I ran into this problem because I split my electric bill with my other 2 roommates (3 of us in total). I pay the total bill (say $150/month for purposes of this example). I have a recurring bill for Duke energy of $150/month in the spending plan. But that is not my personal outlay - I am only responsible for one third ($50/month) and I want my spending plan to reflect this NET result of -$50/month.
Well this already exists you may say, BUT the only way to make this netting possible is to add the reimbursement transactions as 'Personal Income' and make a subcategory of 'Reimbursements'. But this is not straightforward if I wanted to see a report for my total spending on electric for the year. The report for electric would show $1800/year and my report for reimbursements would show $1200. This is especially messy if I had multiple bills I am splitting (electric, cable, water, etc.) Sure, I can add tags on the reimbursements of electric, cable, water, etc. but the problem remains that I cannot coincide the expense categories with the respective tags (tags for cable are separate from expenses of cable).
I feel strongly that the purpose of this app is for it to be autonomous. People want to link their accounts, spend some time to set up the spending plan, and monitor it every so often to see what they have remaining to keep their margin. In my opinion, not being able to net out expenses AND reimbursements from that same category is a problem.
The solution would be to add the ability to mark reimbursements (from my roommates) as a recurring bill (rather than income) that is categorized under the same roof. This will do the netting process for users while keeping it under one view. I believe that this is an essential fix for Simplifi. I am a financial advisor and have downloaded/experimented with many personal finance apps to help my clients - none have anything close to the power of the Simplifi's Spending Plan. This capability would further Simplifi's competitive edge.
