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Bill Connect for Credit Cards: Share your feedback here!

Coach Natalie

With the new feature that allows Quicken Simplifi to automatically update your credit card payment reminders using the account balance and aggregated data from the bank, we want to hear from you! How does this new feature enhance your use of Quicken Simplifi? Do you have more accurate cash flow forecasts and ease with knowing your credit card balances? Tell us all about it by commenting below!

Click this link to learn all about BVA!

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/12276/new-feature-alert-bill-connect-for-credit-cards

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Comments

UrsulaA

I logged in to the mobile app today. My five credit cards were linked as recurring series and now all 5 show the statement balance in the reminder amount. I did not have to configure anything. Thanks for the feature, works for me.

EL1234

I am so excited about this! Thank you!

DryHeat

I'm a little confused by the date information on the Bill Connect page.

On one of my credit cards (USAA), the "Statement closing date" is blank like this:

It says that I should "Set the statement dates…" but I can't find anywhere to do that.

RobWilk

This will be an 'adjustment' from how I used Quicken Simpliifi.

Here's an example: I tend to schedule paying off balances for recurring charges about the same date as I make a recurring charge.

So, for example, on a low-use Best Buy card, I have an annual subscription fee for Best Buy Total, which includes things like Apple Care and extended warranties in general.

AND I'm looking ahead to next month, and I see the remimder to pay that credit card for that subscription is now $0.

It says the $0 is based on my statement balance.

This will alter my long term cash flow forecast. Looking at the next 3 months, that payment will never be made. I imagine (don't know) I need to make monthly payment reminders for it to update regularly:

Like anything else that changes, this will be an adjustment. I will probably love it in the end, it's just not how i was working.

DryHeat

This looks great! If I understand this feature correctly, it can automatically set a reminder to pay a credit card statement balance on the date that the payment is due. (It has other options as well.)

This will be perfect for me, as I usually set such reminders manually when the statements come in. My credit card issuers automatically take the payments from my bank account on the due dates, so that also matches up perfectly with what is happening in the real world.

If this works as advertised it will be a big help — exactly what I was hoping for.

Coach Natalie

@DryHeat, what credit card company is it? It is my understanding that if the statement closing date and due date aren't there, it's because the bank doesn't provide bill presentment data.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/51424#Comment_51424

I agree that it's confusing since it says "set" — it makes it seem like we can set it ourselves. We can't. This feedback has been shared with the product manager!

SRC54

I created a Credit Card Recurring Payment today and it looked ok. I use credit cards sparingly and always pay off the balance as soon as it clears and I've received the goods or service, so I won't be using this feature much.

DryHeat

@Coach Natalie

"which credit card is it?" — It's a USAA Visa Signature account.

"I agree that it's confusing" — as long as they are cleaning up the language on that page, the parenthetical next to "Don't update" should probably read "(use series date)" not "(use series amount)."

msimon87

This is great! I feel like the Cash Flow report is going to be much more usable now.

I understand that every payment is two transactions - a debit of one account and credit to the other. Therefore, you see two items in the "Reminders" area on the Transactions page and on the Bills and Income pages. However, it would be great if there was a way to display these two transactions as a combined "one payment" to simplify the view and reduce horizontal and vertical scrolling.

L McGregor

I tried turning it off on mobile but it didn't stick.

Bgz

This is a great feature. I have been waiting for this ever since I made the transition from Mint. Worked like a charm when creating a new recurring series for 6 of my credit card payments and selecting the bill connect feature. Connecting to Apple card Bill connect is a bit more challenging and I haven't been able to set it up yet. My ios app gives me a pop up window to log into apple card with username and password and then nothing happens. Not sure what I am doing wrong.

Another "quirk" : I see the same balance (from current billing statement) showing up for future months in the reminders tab. I have selected show statement balance and Due Date. I would recommend showing only the due date for these reminders and not the amount as this amount will change month to month. While the correct information will be pulled up eventually, it feels kind of wrong to see the same amount for the next 6 months.

Bgz

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/51492#Comment_51492

I agree with this statement. There is a lot of scrolling as each side of the transfer is visible in the reminders. Hope it can be combined or hidden in the upcoming/reminders/ bill pay sections.

DannyB

@RobWilk , @SRC54

The feature explanation page here includes this a section "A Few Things to Know" which includes:

This feature is best suited for users who wait for their statement to close before paying.

I have a credit card I pay off as I go like you do and I won't be including this feature for this account. I have one account that is set up for bi-monthly automatic payments that I may experiment with but will probably also leave as is and not update to a recurring transfer.

DannyB

Great to see this new feature especially for the many fellow users who have longed for this.

I'm going to set up one of my credit cards using this feature to see how it works. My question is how this feature will work in combination with the fact that all my credit card expenses are already accounted for in my Spending Plan and my budget by the actual transactions that make up the monthly balance.

I still would like to see a feature that combines the income and expense activity of selected accounts - the selected accounts being the accounts through which I run my routine monthly income and expenses.

Bgz

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/51517#Comment_51517

These recurring series show up under Transfers. So it wouldn’t affect anything as they are by default hidden from reports and budgeting.

flintster_99

This is a great feature but I agree with RobWilk below - I usually set a 'base' reminder for, say, 2000 on the due date for a credit card, so that what I deemed average is considered in cash flow, to manage cash balances. What would be great is if in the setup you could say 'start auto updating balances X days before statement close date' - that way the placeholder would still be used as the balance accumulates but then update.

In addition to that, would be great to have a 'start updating as soon as balance exceeds reminder' so that it would never be understated, even if the 'start updating' date has not been reached.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/51425#Comment_51425

SRC54

@DannyB Yep, I knew this feature wasn't going to be so useful to me, but I did want to try it out anyhow. 😀

I hope others enjoy it.

TheReal702

Potential glitch with Apple Card?

Last year I took advantage of the Apple Card zero interest rate for the purchase of Apple products from the Apple website.

I noticed this morning that Simplifi updated my bill/reminder/transfer amount due for my May payment. This amount includes the full balance owed on the card, which includes complete balance owed for the product(s) I purchased last year.

I manually changed it to the "card balance" which includes the installment payment(s) and card purchases for the month of April.

Not a big deal, and it's easy to make the change, but since you asked for feedback I thought I'd pass it on……

DryHeat

I guess I'm one of the people this feature was designed for. I pay off the full statement balance on my credit cards on the day the payment is due using some form of autopay.

And it works better than I expected so far! I didn't realize that it was going to do 2 different things:

(1) It sets the upcoming payment (for example, the one due May 8) to match the statement balance on the last statement (for example, the one that came out April 11). This shows me exactly what is going to hit my bank account on May 8.

(2) To my surprise, it also continually updates the June 8 payment to match the remaining balance on my credit card (the amounts I have charged since April 11). This gives me a running preview of how much I have charged so far that I am committed to pay on June 8.

This is perfect for me. I run most of my expenses through a single credit card that gives decent benefits, so the total balance on that card can be large. This features shows me which part of that balance is going to hit the bank this month and which part will hit next month.

That's very helpful information. It gives me more information than my old system, under which I would have updated the May 8 the reminder when the statement came out but the June 8 reminder would have stayed at zero until the next statement.

Coach Natalie

@L McGregor , I was able to reproduce the Mobile App issue. This has been reported!

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/51502#Comment_51502

bling

web app too. disabling bill connect gets ignored and eventually turns itself back on.

Coach Natalie

@bling, I haven't experienced the issue on the Web App, but I just turned it off for one of my credit card payments and will keep an eye out. Otherwise, please send us some evidence of the issue if you see it pop up again!

SRC54

Even though this feature isn't designed for folks like me, I did set it up for the Amazon Visa I use the most. Since I pay it off every week, I just entered $100 as the monthly amount. This morning it updated to the current balance of 0.00, which was neat. It helps me keep up with when the statement is due as well. So I sort of like it. It could come in handy as well if I forget to pay (highly unlikely) but I am getting old.

I may set it up for my other cards as well.

bling

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/51530#Comment_51530

i turned everything off again yesterday. they all came back enabled today.

these are chase credit cards if it makes a difference. and i took advantage of 0% fees for chase pay over time, so i definitely do not want this on because it's wrong. i'm not paying the statement balance.

Coach Natalie

@bling, thanks for following up!

The credit card payment I disabled yesterday has stayed disabled. Do you use the Mobile App at all? I'm wondering if the issue on mobile that was reported yesterday is turning your Bill Connect back on. Otherwise, the issue may be specific to your dataset, and we'd have to gather certain data to report it. To start the process, please send proof of the issue:

The Payee, Amount, and Account of the affected Recurring Credit Card Payment.
A screenshot of the Recurring Credit Card Payment's Bill Connect tab showing that the feature is disabled.
The date and time that the feature was disabled.
The date and time you notice the Bill Connect toggle is back on for the Recurring Credit Card Payment.
A screenshot of the toggle being turned back on at that time.

Much appreciated!

Flopbot

@Coach Natalie ,

It worked really well for me! I just had to change one thing…

My only feedback would be:

Add some extra options to the "Amount" column like "Minimum due + $____" where the user can adjust the $___ according to their tastes in the Recurring Series. Then, as long as the balance is over that amount, that amount would show up in the Recurring Series. If it's under, then the actual amount due would show up.
Add a warning to the "Minimum due" selection that says something to the effect of "Dude, you'll be paying for life! Are you sure you want to do this?"
Somehow, add a checkbox or something here that displays the payment scheduled status of the CC. It would be amazing if this could be automated along with the Bill Connect sync! If not though, at least giving us a toggle for "Scheduled/Not Scheduled" would work. Something for us to adjust after having scheduled the payment on the bank’s website.

Liking this new feature so far, thank you Simplifi!

SRC54

@Flopbot LOL. Yep, Minimum Due equals slavery to bank. OTOH, if one has to do it once in a while, that's life. Just try not to make it a habit. Or stop using the card.

RobWilk

After turning off billl connect, as in the attached video, the individual reminder did NOT update — i had to later edit the reminder to put back the original amount. I'm using the same reminder in the video that I used earlier. Is this intentional? edit oops noticed the next reminder is also 2026 (details in video), so I guess when it replaced the reminder it move the next reminder forwarad.

https://youtu.be/iB8_WPf3Scc

KB2014

I know I'm not the typical Quicken Simplifi user, but this new feature is a very mixed bag for me. I'm not particularly thrilled about it, but with some minor enhancement, it could work great. Right now, it's screwing up my cash flow forecast.

Here's my problem: I need long-term cash flow planning, and Simplifi now allows me to do that 12 months out, which is necessary and wonderful! I have a lot of active credit cards, more than most, I'm sure. Some I pay statement balance in full each month, and some I am paying minimum amount due because they're currently charging 0% interest. Why pay them off when I'm earning interest elsewhere?

Anyway, this feature just significantly understated my cash needs a month out. For the upcoming credit card bills the rest of May and early June, it looks like it might be working great. But for the next bill after that, it totally screwed me up! I had an estimated payment amount scheduled, and Simplifi just wiped that out, replacing it with only the current charges to the account, less my next upcoming payment. It's ignoring all the remaining charges that will be made to that card the remainder of the period. It is NOT useful to me to have it replace my forecast with its own flawed one. For example, I pay my casualty insurance company in monthly installments for several vehicles and my homeowner's insurance, and use the same credit card for my wife's monthly health and dental insurance payments. I usually use the card a few other times/month. I know my bill averages about $500/month, mostly due to the various insurance payments and the other miscellaneous charges. I had it forecasted as such, but I had manually updated the upcoming May 24 payment to be the full statement balance. Simplifi is now showing that this balance has a green check mark, which I assume means it's what the bank told it. That's fine. But my June 24 payment is currently showing $0, not the $500 I had forecasted! This is linked to my checking account, so Simplifi suddenly gave me an overly optimistic forecast for my checking account, to the tune of $500! I plan well in advance, and this is a problem.

At least Simplifi didn't mess up future months, so this error is limited to the one payment that follows the upcoming one.

The software needs to be fixed so it won't mess up my careful cash flow planning. How to do that? I'm not sure. For me, what I would like is an option to turn off this payment-after-next "forecasting" that assumes I will never use the card again! This feature may work well for others; if so, more power to them. I'm not asking the Quicken team to disable that; I'm asking for a more realistic method. For starters, it would be nice if I could opt out of payment-after-next forecasting. It's clearly a flawed approach. It's going to normally forecast a $0 bill and then step that forecast up charge by charge until that billing cycle has closed. I hope it's clear that forecasting a bill due 50 days from now as $0 and then gradually ramping it up to $500 by closing date is not helpful! I'd prefer to have an option to allow it do this, if for some reason that's helpful to anyone, but to opt out of it and allow my forecast to remain in place until the cycle closes and the credit card provider can provide the ACTUAL amount due. In other words, only change my upcoming payment forecast, and only do so ONCE after the statement has been issued.

This new FEATURE is actually a BUG as far as I'm concerned, and one that is going to cause me at least an hour's work, not to mention the amount of time I've spent trying to explain the problem in this message.

I know the feature is well intended, and might work well as is for some users. For me, one simple enhancement to it—providing the default option to leave all future forecasts alone, and only operate the way it's now working with an OPT-IN option for the currently open cycle—will make it a great feature for (nearly?) everyone.

Coach Natalie

@KB2014, thanks for the feedback!

It's my understanding that the next reminder occurrence in the Series should stay up-to-date throughout the month with the account balance as it changes, and the occurrences after that would keep the default amount for the Series, meaning that they wouldn't start to be changed until they are considered the "next" occurrence.

This is what I see with my Amex card, but I did have to wait for the billing cycle and my payment to complete before I started to see the correct and updated data —

I'd recommend keeping an eye on things moving forward to see if you continue to see your future reminders impacted by the feature before it's their turn to do so. You may also need to allow some time/billing cycles to pass to see if everything ends up evened out.

Let us know!