manage-financial-overviewLABSCO SUMMARY
Two environment variables decide how much rope it has.
YNAB_READ_ONLY set to true disables every tool that changes YNAB data, which is a sensible first setting while you see how it behaves. YNAB_DEFAULT_BUDGET_ID pins the server to a single budget and hides list-budgets, so a client that only ever touches one budget cannot wander into another.
What it is
An MCP server for You Need A Budget. It exposes budgets, accounts, categories, transactions and payees, with tool descriptions written to guide the order you use them in.
What you get
- A high-level overview with balances, goals and context notes — manage-financial-overview, the intended starting point
- Accounts, categories and month-level budget status — list-accounts, list-categories, get-month-info
- Transactions by account or by month, plus upcoming scheduled ones — list-transactions, list-scheduled-transactions
- Assign money to a category or move it between categories — manage-budgeted-amount
- Create, update or delete many transactions in one call — bulk-manage-transactions
- Payee cleanup by merging names — list-payees, manage-payees
- Utilities: lookup-entity-by-id, lookup-payee-locations, list-budgets
Requirements
A YNAB Personal Access Token in YNAB_PAT, created from YNAB's developer settings. Run it with uvx ynab-mcp-server; version 0.2.1. YNAB_DEFAULT_BUDGET_ID and YNAB_READ_ONLY are optional.
Setup effort
One command plus credentials — uvx ynab-mcp-server, then supply credentials
USE CASES
01
Getting the state of your budget in one call
Start with the overview — balances, goals and context before anything else runs.
02
Working out where the money went
Pull the month's transactions and compare them against what was budgeted per category.
03
Covering an overspent category
Move the amount from another category rather than reworking the whole month.
04
Cleaning up messy payee names
List the payees, then merge the variants into one name.
14 tools
Listed in project docs. Your client may show a different list.
list-accountsget-month-infolist-categorieslist-transactionslist-scheduled-transactionsmanage-budgeted-amountbulk-manage-transactionsmanage-scheduled-transactionlist-payeesmanage-payeeslookup-entity-by-idlookup-payee-locationslist-budgetsBEFORE YOU INSTALL
What to know first
Tools you get
14 tools named in the project's documentation.
Requires
- uvx on PATH
- YNAB_PAT in your environment
INSTALLATION
Connect your client
Server setup
Goose, Other Platforms
TERMINAL
uvx ynab-mcp-serverMCP Clients
Claude Desktop
CLAUDE DESKTOP · JSON
{
"mcpServers": {
"ynab-mcp": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"ynab-mcp-server"
],
"env": {
"YNAB_PAT": "<YOUR_YNAB_PAT>"
}
}
}
}
