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Request- Indicate bank balance with total rollover amount deducted from it

BenB

It would be really nice if in the accounts section whichever account is funding the budget (typically checking account), beneath the balance, there could be another balance showing something like 'Available Balance', which would be the current balance minus the total rollover amounts of all categories that have a rollover.

I notice this is done with my savings goal. My savings account has an account balance, beneath it it has a balance of savings goal, then under that it has an available balance - this is super helpful to understand how my money is reserved in the account.

Please consider the same for a checking account such as this:

Checking $XXXXX

Rollover $XXXXX

Available Balance $XXXXX

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Find more posts tagged with

Spending Plan

Savings Goals

Rollover

Comments

Coach Jon

Hello @BenB,

Thank you for reaching out! I have converted your idea post into a discussion as I think there is a slight misunderstanding with how Planned Spending works in Quicken Simplifi. It does not have anything to do with the balances of your accounts themselves. It is specifically used to budget for your fluctuating month-to-month expenses, or for one-time expenses that you are planning for that month. Our support article goes over this in more detail here: https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/4212702-understanding-your-spending-plan

Savings Goals themselves have an Available Balance shown in the Accounts List because it shows the amount you've contributed from that account specifically, and allows you to track the amount remaining after your contributions. To have more than one 'Available Balance' statistic in the Accounts List would ultimately cause confusion in this case. https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3676756-using-quicken-simplifi-s-savings-goals

I hope this information helps! If you would like to refine your request after you have a better understanding of how this works you may feel free to! We also have this idea post you may be interested in voting for that may be helpful:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1114/include-checking-account-balance-in-spending-plan-3-merged-votes

-Coach Jon

BenB

A rollover category functions essentially the same as a savings goal without a target amount. You’re saving. That money being saved should be accounted for somewhere.

I’ll give you an example. The roll over funds accumulate within a bank account.
If my bank account balance is $3500, some of that balance includes reserved money (dedicated to rollover) in my budget.
It would be helpful to know what that is. Let’s say the total amount of my rollover is currently $1500, which means I need to maintain at least $1500 in my bank or I’ll be overbudgeted. Therefore the available balance in my bank would actually be $2000 (3500-1500 reserved funds).

If rollover is going to be a feature then there should be a way to account for that, otherwise it’s just an arbitrary number.

All I’m asking is if there’s a way to show that.

DannyB

@BenB

Here is an existing feature request to find a way to do what you are asking that you can add your vote and comments to:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/8762/accounting-for-rolled-over-planned-spending-cash

@Coach Jon is correct to point out that there is no direct link between the Spending Plan and your actual bank accounts. But you are also correct, I believe, to point out that the rollover feature would be more effective if there was some way to connect rollover designated funds with whichever account those funds are held in and show them as unavailable for general spending.

For this to happen, there would have to be a mechanism in QS rollover feature to indicate where this money in fact is.

BenB

There becomes a direct link when a budget has money rolled over to the next month without income to back it up. That creates a gap. I'm able to use a manual cash account to track the amount of money rolled over for my own knowledge, but being able to take some of that and add it back as income is very hard. I wish there was a way to add income (all or some) that was rolled over and is currently in the budget.

Otherwise - maybe someone can help me understand the intent behind the rollover. To me it's overstating your budgeted amounts relative to income for the month with no way to subsidize it.

Coach Natalie

@BenB, thanks for the reply!

The purpose of Rollover is for Planned Spending expenses only. Since Planned Spending expenses go month-to-month, users wanted to roll over leftover funds to the following month. For example, say I have $300 budgeted for groceries each month, but I only spent $250 last month. The remaining $50 would be added to this month's budget, giving me extra wiggle room. My budgeted amount for this month would still be $300, but I would have an extra $50 from the prior month as well.

Here is what a Planned Spending expense with a rollover amount looks like. In this particular case, the prior month rollover amounts saved me, as I overspent by quite a bit in February for this expense:

Screenshot 2025-03-03 at 11.33.51 AM.png

And here is our article on Planned Spending Rollover: https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/9029030-using-rollover-in-planned-spending

Also, Planned Spending is just one part of the Spending Plan (aka budget). There will be other expenses included in the Spending Plan, such as Recurring Bills, Subscriptions, and Income, that are not part of Planned Spending and don't have any type of rollover abilities.

I hope this helps!

BenB

thanks coach Natalie.

What confuses me is if I have a planned expense for $800 and my budget category has been rolling over several months to prepare for it. I now have an available budget amount of $800. What if I don’t have the income that month to pay the expense? Where is the money that I’ve been saving up and not just the expense?

Coach Natalie

@BenB, Planned Spending isn't meant for saving money. Let's wait to see if other users chime in here on how Planned Spending Rollover works for them, as I don't personally use it much, so I may not be of much help. But, as a general, the Spending Plan does not take into account existing account balances in any way. It is a month-by-month budget that allows you to:

Plan for expected income
Plan for recurring expenses
Plan for savings goals (this and the first two are in the Income after Bills & Savings section of the Spending Plan)
Plan for additional budgeted categories, like gas and groceries (Planned Spending)
Track additional spending that occurs outside of recurring or planned items (Other Spending)
Know what you have left for the month (Available)

Knowing what's in your accounts doesn't factor into what you have coming in during the month versus what you have going out during that same month. Features like Projected Cash Flow are meant to help with projecting balances: https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3357429-using-projected-cash-flow

However, Projected Cash Flow does not currently account for Planned Spending:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1651/ability-to-add-planned-spending-items-to-our-projected-cash-flow-edited-4-merged-votes

Maybe the Idea post for Planned Spending Rollover has some additional insight from other users for you!

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/114/rollover-unused-spending-plan-money-edited-10-merged-votes

Let me know if this helps clear things up or if you have any further questions!

DryHeat

@BenB "Where is the money that I’ve been saving up and not just the expense?"

The QS Spending Plan compares this month's income to this month's spending. It can help regulate spending behavior. Ideally, it lets us see whether we are on an upward (spending is less than income) or downward (vice-versa) trajectory. But in most cases it won't tell you whether more actual money came into your accounts than went out during the month.

(The simplest illustration is how credit card purchases/payments are typically handled in QS. CC purchases show up in Spending Plan, but don't take money out of your bank account. CC payments take money out of your bank, but don't show up in Spending Plan.)

If you want to see "where the money went" in real time, take a look at your bank account for the months where you "rolled over" some of your Planned Spending. Did you have the expected amount more money in there at the end of each month than the month before? Or are there some bank transactions not accounted for in Spending Plan? If so, that will show where the money went.

PS: Here's another comment about Planned Spending / Rollover vs real bank Account balances. Might help.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/48613#Comment_48613

BenB

I know where the money is - in my checking account. My issue is I want to add it back to the month as income to pay the $800 expense I’ve been saving for. Otherwise my cash flow will tank.

I find it odd to rollover a future expense and save the money in my checking account just to not be able to add money back to the budget to represent the payment being made. I can’t make the payment with only my monthly income for that month.

DryHeat

@BenB "I know where the money is - in my checking account. … I want to add it back to the month as income… Otherwise my cash flow will tank."

I'm having a little trouble figuring out which part of the QS application you are talking about.

(1) If you are you talking about the Projected Cash Flow displayed on your bank account, the money you have been saving up in your checking account should already be reflected there. It always starts with the current balance. But note that the Help Center article below says: "it does not include Planned Spending Items from the Spending Plan."

https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3357429-using-projected-cash-flow

(2) If you are talking about the amount shown as available on the Spending Plan, my understanding is that the "rolled over" amounts in Planned Spending do not affect that number. The Help Center article below says: "Planned Spending series with Rollover enabled will use the targeted amount when calculating your Spending Plan totals so that the Available amount of your Spending Plan isn’t impacted." Is it not working that way? (see issue below)

https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/9029030-using-rollover-in-planned-spending

(3) Or are you talking about something else?

NOTE: There is an existing issue with incorrect amounts in Planned Spending rollovers that may be causing part of the problem.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/11405/ongoing-01-30-25-planned-spending-rollover-showing-incorrect-amounts

BenB

I’m prob not explaining this correctly.

Lets say there is $1500 total in your rollovers - that’s money budgeted to spend. My total projected income for the month is less than my spending plan plus rollovers. The $1500 I’ve saved (rolled over) is in my checking account. Without using my planned income for the month, how can I spend beyond my planned spending and using the rollover savings that month?

Let’s say you give me $50 a month to hold for you to save for something in the future. Your budget rolls that $50 over each month that you give me the $50.

Now, 6 months later you have a need to pay the $300 bill that your budget says you have. Now you need the money I have given back yo you to match to the $300 expense. But there’s no way for me to give it back to you, just spend the money you have that month and take the hit in other budget categories.

DryHeat

Let me put some numbers to things to see if I am understanding you. (It will help if we both use the names for things that QS uses.)

Here's my made-up scenario that I think matches what you are saying. I am leaving out all adjustments to income (bill, subscriptions, savings, etc.) and pretending you have 1 source of Income, 1 Planned Spending expense, and rolled over expense from previous 2 months.

Income = $1000
usual Planned Spending expense for Dogfood = $400
rolled over Dogfood expense from previous 2 months = $800

Your Spending Plan this month should show the following in the left hand panel:

"Income after bills and savings" = $1000
"Planned spending" = $400 (this is only this month's $400, it does not include the $800 rollover)
"available" = $600 (this is the amount of this month's income left, because the rollover came out of previous income)

BUT… When you open up "Planned spending" in the right hand panel and look at the bar graph that shows how much you have available to spend for Dogfood, it should show $1200. This is the $400 from this month's income plus the $800 that was rolled over in the bank.

The rolled over $800 is not being charged against this month's income because it was already charged against income in the previous 2 months. That unspent $800 of income should be in the bank at the start of the month (if nothing else has consumed it).

Anyway, that's what I think you should see. Does it match what you are seeing? And does it make sense?

BenB

yes I agree on all points.

My question is how can I add previous months income to the current month to cover large expenses that were rolled over from previous months without my cash flow going negative.
in your example I would want to add $800 of previous unspent income to cover the $800 expense and keeping a healthy current month budget .

I know the cash is in the bank, but the income is not in the budget to cover the expense without using current month income.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/49201#Comment_49201

DryHeat

@BenB "yes I agree on all points."

I'm assuming that by "monthly budget" you mean Spending Plan and by "cash flow" you mean the Spending Plan "available" amount.

If that is wrong, please let me know (in terms of what QS displays on its screens) what you mean by "monthly budget" and where exactly you are seeing your "cash flow going negative" as a result of the rollover expense.

Anyway, I think you are agreeing that the rollover spending is not being included in the calculation of your current Spending Plan. Meaning it doesn't show up in the total "Planned spending." Meaning it doesn't affect the resulting "available" amount.

So you don't need to add income to your Spending Plan to cover the rollover spending and keep your "available" amount above water.

In reality, the rollover expense is covered by the money you saved in your bank account out of previous months' income (when you rolled over the expense). Adding extra income this month would make it look like you actually brought in more money this month, when in fact you saved part of your income from previous months.

TiggerTrainer

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/49203#Comment_49203

The rollover will carry over the budget to the next month and will show in the spending plan as being available. If the expense is part of the rollover then the spending plan will not show as overspending.

I agree that it would be nice if for the rollover amounts you were able to state which account the rollover was related to, similar to a savings goal, to assist in making sure that your balance in rollovers is not higher than the balance available in checking. While I understand that theoretically it shouldn't be, it would be easy to get out of balance. I personally do a reconciliation each month in Excel to make sure that I have enough funds in checking to cover my rollover balances, and the remainder I transfer to a high yield savings account. The savings is then allocated toward a savings goal.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

One other thought I have is about the left over amount you might have in your "savings plan". To be able to roll these over from month to month, Simplifi does not have a direct way of doing this. The work around is to create a savings goal and at the end of each month, transfer your leftover funds to the goal. Then on the 1st of the next month, withdraw the funds from the savings goal. This will show as income on your spending plan for that month.

BenB

Correct. I just entered a manual transaction in Simplifi for $1200 toward home maintenance. That's the total amount I have budged in March including rollover amounts.

My budget is overspent by $950 and it's the 4th day of the month. My cash flow is in the red and will likely stay that way all month. From a report perspective, it looks like a really bad month. Way overspend relative to planned income.

Whomever I paid the $1200 will def get their money :) It's in my bank, but my spending plan is a mess. That's what happens when 'monthly + previous months expenses get tied to only current month income. If the spending plan is only for the current month then the current month income and planned expenses should be relative to each other. When you roll in the past, then roll in the income to back it up.

I don't see why all income tied to rollovers doesn't move to the next month with the rollover expenses to remain solvency.

I have a manual cash account hidden and off the budget - I credit that account my rollover amount and then will send what I need to the budget as an income transaction tied to any rollover (not current) monthly expenses.

It baffles me that a monthly plan can inherit obligations (rolled over expenses) and not inherit the income to back it up.

What would happen in an extreme case where someone rolled over $4-5K total in several categories, and had a horrible month - new car transmission, broken home window, put dog down. In theory that person had saved for those events and the money is in the bank, but it will be at the expense of a horribly overspend spending plan as the plan was unable to inherit income saved from previous months.

Anyway - I hear you and understand you. But I have been budgeting for years with a competitor software and being able to add income is crucial with rollovers - you're referring to only adding income earned that month, what I'm referring to is adding earned income from the months the rollovers were saved for - to keep a balanced budget. It's all earned, just a matter of when you spend it.

If a spending plan must be current earned vs current planned for the month, then it would make sense to 86 the rollovers entirely.

Take care. I appreciate the good discussion and different points of views. It definitely helps me.

TiggerTrainer

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/49218#Comment_49218

The Home Maintenance category you used, did you have a "rollover" in your planned spending in that category? If not, you can change the planned spending for that category to a "rollover" category and you can then edit the "rollover" amount to start with. This should correct your spending plan and you should not have the overage.

BenB

category had rollover and a balance of 1200. I didn't spend more than the category had. It was a rollover category.

It was a test transaction, I've since deleted it.

$200 was March budged amount in my plan, $1000 was rollover. The $1000 was planned income from previous months not spent. I don't see why I can't add that to my plan.

DryHeat

I'd like to figure out what is going on here, but it would be easier with certain basic information.

@BenB "My cash flow is in the red"

I have asked a few times what number (displayed in QS) you are referring to as your "cash flow," but I still don't know. Are you talking about the "available" amount under Spending Plan? Because if it is something else your "Planned spending" doesn't impact it — so none of the discussion (including that below) will be relevant to whatever other cash flow number you are talking about.

@BenB "I just entered a manual transaction in Simplifi for $1200 toward home maintenance. That's the total amount I have budged in March including rollover amounts."

I've mentioned this before, but can you confirm that the entire "Planned spending" Home Maintenance expense ($1200 including rollover) is included in the total displayed in the "Planned spending" tile in the left-hand panel of the Spending Plan? (It's easy to figure this out. Just add up the spending on the various "Planned spending" tiles — including the rollover amount — and see if it matches the total in the "Planned spending" tile in the left-hand panel.)

Because if the rollover amount isn't included in the total in the "Planned spending" tile it is not affecting your "available" amount.

Also, just to check, is the $1200 transaction you entered showing up in the transaction list under the Spending Plan | "Planned spending" Home Maintenance expense when you click on the Home Maintenance expense tile?

Because if it is showing up somewhere else it will be double-counted.

Finally, is the Home Maintenance tile showing that $1200 has been fully spent?

(Note: It could help if you posted screenshots of some of this stuff.)

BenB

@TiggerTrainer

This is what I came up with for a workaround. It makes sense in my head, but prob not others. My plan is my plan 😆 and if I plan to spend saved money, then I just want a budget that isn't overspent and negative cash flows - it's a reward for planning ahead.

Anyway,

I made an asset account called rollover holdings. It's hidden from spending plans and reports. At the end of Feb I calculated the total rollover amounts and did a transaction into this account called 'February Rollover'. Balance below is to the penny of all my current rollovers. At the end of each month I'll make corresponding entries to run an accurate balance. This is super important because this money is reserved, 'spoken for' and I need to make sure I know what it is so I know what's left in my checking account after.

I created another account called Budget Rollover. This account contains income transactions that equal the amount I want to add to my current plan. It takes two accounts because I don't want any of these transactions to work agains my plan or reporting. This account is hidden from reporting, but visible to spending plan so the income transactions are picked up.

I transferred $820.65 from my holdings to my Budget Rollover. That income triggered an event to be added to my spending plan:

I now have the funds on my plan that I need to use for the bill I've been expecting in March, and it doesn't interfere at all with my current monthly plan (debits or credits).

I then did a transfer of the same amount so my budget rollover account is at zero, as this is just a temp way to broker the money from my holdings to my plan. Only took a min or so. I just wish this was native to SM. We all have our use cases. The best solutions are flexible enough to help a variety of people. I'm guessing this will be my workaround unless I cancel my subscription before the 30 days is up.

Now I can pay my car insurance bill in peace and not have a fire drill in my budget that I have been saving to prevent.

DryHeat

@Coach Natalie

I can't be sure, because @BenB hasn't shared what he is actually seeing on his screen, but I think he may be having to use his workaround because of the bug I mentioned in my post yesterday (also linked below). I asked him if he was seeing the bug but I don't think he ever responded on that. FWIW, I have tested for this bug in my own dataset and had the same problem occur.

FWIW, here is what I see when I create a test "Planned spending" expense for $100 per month and start it up with a $99 rollover:

At this point, the new planned expense added only $100 (not $199) to the total on my "Planned spending" tile (increasing it from $800 to $900). That is what I expected it to do — omit the rollover amount so as not to foul up this month's Spending Plan. All looked good.

I then added a test transaction for $199. The Planned expense turned red and said I had overspent. More strangely, the total on my "Planned spending" tile changed from $900 to $801. But I don't have an image of that because I decided to run the test again to be sure.

To my surprise, when I deleted all the test items and did exactly the same steps again, it worked differently. This time the total on my "Planned spending" tile stayed at $900 (the correct amount) and the test expense tile looked like this (working as expected):

So… Either this bug is intermittent or your team fixed it between my two tests. I hope it's the latter.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/11405/ongoing-01-30-25-planned-spending-rollover-showing-incorrect-amounts

BenB

I was able to figure it out, it's just a little inconsistent.

The original request was for Simplifi to indicate the total rollover amount held in the current spending plan. A great place would be beneath the account used to hold the funds so users know how much of their money is reserved in their account for the rollover. This will help people understand how much of their cash account is reserved for the plan and how much isn't. It has nothing to do with planned income for the current month.

If you use a savings goal you'll see exactly how the savings funds are listed under the account they are saved under, then an available balance is listed. The request was to do the same for rollover since it's essentially saved money and the user will need to account for how much money they have reserved vs. the true account balance.

Because this was moved to a discussion I'll assume the request isn't approved, understood or accepted. I don't want to tie up peoples time discussing it. This isn't a training opportunity it's a request.

I created a savings goal ignored by the monthly plan called 'Rollover Funds' that contains the total value of the February rollover amounts, and it shows as a savings goal against my checking account. Now I know how much of my checking account balance I can't touch because my spending plan has it as 'reserved' and how much of my balance I can spend/save/etc…

It would just be a nice touch if Simplifi did this for the user instead of it being a manual process.

Take care and thanks for your time.