeeping agents that require real-time, read-access context to a user's financial life.

Category: Data & Analytics

Tags: accounting, budgeting, personal-finance, ynab

Visit YNAB

How to install and configure YNAB

1. Installation The YNAB MCP server can be run directly using uvx (a tool for running Python packages) or uv. No manual cloning is strictly necessary for basic use, but you may need to install the MCP Inspector for debugging. * To debug/inspect: bash npm install -g @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

2. Configuration To use this server with an MCP-enabled client (like Claude Desktop or Cline), add the following configuration to your settings file (e.g., cline_mcp_settings.json or your Claude Desktop config):

Basic Configuration json { "mcpServers": { "ynab-mcp": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["run", "ynab-mcp"], "env": { "YNAB_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here" } } } }

Advanced Configuration (Running from a specific directory) json { "mcpServers": { "ynab-mcp": { "command": "uv", "args": ["--directory", "/path/to/ynab-mcp", "run", "ynab-mcp"], "env": { "YNAB_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here" } } } }

Debugging Configuration (Using MCP Inspector) json { "mcpServers": { "ynab-mcp": { "command": "uv", "args": ["--directory", "/path/to/ynab-mcp", "run", "@modelcontextprotocol/inspector", "ynab-mcp"], "env": { "YNAB_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here" }, "disabled": false, "autoApprove": [] } } }

3. Available Tools * GetUser: Retrieves information about the authenticated YNAB user, including user ID and email. * ListBudgets: Lists all budgets accessible to the authenticated user, including budget IDs and names. * GetBudget: Retrieves detailed information about a specific budget, including transactions, categories, and balances. Supports optional date filtering and transaction limiting. (Note: Amounts are in milliunits, e.g., 1000 = $1.00). * GetBudgetCategories: Retrieves all categories defined in the specified budget, including category groups, names, and IDs. * GetBudgetSettings: Retrieves settings for the specified budget, including currency format, date format, and other preferences.

4. Example Prompts No specific example prompts were provided in the source content.

What you can do with YNAB

Use Case 1: Weekly Spending Performance Audit Problem: YNAB users often find it tedious to manually scan dozens of categories every week to identify where they are overspending or which categories still have a healthy surplus. Solution: By using the GetBudget and GetBudgetCategories tools, an AI assistant can instantly pull the current month's data, calculate the "Available" balances, and provide a plain-English summary of the user's financial status. Example: "Claude, look at my 'Personal Budget' for this month. Give me a bulleted list of any categories where I've spent more than 80% of my assigned budget, and tell me which category has the most leftover 'Available' cash."

Use Case 2: Natural Language Transaction Analysis Problem: Finding specific spending patterns (e.g., "How much did I spend on Amazon in the last 90 days?") requires manual filtering, searching, and mental math within the YNAB interface. Solution: This MCP allows the AI to fetch raw transaction data via GetBudget. The AI can then use its reasoning capabilities to filter by payee, date range, or category and perform complex calculations automatically. Example: "Search my transactions for the last 3 months. Tell me the total amount spent at 'Starbucks' and 'Dunkin', and let me know if my caffeine spending is trending up or down compared to the previous quarter."

Use Case 3: Automated "Rule 3" (Roll with the Punches) Rebalancing Problem: When a user overspends in one category, they must manually hunt through their budget to find another category with available funds to cover the "red" balance. Solution: The AI can use GetBudgetCategories to identify categories with negative balances and simultaneously scan for categories with positive "Available" amounts. It can then suggest a rebalancing plan based on the user's priorities. Example: "I overspent on my 'Dining Out' category by $45. Check my other discretionary categories like 'Video Games' or 'Clothing' and suggest where I should move money from to cover the overspending."

Use Case 4: Budget Formatting for External Reporting Problem: When moving data from YNAB to a spreadsheet or a financial report, users often struggle with unit conversions (YNAB uses milliunits) and matching date

currency formats. Solution: The GetBudgetSettings tool allows the AI to understand the user's specific currency and date preferences, while the assistant handles the math of converting milliunits (e.g., 1000) into standard currency units (e.g., $1.00) for a clean report. Example: "Fetch my budget settings and my 'Monthly…

Key facts

• Data & Analytics, Finance, Crypto & Payments
• accounting, budgeting, personal-finance, ynab

Part of MCP Servers

Related MCP servers

• MCP KQL Server — Execute KQL queries using Azure authentication. Requires Azure CLI login.
• MCP Jupyter Complete — A server for Jupyter notebook manipulation with position-based operations and VS Code integration.
• MCP Mempool — Access Bitcoin network data from mempool.space's API for AI agents and applications.
• MCP Options Order Flow Server — A high-performance MCP server for comprehensive options order flow analysis.
• MCP Orlen Wholesale Price — Model Context Protocol Servers for Orlen Wholesale Price.
• MCP Payment Server — An MCP server for processing payments using stdio transport, configured via environment variables.