What’s the point??

krmjo

What’s the point in paying for software that is supposed to link your bank accounts from multiple institutions when most of the accounts won’t sync? Currently there are 63 institutions they are having connectivity problems with. Time to look for another solution.

RobWilk

It syncs to all my accounts without issue, perhaps in your case it makes less sense (I might suggest you bank at better banks) — though I will say I manually enter most of my transactions before they download anyway, the downloading just clears transactions and keeps balances more up to date. The benefit of the mobile app is you can enter transactions when you make them.

Flopbot

@krmjo,

According to all knowing Google…

As of March 31, 2024, the United States had 4,577 banks, according to the FDIC.

It doesn’t much matter that there are currently 63 institutions having connectivity problems as long as they aren’t your 63 institutions. You’re going to find similar connectivity issues with any app, not just Simplifi. On some level, it just goes along with using personal financial software/apps. Personally, the banks I’ve chosen to use all sync well with Simplifi and that’s somewhat by design; I understand that’s not always possible, but it’s certainly worth considering. For me, I’m more loyal to Simplifi than I am to my banks because Simplifi helps me be more wise in the way I approach and spend the money entrusted to me. And I don’t currently have the time to maintain a manual account.

Please note, I’m not saying that Simplifi is absolved from fixing those 63 sync issues. They should - and are - constantly working to lower that number.

SRC54

Well I agree that there are a lot of banks, but it seems that a lot of them that should work are NOT working right. Fortunately for me, I don't have that many transactions a week and mostly for my checking account. I rarely use credit cards but the ones I use are not working well lately. Since I use a credit card just once or twice a week, fixing the errors is no big deal for me

This week my wife used her AmEx card and when it cleared the transaction, it didn't update the balance so in Simplifi the balance was wrong. Yes, it only lasted until the next update but irritating. With Chase, it's the opposite; it updates the balance first and clears the transaction next update. Of course, I can just clear it myself. But if one has a lot of transactions, it wouldn't be so easy. Capital One does the same thing with my debit card if it is used as a credit transaction. Debit with pin works right. All 3 of these use that update OAuth thingy (someone tell me the right nomenclature for that thingy).

This morning, my local checking account, which is usually pretty solid, had the wrong balance! Simplifi told me I had $400 or so dollars pending, which I didn't. Quicken Classic had it right. I couldn't make any sense of it or find anything wrong in the registry so I tried resetting the Bank, which almost never works. It told me the Bank wasn't reachable. So I made it a manual account and started over and that worked. One just has to be careful to link the account. In this case, I believe Simplifi had corrupted something. Perhaps using Early Access with the weekly updates has something to do with it. After all, we are basically agreeing to be beta testers. I don't mind; this is a hobby and I can fix it or go manual when I need to do so.

Yep, I agree with Rob that if you have a recalcitrant bank, you might as well change. There are plenty of choices, but I do think Simplifi's Connection Providers could do better. Maybe these problems are just growing pains with all these new connection types. But I feel for the users who are new to Simplifi and feel overwhelmed with so many transactions that have the wrong sign or don't come in at all. They either have so many transactions or are new to Simplifi (and some cases financial software altogether) and they cannot figure it out easily.

And I agree with Chris that my banks I chose because they play well with Quicken, but lately not as well as they used to! So it worries me whether all of this is just a temporary blip or a long-term descent into chaos. I have mentally prepared myself for an all manual account world. 😀

P.S. Also, I have a Fidelity Credit Card and everyone seems to have trouble with that. I never use it but I suppose I should sometime to see how it reacts. I mainly keep my credit card accounts connected so I can detect fraud asap. I know it connects daily but I don't know how it would handle transactions. Reverse signs? Tardy clearing of transactions or balances?

krmjo

Rob, my bank syncs just fine. It’s the brokerage firms they are having trouble with. The outages don’t last hours, they last weeks.

DannyB

@krmjo

Sorry to hear you're having these problems. Indeed, if one of your top priorities is to automate as much as possible (and for me that is a top priority), then being able to connect to your financial institutions would be a necessity for sure at the very least for your primary and most used accounts.

I never experienced the problem you and others have described. All the financial institutions I do business with (5 banks and 2 brokerage) have had successful and stable connections 99% of the time. I say 99% since one of my banks, a much used one, broke last week, but it was a bankside break and was back up in a couple of days.

lwyman

I've come to try and accept that my accounts will be unreliable - most of my banks are pretty stable, but the investment accounts are always iffy. For the most part my account synching is working (right now), but recently I couldn't synch with Amex, Vanguard, and T Rowe Price - none of which I'd call fly by night institutions. The problem is that Simplifi is a really good money tool, and you don't want to throw that away and not put some hope into the fact that they'll iron these issues out. There aren't a lot of good alternatives out there. But believe me, I understand it can be frustrating….

krmjo

@iwyman. You are right. It’s completely frustrating. It just shouldn’t be that hard.

Boydston

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/42290#Comment_42290

So, American Express and Citi are bad banks? How have you determined these are bad banks?

Boydston

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/10482/what-s-the-point

Yeah, I am in the process of leaving. I get that they can't sync every financial institute, but American Express and Citibank are not fringe institutes. There's so much I like about Simplifi but the problems have worn me out. It's not just sync issues (actually, I went a long time with very few sync issues). I've been using Simplifi for 3 years and I have had too many issues including: missing transactions; bewildering transaction linking issues; duplicate transactions; off UI behavior; feature changes that make it more difficult to resolve issues; and more. Every time I open simplifi I feel like I have to check to make sure the balance is right on my accounts—this defeats the point.

On top of it all, I have had terrible experiences with support. In fact, the worst tech support I have had in my entire life may have been with Simplifi. Simplifi was bugging out (which I later confirmed in the discussion forum) and the representative would have none of it. Long story short, they just kept insisting I was doing it wrong and refused to transfer me to another agent.

RobWilk

Citibank, as far as I know, has been working for me (Costco Anywhere card). I don't currently have an AMEX, though I know some are issued by Citibank (such as the Macy's AMEX card by Citi).

Sorry to hear about the other issues, I have occasional missing transactions too, but it generally doesn't affect the balance so I rarely even notice. I try to manually log most myself anyway, but that's my personal preference.

-Rob

Boydston

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/42808#Comment_42808

Hey! Today, Citi and Amex started working for me! Balances are wrong for Citi but that's a more solvable problem. :) I will hang on for another day…