Rollover unused Spending Plan money [edited] (10 Merged Votes)

MSM6835

I've moved from the Quicken desktop to Simplifi and I've also persuaded my son to move to Simplifi over his elaborate Excel spreadsheet. We both really like the program except for not being able to roll over spending plan money. This too is a deal-breaker and will keep us from renewing. I completely agree with gt7599a and we need to be able to use the spending plan for categories that aren't monthly expenses, however need to be part of the monthly budget. 

Lindz

Is there some sort of threshold the developers are looking for here?  It seems like this feature is a pretty big request. This sort of feature, to have spending categories roll from month to month is what would allow this app to act like virtual envelops. Without this it’s not really budgeting it’s just tracking. Or you could accomplish the same thing by letting the savings goals work like envelops. Set it up so that the goal is linked to a transaction. Also, this needs to be expanded to allow for current month’s income to be allocated to future months budget. 

emmoswmr

This is absolutely my number one request. I love Simplifi for some of its other features, including the great overview of my whole financial situation, but because I want to be able to roll over unused money in some of my spending categories, I am stuck using two apps (this and EveryDollar, free through work) to track our budget each month, and I have to ignore the fact that Simplifi yells at me for overspending during months that I buy new tires or go on vacation...

leviautumn

I’m doing the same as @emmoswmr and using both apps. I’ve already paid for my renewal but I won’t renew at the end if my term if this hadn’t been offered at that time. I love Simplifi OTHER than this one missing component as in all other areas it gives me a sound idea of what is going on with my budget. I just need to be able to plan ahead, month by month. 

Jbarnes7000

Yes this would be a huge reason for me continuing to use this app. 

If you could roll over money not used from each spending plan it would be a game changer. I wasn’t aware that mint offered this feature now until I just read this blog. I’ll have to go check mint out now as this would be very helpful for my us. 

I wish Simplifi had this feature. It would give a really big incentive to continue using Simplifi long term. 

lindsaypsu

I agree with so many on this thread.  I'm in my trial period for Simplifi.  Moving away from YNAB as I find it is too detailed and takes me too much time to keep up with.  So far, I'm loving how Simplifi is organized and functions.  With one big caveat ... the inability to rollover spending plan funds.  If I only spend $500 of my $600 grocery spending plan, I need to be able to roll the remaining $100 into the next month.  Then I would either need to allocate another $500 to my April plan or could keep my planned $600 and add in the $100 so I'd have $700 total.  This seems like a deal-breaker for me.  Which is frustrating because so many of the other apps have this feature.  Please please please get this out of review and into development!

Coach Natalie

Hello All,

We appreciate you all taking the time to provide your feedback on this request!

We know that a lot of our Users would like to see rollover abilities added to the Spending Plan, and although this is not currently on the road map, we do have a lot of Spending Plan enhancements on the way, including the ability to plan into the future, as well as a 12-month table view.

With that being said, once these enhancements are completed and fully released, our Product Team intends to hold feedback sessions to learn how rollover abilities would be beneficial for the Spending Plan at that time. More to come!

-Coach Natalie

lindsaypsu

Coach Natalie said:

Hello All,

We appreciate you all taking the time to provide your feedback on this request!

We know that a lot of our Users would like to see rollover abilities added to the Spending Plan, and although this is not currently on the road map, we do have a lot of Spending Plan enhancements on the way, including the ability to plan into the future, as well as a 12-month table view.

With that being said, once these enhancements are completed and fully released, our Product Team intends to hold feedback sessions to learn how rollover abilities would be beneficial in the Spending Plan at that time. More to come!

-Coach Natalie

Thank you!  Will be great to be able to plan into the future.  

gildrush

Maybe the team or someone could explain what their concept of the “Spending Plan” is. Then it might be clearer why there’s reluctance to implement the rolling balance is? 

RobWilk

"Spending plan" is a monthly budget.  It helps you avoid spending more than your monthly income.  Anything else people are asking for with rollover or rolling balance, is just the spending report/chart and current balance which is available already.

Edit: Presumes you are using Recurring transacitons to indicate your income and recurring expenses, which get applied to that monthly budget.

mrzoops

It's been 2.5 years since this was brought up? This is easily the highest requested/needed feature. The fact that it is not even on the roadmap is troubling. 

DannyB

Coach Natalie said:

Hello All,

Thank you for your continued patience as we consider this request!

I just wanted to let everyone know that this is definitely still being considered by our Product Team. It sounds like it will require a complete overhaul of the Spending Plan in order to implement, so it may be a while before we get any real traction, but it is being looked at.

-Coach Natalie

It looks like the last update on this feature request, at least in this discussion string, was in June 2021.  Is it time to bring it up again or to at least ask for an update on the Product Teams deliberations on this request?  Is it going to be implemented or not?  If it is, is there an eta or at least is there still serious discussion on how to implement this feature?

I'm fairly new to Simplifi - January 2022.  I too was surprised to find that I can't set up rollovers in my spending plan when I first started using Simplifi.  It looks like the request for the ability to rollover values in the spending plan from one month to another has been in discussion by users and in consideration by Product Team for a few years now.  

I understand from what @Coach Natalie posted back in June '21 that this would not be an easy feature to implement.  That being said:

1. What was the thinking /design philosophy/financial planning and budgeting philosophy of the development/product team behind the development of Simplifi
2. How did the development/product team envision planning and accounting for quarterly, semi-annual and annual expenses that are part of everyone's budgets?
3. How are we, the users, meant to incorporate these types of expenses into our monthly budget without the ability for rollovers in the spending plan so that when the due dates arrive we are prepared to pay these expenses?

Right now I'm trying to use Savings Goals to incorporate my non-monthly expenses into my monthly spending plan.  I'll keep working on that but it doesn't seem to be the best way to accomplish what is being requested here.

I'm not as concerned with the over/under spending in a given spending plan category from month to month but I can see where that would be useful.  However, along these lines what I would like to see is an easy one or two click process of moving funds from one spending plan category to another as the month progresses.  That way if I do end up overspending in one category I could move money designated for another category to cover the overage.  This way my monthly budget stays in balance and I have the freedom to move money between categories as needed thus preventing over and underspending (what does happen to "unspent" money at the end of the month when funds are released in the end of month clean-up?)

Right now I'm seeing Simplifi as an attempt to be a simple monthly budget planning and tracking app with tantalizing features that seem to promise the possibility of becoming a more robust financial planning app as (if?) the Simplifi development team continues to actually develop the program.

Coach Natalie

Hello @DannyB,

Thanks for the feedback!

Unfortunately, we don't have a whole lot of insight into the intentions of the design/designers, however, this request is definitely still being considered and will be reviewed further once the upcoming Spending Plan enhancements are rolled out (please see here). 

It looks like you may have missed my update for this request on March 17th, so I'd definitely suggest taking a look a few comments up from here --  https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/8140/#Comment_8140

I hope this helps!

-Coach Natalie

chouser10

What’s the point of these forums then? Customers who use the app should be driving your development.

Coach Natalie

Thanks for the inquiry @chouser10!

The Simplifi Community is a Product Support forum -- you can receive User-to-User feedback and assistance here, as well as work with some of the Simplifi Coaches. Additionally, our Community is a great place to share your feedback with our Product Team, as they review anything posted in the Product Feedback categories.

Although speculating on our Design Team's intentions (both past and present) is more or less outside of our scope here in the Community, we are definitely happy to pass along any feedback and feature requests that are made here. The Community is geared towards making sure that our Product Team is aware of User feedback, keeping our Users up-to-date on new and upcoming features, as well as known issues, and providing top-notch customer service while encouraging our User's to engage with each other. 

We have some Community FAQs available here that have more details on using the Simplifi Community, as well as a couple of Support Articles available here and here. 

I hope this helps provide some clarification! 

-Coach Natalie

Massaro920

@DannyB - I set up non regular “quarterly, semi-annual and annual expenses that are part of everyone's budgets” as bills/subscriptions and use the budgeting categories for spending outside of bills/subscriptions … that way you can still look at your cash flow and upcoming expenses. Seems to work for me. 

Jedp

That's an awesome idea @Massaro920! 

Boykin

@Coach Natalie post on "How Do I Set a Customized Income Amount in the Spending Plan?" works. It provides a manual way to match irregular income and expenses to the current month.

probablyjd

Just signed up for my trial period today, and so far I like the interface and the way Simplifi is organized. The inability to set up some kind of rollover fund is the one glaring miss that will probably keep me from renewing at the end of my trial period.

For clarity, my wife and I want two main things from a budgeting app:
1. To be able to track our spending across various categories over time (Simplifi seems to do this very well)
2. To allocate some funds as "fun money," keeping track of how much we have spent and how much we have left each month. This is where the rollover is really important - if we go over budget, that should mean we have to spend less the next month. Conversely, if we want to "save up" fun money for a big purchase, we should be able to spend less for a few months to build up a balance. Tags seem like a really elegant way to track this, except that they can't handle rollover.

I'll try a few of the workarounds mentioned on this thread, but if we can't find a way to do (2) at all then we'll have to look elsewhere.

robcat

It does seem weird and counterintuitive, this missing feature. We have highly variable income, and the current work around options are cumbersome. Please add! 

ReallyOldDude

Seems to me that the most basic of functions of a budgeting app should be to roll over balances to the next month. If I DON'T spend $10 a month for three months it should show that I have $30 to spend in that category, NOT that I ran over budget by $20 that month! That's not reality! That's 🤪! 

Neilhunt1

I recently cancelled my Simplifi account and switched to [removed]. Although Simplifi has superior interface and better pricing, this is one those rare MUST HAVE features. Many programs have trade offs that you live with, but this is one I could not live without. Please please add this to Simplifi and I will consider returning

gregmacfarlane

This is especially critical for reimbursements: if I spend money at the end of one month and my work / church / friends don't pay me back until the next week or so, everything is out of whack. I'd like to keep a budget with a monthly rolling value of about $1 that is always empty, but it needs to carry over month to month.

n2it

This is the one area that I continue to struggle with Simplify.  I get the idea of the spending plan and I like how simple (pun intended) it is, but it only works easily if looking a month at a time.  If we want to look outside of that, it's all a series of manual steps. 

Want to look at a yearly budget?  Well put that in a watchlist ... but it will be a manual step to recreate that even though it's already somewhat defined in spending plan

Want to save for yearly or semi-annual expenses?  Well go over into a different functionality called savings goal ... even if you set it up the routine transfer as recurring bill/transaction, you'll still have to manually go each month and add it to your saving plan ... and don't forget to set up a recurring bill for the payment (oh and don't forget to flag to ignore from the spending plan) so you can get a picture of cash flow needed at the time of the transaction ... and then actually manually remove the money from the spending plan too since the recurring bill doesn't do this automatically for you.  

Want to budget for seasonal differences? (e.g. my electric bill is over 2x more in summer than winter) ... I can either put in as a recurring bill or planned spending.  If I set up as planned spending instead of a bill than I can no longer look at cash flow.  If I set up as recurring bill, I have to set up as the maximum amount instead of an average budget that carries over.

Want to budget for other variable expenses? (i.e. that are drastically different from month to month - e.g. in my case I have a gift budget for buying gifts over the year and a travel bucket for smaller vacations or travel to relatives) ... I guess a watchlist even though what I really want is to be able to budget from month to month so that in a given year, I stay within that total amount.  But wait ... if I use a watchlist, how does that really help me monitor my month to month (i.e. spending plan) in the context of my yearly desired spend ... and why do I now have to look in 2 places?

It seems like all of these should just work together, easily and without having to do a bunch of manual steps and look in multiple places.  It seems like with a little bit of automation around recurring bills/transactions and the ability to carry over would get us pretty close

Coach Natalie

Hello All,

Our Product Team has requested feedback on rollover abilities and other potential features for the Spending Plan. Please be sure to share your feedback by answering the questions we posted!

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/3574/we-want-your-feedback-on-the-spending-plan#latest

-Coach Natalie

KK_swifty

Great suggestion! Would love to see this!

cnnrdltn

This is a need for me.  Will have to go back to [removed] (very sadly) otherwise to 0-base-budget

PatrickTheBrewer

My work around is I setup a Savings Goal just called "Monthly Roll Over". If I have unspent money at the end of the month I add that to this bucket at the beginning of the next month. You have to have savings setup to custom amount so it doesnt auto fill out your savings target.

If I happen to end up owing money at the end of the month I will withdraw money from this bucket for the amount. The key is to go in and find the transactions that put you into the negative for the month and select ignore from spending plan. You always have to select "ignore from spending plan" on the transactions you are spending the saving goal money on. In other words, when you are pulling money out of a savings goal to pay for an item you need to match the 2 by then ignoring the item. 

I dont know if that makes sense to anyone but I think its been working out for me. 

jstrez

Also think this is really important. Right now, I'm having to add that rollover as income

MattB

PatrickTheBrewer said:

My work around is I setup a Savings Goal just called "Monthly Roll Over". If I have unspent money at the end of the month I add that to this bucket at the beginning of the next month. You have to have savings setup to custom amount so it doesnt auto fill out your savings target.

If I happen to end up owing money at the end of the month I will withdraw money from this bucket for the amount. The key is to go in and find the transactions that put you into the negative for the month and select ignore from spending plan. You always have to select "ignore from spending plan" on the transactions you are spending the saving goal money on. In other words, when you are pulling money out of a savings goal to pay for an item you need to match the 2 by then ignoring the item. 

I dont know if that makes sense to anyone but I think its been working out for me. 

Tried to do this too and seems to be the best option.

Questions / down sides to this that I'd like suggestions on are:

1. It has  bothered me that I lose tracking on those spending items that go over for a given month.   Ay way to manage this so I can still see an accurate picture of my spending?

2. Also When I do save up for a bigger expense or spend from a savings goal, I'd like to be able to see what transactions were used to spend from that savings amount, is there a way to do that?

Thanks!