Incorrect balance from bank causes incorrect projections (edited)

everydave

I've posted previously and was kind of hand waived away, but you can see my previous posting on that…

The short version, as best as I can tell, is that the projected cash flow takes into account whatever the current balance is being reported from an account, regardless if that aligns with the transactions it's been able to download.

The simplest example: If I have a starting balance of $200, and then have an "upcoming" transaction of $50 for a given date, the projected balance for that date should be $150.

However, at some point when the account syncs with simplified, the balance reported by the bank is $150 (taking the transaction into account), but they aren't reporting the $50 dollar transaction to simplifi, for whatever reason. So Simplify adjusts downwards: the current balance now is $150, but it still thinks there's a $50 transaction coming, so the projected balance shows as $100…which will never be the case in reality.

The problem is worse (and has real world consequences) going the other way with mismatched deposits.

The solution seems simple, to me anyway, because it's basic math: don't alter the balance unless you've got a transaction that can account for it, that would solve the entire problem and I don't understand why the system doesn't do this, and why when I brought it up last time it was blown off. I was told to make a feature request, so here it is.

Related, because of this, the projected balance for the "past" (to the left of the current date line) gets shifted as well…this shouldn't shift at all, this should 100% be based on transactions as all of that data is recorded.

As it is, the project balance is all but useless to me right now, yet it's the primary feature that first drew me to simplifi over the competition.

Is there anyone that can help with this?

Coach Jon

Hello @everydave,

Thanks for reaching out! To help us understand your situation better, can you let us know the following information?

• Is the issue occurring with a specific account or multiple accounts?
• Is the account(s) manual or connected to the bank?
• If the account(s) is connected to the bank, is the issue occurring with a specific bank or with multiple banks?
• When the balance is incorrect, do you have any pending transactions entered into the account?
• When the balance is incorrect, are there any pending transactions on the bank's website?

We also have an article here that goes over troubleshooting balance discrepancies in Quicken Simplifi that I'd suggest taking a look over:  https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4202003-how-to-resolve-balance-discrepancies

Additionally, if the issue is occurring with a specific bank, I'd suggest establishing a completely fresh connection with that bank to see if it fixes things moving forward. You may do so by following these steps:

1. Make all of the accounts with the bank manual by following the steps here.
2. Once you see the account(s) listed in the Manual Accounts section under Settings > Accounts, go back through the Add Account flow to reconnect to the bank.
3. If the connection is successful, carefully link the account(s) found to your existing Quicken Simplifi account(s) by following the steps here.

Please let us know, thanks!

-Coach Jon

everydave

Jon,

I appreciate the response, but as I had mentioned, I posted about this previously so it's in my history. If for some reason you can't look that up, all of the questions and suggestions your posting were asked by Natalie and answered there:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/10051/cu-balance-updates-but-not-transactions-make-cash-flow-projection-useless

The short version is pretty much what I listed: This is an auto connection to my credit union, which brings down the current balance but not the current transactions. This throws the projection off, making it useless until some time later when the transactions come down that match. This is a math and timing problem. And I'm really not at all sure how I can make it any more clear than the example that I gave. I can appreciate that maybe the credit unions is only supplying the balance and not the transactions at that time, but in that case, Simplifi should NOT be updating the balance unless it's also updating the transactions that literally account for that balance. It's this erroneous math that is causing the whole problem.

I've not checked my other accounts because those projected balances don't matter to me as this account in particular is used as a clearing house, as it were, so the projected balance is very important.

Please advise,

Dave

Coach Jon

Hello @everydave,

Thanks for the reply. I do not see in the previous thread where you answered some of the specific questions I asked. Since it is a specific account with this issue as you have stated, may we know what financial institution this account is connected with?

Additionally, we will want you to try making the account manual and then re-linking to see if it does fix things before we can continue. If you can follow the instructions I sent previously, this would be helpful in determining what is occuring as well as what to do next.

Thank you,

Coach Jon

everydave

Jon,

The account is with Mountain America Credit Union.

I can certainly try re-linking the account, but two concerns:

1. I don't see how this would change anything: the nature of how Simplifi is syncing the account data is the problem: They are getting a current balance, and updating it, without getting the the transactions that account for that balance. Why would re linking the account change that fundamental behavior.
2. It could take days for this to show up again, but in the interest of troubleshooting I'll go through that process and report back.

Dave

Coach Jon

Hello @everydave,

I can understand your concern. In order to proceed with further data gathering, we will need to verify if doing the manual account/re-link steps fixes the issue or not. If the issue persists we can then continue with further steps and data gathering at that point.

I do thank you for your patience and be sure to let us know if afterward the issue persists!

Thanks,

Coach Jon

everydave

Jon,

I've converted that account to manual and then reconnected it. I still need to set up my reassuring transactions since those were lost in the conversion, but one note: when connected to my credit union there are now two options "WC and Direct" previously it was on WC as that was the only option, this time I picked the Direct option. Maybe that'll make the difference.

I'll report back in a few days time.

Thanks,

Dave

everydave

Jon,

Unfortunately the problem still exists:

Right now, Simplifi is reporting a balance, which matches the balance at my credit union. However that balance takes into account a car payment that has already cleared my CU account, but simplify isn't accounting for it, thinking it's still to come. But becuase it's using the current balance, the projection is shifted downward by the amount of the car payment, because it's effectively applying it twice.

I don't understand why this is so hard: if simplify gets a balance update, but the math between the last balance update and the transaction updates it got (or didn't get) then don't update the balance. This is all that's required to fix the bug. Having balance update separate from transaction makes zero sense.

Please advise,

Dave

RobWilk

I think this is also a symptom of this recently reported bug

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/10587/balance-issues

everydave

@RobWilk I had reported it a while back and was kind of hand waved away/suggsted I file a bug. So I finally found the bug thread and reported this one here…but I see its been recategorized which is a little frustrating…

That said, I'm glad to see at least one other report of it so I know I'm not crazy and they can't ignore it. (or, I guess they can, but…)

RobWilk

there is definitely a tracking number assigned to this, if you can, on that other topic, there were questions asked by coach natalie, answer them either on that topic or via direct message to a coach, the more examples they can concretely provide, the more likely it will get attention and a fix sooner.

everydave

Natalie was the one that responded the first time around where I did answer all those questions and I was kind of dismissed, her only suggestion was to “[file a feature request]” which is why I made this new thread.

RobWilk

Only coaches can file bugs here, we do not have access to file them. They are like gate keepers to the bug report database, but at the same time they are not the ones who fix the bugs, and generally I don’t think those teams interact much outside of that database or maybe emails….

everydave

Well, the fact that it's been officially logged helps some, regardless of how it got there. We'll see if they do anything about it. It's extra frustrating because the projection was the one feature that made me go with Simplifi vs anyone else, but then only to discover it's fundamentally broken after the fact is disheartening.

Hopefully it'll be addressed some version of soon, becuase as it is I can't trust it at all and doing so already cost me an overdraft (yeah, I know, my responsibility but if you can trust the numbers in your finance software, I'm not sure what the point is.)

Coach Jon

Hello @everydave,

Thanks for confirming that the issue is still present. Now that we have confirmed that, can you please let us know if everything becomes correct again upon the next successful refresh (around 4-6 hours from your last refresh). Please let us know!

-Coach Jon

everydave

Jon,

I just checked and it updated. The car payment transaction now shows up. The balance remains unchanged, as expected, but the projection is now more correct, as expected, since the car payment is only being "counted" once.

Is there anything else that can be done. I've lost all faith in what the balance and the projection actually means. I'm having to log back into my back account every time I need to be sure…

Dave

Coach Jon

Hello @everydave,

Thanks for the update. We can get you added to the ticket for this issue. Please supply the following information when you can:

1. The name of the account with the issue, as it appears in Quicken Simplifi.
2. The Date, Payee, and Amount of the transactions that seem to be impacting the balance ahead of actually downloading, or are being double-counted in the balance.
3. Confirm whether these transactions show as "pending" in Quicken Simplifi.
4. Confirm whether these transactions show as "pending" on the bank's website.
5. The current balance for the account in Quicken Simplifi (we need this when it’s incorrect).
6. The current balance for the account on the bank's website (when it’s incorrect in Quicken Simplifi).
7. The balance for the account in Quicken Simplifi after the transactions download/clear and everything becomes correct again.
8. A timeline of when the balance is incorrect and when it becomes correct again in relation to the above transactions downloading and/or clearing in Quicken Simplifi.

We will also need logs to be sent to us. Here are the instructions to do this:

1. Log into the Quicken Simplifi Web App.
2. Select Profile from the left-hand navigation bar.
3. With the Profile menu open, hold down the Option key for Mac or the Alt key for Windows, and then click Send Feedback.
4. Leave all boxes checked, add a brief description of the issue, and then click Send.

Thanks,

Coach Jon

everydave

Jon,

Do you want me to answer the first set of question here, and then do the second section separately or should I do it all when submitting in the second section?

Dave

Coach Jon

Hello @everydave,

You may feel free to direct message me this information! As for the logs, those are just submitted directly to us via the directions given above.

Thanks,

Coach Jon

Coach Jon

Hello @everydave,

Thank you for the information! May we also have a screenshot showing the projected cash flow showing the incorrect projection when you can? This will help us going forward.

Thanks,

Coach Jon

RobWilk

If the current balance is wrong, that automatically puts the cash flow forecast off as it's based on the incorrect balance. It sounded like that was what was happening, but i might be wrong.

DannyB

I'm not sure even if the supposed account balance issue gets worked out, that the projections are accurate since Planned Spending exp3nses re not included in the calculations which amounts to around 56% of expenses for me.

RobWilk

@DannyB my other spending also isn’t factored in. Btw, some ppl use planned spending like a budget, and I suspect if they had their entire budget subtracted from projected spending, balances might frequently be forecast negatively

DannyB

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/43054#Comment_43054

Yes, Other Spending is also not included in projections…

everydave

@Coach Jon,

I sending a screenshot will have to wait until the next time it's out of sync since transaction came through, but I don't know how that's going to illuminate things any further for all the reasons I explained.

But the next opportunity I get where it happens again, I'll direct message you a screen shot showing the "current" balance that takes into account a transaction that simplifi doesn't show.

Dave

everydave

@RobWilk

Correct, the projection is off because the balance that Simplif is using as "current" takes into account a transaction that Simplifi doesn't know has cleared the credit union. I get that Simplifi, for whatever reasons isn't getting balance information at the same time they're getting transaction information. But they absolutely should be able to do the bath between two balance changes and see if there's corresponding transactions, and if not..that's a problem, should be highlighted (or should be able to show a cleared mode with the previous balance…or something)

everydave

@DannyB

My planned spending is part of the projection…but that doesn't matter here. All of that does get applied correctly, but as @RobWilk suggests, the problem is that it's all getting applied correctly to a wrong balance, so it throw it all off.

Dave

DannyB

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/43082#Comment_43082

How are you able to get your planned spending to show up on your account balance projection? I've never found a way to do that. All my recurring expenses are included in account projections since the recurring bills, subscriptions, income, included SG contributions and visible transfers are assigned to particular accounts with expected due dates and amounts. On the other hand, my planned expenses are pool of funds I assign for a month, for example Gas - $300, but this spending takes place throughout the month and may be drawn from different accounts and so far I have found no way to make those expenses visible for the account balance projections.

Still, on topic, you're right, this won't matter if the "beginning" balance on any given day is incorrect.

everydave

@DannyB

Sorry, I misspoke, I was crossing "planned spending" with "planned expenses" in my head, where planned expenses are the bills and subs and all that.

while off topic for this thread, I didn't consider even wanting that due to their variable nature and so long as I new the planned spending was within the limits then it shouldn't be an issue…

Dave

DannyB

@everydave

I've been following this thread since you first posted. Here is a snapshot of my main cash account cash flow projection as of today (11/9).

When you look at your cash flow projection, does the information recorded to the left, the solid blue line, accurately reflect your actual daily balances from your bank?

Have you noticed any corrections to the past reported daily balances when the balances between your bank and QS get sorted out (you seem to indicate the balances do get sorted out in time)?

If I understand you correctly, your daily balance downloaded from your bank is not coming into QS correctly because cleared and pending transactions are not being downloaded and/or are being mishandled by QS and as a result, your daily updated projection is being thrown off apparently substantially at times.

It might help clarify what you are seeing if you posted a series of daily snapshots of your cash flow projection. I'd be happy to do the same if a comparison would be helpful.

P.S. To be sure, the amounts reported to the left of the today line do include any Planned and Other spending amounts that were paid out of this account, but the projection to the left does not. Again, I'd appreciate knowing how you get Planned and Other expenses included in the projection.

everydave

The issue is with the balance coming from my CU is based on transaction that hasn’t made it to Simplifi at all. So while simplifi shows it as “current” it still projects based on that transaction that it thinks is still yet to come, so the projection, effectively, counts the transaction twice.