How do I setup recurring transfer for cash flow of involved accounts

MattB

Hi, I was wondering if I can setup a recurring transfer transaction between a checking account (currently included in spending plan) and a savings account (currently excluded from spending plan as I don't use this account as part of my budgeting process) so that:

1. the cash flow for the checking would show the future scheduled transactions / cash flow
2. the cash flow for the savings account would show future scheduled transactions / cash flow
3. The transfer out of my checking would show on my spending plan calculations
4. The transfer into my savings account will not show as income
5. Allow me to easily adjust the amount transferred from the plan amount if in a given month I reduce or increase the transfer amount vs the planned amount. Ideally I'd do this once and it would show on the from and to sides for a transaction that has posted.

So far I've tried to set this up via a transfer in spending plan and I think with the current setup I'm getting items 1, 3, 4 and part of 5 (checking account but not savings) but I don't see that the scheduled transfer really works in sense of a from and a to account so I don't see the transfer as bring funds into my savings account in future transactions / cash flow projections.

I was thinking I had point 5 as if the amount varies on a transaction I can use the link transaction from the spending plan and it adjusts the amount(which seems really convenient) , but the actual transfer transactions don't seem to show up when I search to link. I think this is maybe because they are categorized as a transfer so work differently as a result.

Any other suggestions on how to get this working. Admittedly this is not a huge deal but I'm trying to get the projected cash flow info in Simplifi to be more accurate.

Searched for other discussions / help articles that would help with this but didn't find anything that quite solved it, but please point me to anything if I missed it.

Thanks!

SRC54

@MattB As for part 2 and possibly part 3, I couldn't get a future transfer to show up until I actually entered the transaction and un-excluded it from the Spending Plan. Once I made the transfer and changed the setting to be in the Spending Plan, it did subtract the $100 from amount left to Spend.

You can set a custom amount for Transfers in the Spending Plan for -100 each month and it will subtract it from the Spending Plan. I think you would have to do that each month.

Alternatively, you could go ahead and make the transaction today, postdate it for later in the month and un-exclude it from the Spending Plan. This seems to make it show up immediately in my Spending Plan. I think this is what I would do if I wanted to have a savings deposit show up as spending, but it is complicated.

MattB

Thanks @SRC54 , Will explore these ideas. Appreciate the response

SRC54

@MattB No problem. There is one other way you could do this. Set up a monthly recurring bill of Savings Deposit and assign it to a new expense category of Savings. This will make the Spending Plan treat it as an expense each month.

When you make the deposit to Savings, you enter one transaction for the checking account of $100 and mark it recurring and another in your Savings account for $+100 (you tell Simplifi to ignore this second transaction in the Spending Plan). You also use the same Expense category of Savings. Now Spending Plan shows this monthly transfer as an expense on one side and ignores it on the other side. As for Reports, it will show Savings Category as 0.00 for the month, which is correct as you spent no money.

As for me, I would just make the deposit, mark it as a regular transfer, and then delete the Recurring Bill incident at the end of each month. This way you get the reminder in the Spending Plan but you keep things simpler.

I actually do this latter for Dividends that I get in my brokerage account that I spend as income. I put in a recurring guesstimate each month so it is taken into account in the Spending Plan, then when I get the several deposits at the end of the month, I skip the Dividends incident for that month.