Handle Linking and Categorizing Transfer Transactions Better (edited)

emarzock

I've had great difficulty for several months in managing transfers. I'd like to make a few requests:
1. Transfers from the source side should never be automatically linked to a transfer on the target side where the date differs. I've run into that one several times.
2. I have several transfers that have been recorded and automatically linked to the wrong target account. Better intelligence needs to be created to properly identify the target account.
3. I have transfers that are incorrectly getting categorized entirely. There needs to be a way to tell the software to not categorize a transfer that meets these criteria.
4. There needs to be a way to link a transfer on the source side with a specific transfer on the target side. i.e. Link *this* one with *that* one.

BillPayer

I agree that transfers seem to have problems.  If I enter a transaction ahead of time to transfer money between accounts it shows as pending.  Once the actual transaction has been downloaded, I have seen it not recognize my pending transfer.  It then created separate 'Financial'-categorized transactions that were linking to the other side's manual transaction.

My process seems to be to put in the pending manual transaction, wait for the downloaded transaction categorized as financial, delete my pending transaction, recategorize my downloaded transaction to be my transfer.  Not ideal.

emarzock

You'd think that this sophisticated software would be able to do much better.  Quicken can do this easily.  Quicken asks if the downloaded transaction matches the one that has been manually entered...  If answer is yes, it matches it. If not, it creates a new transaction.

dwakeman

The ability to transfer cash in and out of brokerage accounts is a must as well

Duke0486

I agree with everything in the original post with one exception: it's fine if transfers from the source side are automatically linked to transfers on the target side where the date differs. Often time, a transfer shows up on one side as cleared one business day before it registers on the other side. Sometimes it may take few calendar days for one side to show up due to holidays or weekends.

So, it's fine if transfers from the source side are automatically linked to transfers on the target side where the posted date differs provided Simplifi applies the proper rules and fixes (if these aren't in place currently, please add):

1. The transactions are dated within 3 business days or less of one another.
2. The transaction dollar amounts are exactly the same.
3. Like the original poster requests, there needs to be a way to link a transfer on the source side with a specific transfer on the target side. (i.e. Link *this* one with *that* one), so the user can quickly fix any transfers that were incorrectly linked by Simplifi. Currently, it's a nightmare to unlink paired transactions because Simplifi wants to delete one of the transactions in the process.

DryHeat

Here are some suggestions regarding how linking transfers should work:

(1) Allow the user to turn off automatic linking of transfers.

(2) Allow the user to unlink erroneously linked transfers without altering anything else about the linked transactions (i.e., everything in the linked transactions would remain the same except that the Category would go back to whatever it was before the linking took place).

(3) Allow manual linking where the user is presented with a list of possible to-be-linked transactions in the selected transfer account to choose from.

(4) Allow the user to specify whether the list of possibilities should exactly match the date and/or the amount of the current transaction.

I also have some suggestions about how the linking of mixed currency transactions should work:

I sometimes transfer money from a US Dollar account to a Canadian dollar account. Twice QS correctly matched the transactions even though they had different amounts. The third time it did not, possibly because the transfer was larger and thus the discrepancy in amounts was about much bigger, about $1,500.

One solution would be for QS to allow me to manually match transactions with different amounts without quibble, as it did the first two times. I find this odd-looking, but it doesn't really bother me.

Another solution would be for QS to allow the manual match, but automatically split the "inflow" transaction to show one line (with the "outflow" transaction amount) as a transfer and a second line (with the difference) as Uncategorized. I could then change the category to "Currency Adjustment" or whatever.

To clarify, that would look like this after the match:

OUTFLOW TRANSACTION in US Account

— transaction amount is minus $4000, category is Canadian Account

INFLOW TRANSACTION in CAD Account

— transaction amount is plus +$5500

— split #1 amount is plus $4000, category is US Account

— split #2 amount is plus $1500, category is Uncategorized

Jenny T

When I imported my prior data into Simplifi, I didn't have the transfers listed correctly, so only one side of my transfers imported. Since my understanding is that you can't import the same transaction more than once, I have been cleaning up my historical transfers manually. I am having a lot of issues with the transfers linking to the wrong transaction - especially with common transfer amounts. Transactions are linking to other transactions that are weeks or even months apart for the same amount and sometimes are even linking to non-transfer transactions and changing data I had already verified to be correct. I am sure that there have been transactions linked in error before I understood what was happening (and I have no way to find those to fix them). I am spending so much extra time trying to manipulate transaction details so that I can create the desired outcome, and probably still have compromised the accuracy of some unrelated transactions unknowingly. I agree with the suggestions in the prior post that would significantly improve the experience and accuracy.

SRC54

I unlink transfers from time to time. All you have to do is change the category to plain Transfer. I then get an information box that tells me it has not deleted the downloaded transfer in the linked account but changed it to uncategorized. I can then go to the other account and change it to transfer too or fix it as I please.

Mostly this is a bug when Simplifi has matched the wrong transaction. We need to do bug reports when this happens. I tend just to fix it so I will try to make myself document it next time to file a bug report. (As some of you have said, it will match to another pending transaction with a different amount or date!)

I can already link transfers from brokerage accounts to cash accounts. But it is tricky because transactions in those accounts are still in beta testing and these transactions are ignored. Usually once it is downloaded into both accounts, I go to the brokerage account and change the category to the banking account and Simplifi will then ask if I want to link it.