Simplifi creating spurious "series" transaction

DavidB

It appears that Simpli is creating spurious series transactions. It's a little complicated to explain but here goes:

• In June, 2023 I started a Spotify subscription $10.65 a month (see screenshots)
• It jumped to $11.72 in August, 2023
  • …and I notice that the "series" icon starts showing up with the Sep 2023 charge (why did it do this?)
• It jumped to $12.76 in July, 2024

I was paying this on my "Citi 2%" card until May, 2024 when I switched to my "Citi®/AAdvantage" card.

If you look at the screenshots below, it appears that Simpli decided to create spurious transactions for $10.65 as part of a series in on Feb 23, 2024 (the ones in yellow). These did not actually come from my credit card, I never actually paid these, they were created by Simplifi and I only just now noticed them.

Now, I don't do anything with "series" in Simplifi, so I don't understand what's going on. All I know is that the ones in yellow are wrong.

• How do I turn off this "series" function?
• How can I delete the ones in yellow without messing anything else up?.
• How do I stop Simplifi from doing something like this with other recurring transactions in the future?

DannyB

Hi @DavidB. Fellow user here, so take this with that in mind.

You say that you don't do anything with series, by which I think you mean you don't use the recurring transaction function for any of your monthly recurring bills or subscriptions. That being the case, it looks like in September '23 a recurring series for your Spotify payment was either 1.) inadvertently created by you via QSimplifi seeing this transaction and asking if you wanted to create a recurring bill for this expense; 2.) if you do have some recurring bills/subscriptions set up, QSimplifi mistakenly started assigning this expense payment to that recurring series; or 3.) QSimplifi just flat out mistakenly created this recurring series and added it to your Spending Plan.

However this recurring transaction was created here are some ideas in answer to your questions:

• How do I turn off this "series" function?
  • Try going to "Bills & Payments" and click on the "All Recurring" tab. (You can get to the "All Recurring" via Settings also.)
  • Look for the "Spotify" in the "All Active" screen.
  • Click on the 3 dot menu at the left of the Spotify entry.
  • Click on "Delete Series."
  • That should get rid of this recurring entry in your Spending Plan.
  • If you have any other recurring series showing in this list you don't want, delete them also.
  • If QS mistakenly adds recurring series in the future, follow this same process.
  • I don't think there is a way to "turn off" this function generally other than to just not use it.
• How can I delete the ones in yellow without messing anything else up?.
  • You can go down the list of transactions and select all the unwanted, "spurious" transactions.
  • Click on the "Edit" icon in the menu bar, top right.
  • This will open the edit window, and you can click on the "Delete [x] transactions" to get rid of the spurious transactions.
• How do I stop Simplifi from doing something like this with other recurring transactions in the future?
  • Is this the only transaction for which a recurring series was inadvertently created?
  • If it happens again for any other expenses, in the future, do the same as above, delete the series.
  • I don't think there is a way is a way to "turn off" the recurring bills/subscriptions/income/transfer function.

I don't know why these recurring transactions are being added to your account register. That shouldn't be happening. Your account register should only show actual transactions downloaded from your bank unless you manually add a transaction to your account register. Someone else will have to address that issue.

Hope this helps.

Coach Kristina

Hello @DavidB,

To help troubleshoot this issue, first, please check if those transactions you highlighted in yellow (on your screenshot) downloaded from the financial institution or not. To do that, click the three dots to the right of the transaction and select the View transaction option. If it is a downloaded transaction, then at the top of the transaction detail, you will see something like the sample image below.

If the transactions are not downloaded from the financial institution, then the next step is to confirm if this is happening only in the web app or if you're also seeing this in the mobile app (if possible). If this is happening only in the web app, please try accessing Quicken Simplifi through an alternate browser, and see if the issue persists in that alternate browser.

Please let me know how it goes!

DavidB

Thanks @Coach Kristina and thanks @DannyB

Ahaaa! I did not know you could see how it appears on the origincal bank transaction! It turns out that the "spurious" transactions are not for Spotify at all, they are for other things, all of which are for the same amount ($10.65):

1. The Feb charge is for Apple storage
2. The June, July, August are for an Adobe product (see screenshot

It appears that, like @DannyB suggested, I must have clicked something to creeate this recurring series in the past, not knowing what I was even doing!!! USER ERROR!!

I deleted the series and updated the payee and category as appropriate. Problem fixed.

probablyjd

I am having a similar problem, and in my case it was definitely not user error - Simplifi is creating tons of (mostly erroneous) series transactions on its own with no input or approval from me, and making confusing changes to my expenses based on them.

Full story: shortly after signing up for Simplifi, my life got very hectic for a few months and I fell off the budget bandwagon (sometimes it happens). I moved to a new place and didn't open the app or web portal for months.

Recently I finally logged back in and noticed (in Simplifi) that the NY Times was charging me for a subscription that I thought I had canceled. But when I contacted the NYT, they said they hadn't billed me recently. I spent a while going back and forth trying to figure out why they were charging me after my subscription ended, until I finally realized that NY Times hadn't charged me at all. Simplifi had renamed several unrelated charges to "Nytimes" simply because they were the same amount. It had done this for months. And since it did it silently, without any indication that a change had been made to the expense (that I could find), I could only discover this by manually locating the expense by date and amount in my credit card app.

Eventually I figured out that this was cause by the series transaction feature, which I didn't know about. But, having discovered it, I could now see that there were dozens of automatically-generated bills, subscriptions, etc., and most of them were wrong. Some were based on charges that did not repeat at all (concert venue, DMV, etc). Some were duplicates from bills that are different each month, like utilities. Some were things that happen irregularly that I don't want tracked as a regular expense, like parking garages. Most of them were created after I stopped using the app, so I know I didn't approve them (which sounds like it is supposed to be a necessary step).

I have now deleted all the erroneous series, but it seems like I'm going to have to do this regularly to keep it from messing with my transactions. This "feature" is a mess, and there are a number of ways Simplifi could/should fix it:

1. Allow us to turn off automatically generated series, or at least allow us to approve them before they are created.
2. If we can't turn off series, then allow us to prevent them from changing expense names.
3. If we can't do that, then at least mark expenses that have been tampered with, and ideally show us the original vendor as well as the renamed one when we open the expense.

Please let me know if anyone knows of a setting or something that already exists which can fix this issue!

Coach Jon

Hello @probablyjd,

Thanks for reaching out! I am sorry for the recent trouble you have been experiencing. We do have a great support article that has information and instructions on how to deal with reminders here: https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4436514-linking-transactions-to-reminders

Additionally, we have another article that goes over amount matching for recurring transactions with instructions on how to change the settings for the amount matching here: https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/9174873-amount-matching-for-recurring-transactions

Generally, the more you use and interact with reminders, the better Quicken Simplifi learns going forward. As for your ideas, you may definitely feel free to create an idea post for anything not already implemented or being voted on.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/998/creating-and-voting-for-ideas-in-the-community

I hope this information helps!

-Coach Jon