Reference: Accounts

An account is a place money sits inside a Budget — checking, savings, a credit card. This server can only create and read manual accounts: ones you maintain by hand, with no bank connection. Linking a bank account for automatic import is only possible from the YNAB app itself — the API has no endpoint for it, so no MCP tool can do it either (see why bank linking is a hard limit of the YNAB API).

create_account is the one write tool in this toolset; the read-only default drops it, along with every other mutating tool — see what read-only actually changes.

Tools

create_account WRITE

Create a MANUAL account (name, type, starting balance in milliunits). The API cannot link a bank for direct import — that is YNAB app-only.

**Milliunits:** `balance` — 1000 = one currency unit.

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
budget_id	string		Budget id or alias (“last-used”, “default”). Defaults to YNAB_BUDGET_ID.
name	string	✓
type	enum: checking | savings | cash | creditCard | otherAsset | otherLiability	✓
balance	number		Starting balance in milliunits.

YNAB API

• POST /budgets/{budget_id}/accounts → Accounts/createAccount

get_account READ

Get one account by id.

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
budget_id	string		Budget id or alias (“last-used”, “default”). Defaults to YNAB_BUDGET_ID.
account_id	string	✓

YNAB API

• GET /budgets/{budget_id}/accounts/{account_id} → Accounts/getAccountById

list_accounts READ

List accounts in a budget with balances (milliunits + units).

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
budget_id	string		Budget id or alias (“last-used”, “default”). Defaults to YNAB_BUDGET_ID.
last_knowledge_of_server	number

YNAB API

• GET /budgets/{budget_id}/accounts → Accounts/getAccounts