Spending Plan "Planned Spending" Category Mergers And Rollover Changes/Inaccuracies

rmarcus88

Hello, today when I logged into Simplifi I noticed two problems in my "Planned Spending" section.

1. I used to have a sub-category under this called "Games" (which was a custom category nested under "Entertainment", but the category now just lists "Entertainment" instead of the individual sub-category.
2. My "Entertainment" category (along with several others) were rollover categories and now have widely inaccurate and changed rollover amounts. For example I know I was just over/under my "Games" category (by ~$1) but now that it changed to "Entertainment" it shows I'm under ~$180. This is also true in several of my other roll-over categories like shopping and tolls.

It's very unclear why this changed or how I can correct this (both the inaccurate rollover amount and the random changing of categories). Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Coach Jon

Hello @rmarcus88,

Thanks for reaching out! Are you stating that one of your Planned Spending series changed its category from "Games" to "Entertainment" randomly? If it did, this could account for why the amount you noticed changed, since it is now tracking a different category.

If you navigate to Settings > Categories & tags, can you see the "Games" category there? If so, I would suggest deleting the Planned Spending series for "Entertainment" and recreating the one for "Games". Let us know how this goes!

-Coach Jon

DryHeat

@rmarcus88

I'm not sure I understand your setup, but there is a limitation on Planned Spending Expenses that may have something to do with it. (I'm assuming you have an Entertainment category with a sub-category of Games.)

If you have a Planned Spending Expense for Entertainment you cannot have a Planned Spending Expense for a sub-category of Entertainment, like Games. The Expense for Entertainment will count all transactions for any of the sub-categories beneath Entertainment. So if you could have a separate Expense for Games then Games would end up being counted twice.

Is that related to the problem you are having?

rmarcus88

@DryHeat, is this a recent change as I had this exact configuration for months. In fact one of the things I'm tracking in Planned Spending is "Tolls", a sub-category of "Auto & Transport".

This sub-category still appears in my tracking, though this is one of the instances where the roll-over tracking radically broke and is showing a very inaccurate amount.

@Coach Jon if I do your suggestion - I'll have to restart my rollover amount, correct?

DryHeat

@rmarcus88

I had this exact configuration for months. In fact one of the things I'm tracking in Planned Spending is "Tolls", a sub-category of "Auto & Transport".

I don't know how recent this restriction is. But did you have a Planned Spending item for "Auto & Transport" and also a Planned Spending item for "Tolls" at the same time?

I ask because you can track sub-categories in Planned Spending. The problem only occurs if you try to track a sub-category and also that sub-category's parent category.

As the system presently operates, here's what I see when I try to set up a Planned Spending item for Electronics, a sub-category of Shopping (which I am already tracking):

rmarcus88

@DryHeat ah I see what you mean and I did know that. To clarify - I did not (and obviously could) have both. I was tracking my "games" (sub catagory of entertainment) and somehow it got changed to entertainment And the budgeted amount changed.

I dont know if it was coincidence or not but the budget it changed to seemed to match the entertainment average spend from my watchlist.

Either way, I adjusted these budgets back and just calculated the actual spend to date using reporting.

Definitely a weird and annoying bug to suddenly have both your categories and the budget for those categories change.