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Link from Transaction to 'take from' or 'add to' Savings Goal (1 Merged Vote)

achester99

I'd like to see an easy way to assign a specific transaction to be 'taken from' a savings goal.
For instance Christmas. I saved over time $600 in my Christmas savings goal. At Christmas time I go shopping for Christmas gifts which generates a transaction from the store that I shopped at, for $100. I'd like to be able to click a toggle or box that would subtract that $100 I spent on Christmas gifts from the $600 I have saved in my Christmas savings goal. So that the next time I go Christmas shopping I know that I currently have $500 available in that savings goal. It saves step of having to manually go and 'take from' the savings goal. I hope that makes sense.

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In Review

Feature Request

Transactions

Savings Goals

Status: In Review

Comments

Fitch

Would also be great if you link those transactions to a savings goal, they would be excluded from your spending plan by default

Brad

I agree! Since the goal automatically creates a tag, I'd hope that tagging a transaction as connected to a savings goal would deduct that amount from the goal total.

hpadrick

The ability to assign a transaction to a recurring bill is great. It keeps everything on track to see what is really planned vs unplanned. Adding the ability to assign a transaction to a savings goal would also be extremely helpful. It achieves the same purpose that you have a plan to spend, it's just from the goal instead.

Some Examples:

Example 1: We save large chunks of money (not monthly) for our kids education in a Savings Goal called School Tuition. When transactions come in related to tuition, it would be great to have it pull from the Savings Goal in effect pulling the funds from the goal and hiding the transaction from the spending report.

Example 2: We recently sold our house and moved. This created a large bucket of cash that we placed in savings goal. Throughout the months, we did some reno work on the new house. So again, assigning transactions to that particular savings goal lets us see the burn-down and how much funds we have left for adhoc jobs we are getting done and removes them from being unplanned spending.

I achieve this right now by hiding the transaction from the spending report, going to the savings goal, and removing funds manually. This is easy enough but after a while it gets impossible to reconcile what the individual transactions are and I'm sure I've missed some. I've tried adding tags to keep the disconnect sane but again, it we be nice to Simplifi the process

Flopbot

This idea would be phenomenal!

I too plan to use Savings Goals, extensively, and would love to see them more thoroughly integrated with everything. As a long term user of Quicken Desktop, Savings Goals have always been tedious and confusing to use and hard to maintain; requiring multiple register transactions (up to 6 per real world expenditure). In my mind, they're a necessary evil in Quicken Desktop and I want them to be easier in Simplifi.

The basics of Savings Goals have been much, much better thought out in Simplifi from what I see through the eyes of a new user and, with some tweaks, they could be outstanding.

There are probably multiple ways to do this, but to surf off @achester99 's idea, I could see a fairly straightforward way being...

Contribute $100 to "Christmas Fund".
Spend $25 on Christmas presents and mark transaction as "Expecting a refund" on the Refund Tracker feature.
Have an option/toggle like this...
If you click "From Same Account", it would function the same way it does right now.
If you click "From Savings Goal", it would let you select the desired goal (i.e. "Christmas Fund").
Here's where it gets wonky since there could potentially be any number of situations/accounts associated with this one transaction. For me, personally, my Savings Goal money physically exists in my SAVINGS Account, the present was purchased with a CC Account, and the CC will be paid off with a CHECKING Account so ultimately the $25 needs to get transferred from SAVINGS to CHECKING before paying the CC bill. Any number of other situations could exist.
So, at this point, one possible solutions might be this option/toggle...
If you click the "Create transfer" option, it would have to give you the option of scheduling it on a specific date since I'd have to go and schedule the actual transfer on my bank's website so the $25 wouldn't physically show up for a few days.
The "Christmas Fund" now shows a total of $75 remaining with the $25 having been returned to the appropriate account.

I'm sure I'm not thinking of something, but these steps would cut out a number of the manual entries that were required by Quicken's other software (Quicken Desktop) to do the exact same thing and hopefully would cover many - if not all - of the possible ways people use Simplifi.

Flopbot

So, I'm doing a second comment because I found a bit more info.

I didn't realize that you can direct the Refund to be put into other accounts. I can't think through how this would affect the above post, but it is intriguing. Unfortunately, I can't test it in Simplifi yet since my CHECKING bank isn't supported...someday...hopefully...soon.

Can someone who knows Simplifi much better than I think of a way that this ability could somehow help either @achester99 or myself to do what this post is asking for?

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031920/uploads/editor/du/smbwfn6416v7.jpg

Giantsfan

I would love to be able to have a transaction that is marked as the same category as a Savings Goal item, be automatically linked or assigned to that Savings Goal and have the money automatically withdrawn from the goal, and removed from the spending plan.

That would save a lot of time and effort having to manually remove the transaction from the spending plan, and have to withdraw the correct amount that you have to manually remember.

Flopbot

I gave my reply on August 28, 2021 some more thought and think there's a pretty clean solution that uses an existing Simplifi feature (Refunds) and would improve the whole "Paying yourself back from a Savings Goal" type of transaction. I turned in a feature request (click here).

aewelch

We've automated our savings so have a series of recurring transfers. I'd LOVE to have these recurring transfers connect to our savings goals (so no manual entry when money is saved) in addition to being able to connect expenses to savings goals (no manual entry when money is spent). I've created a separate feature request for the saving side here: Link Recurring Transfer to Savings Goal (simplifimoney.com)

Suki

Any update on this feature? Being able to identify which transaction is part of which goal is a very valuable feature.

Coach Natalie

Hello @Suki,

Thanks for reaching out!

If you navigate to the very top post in this thread, you'll see that the status of this Idea is "In Review" and that it was submitted to the Product Team in June of last year. There has been no further update since that time, however, please be sure to follow along here for future updates, as we will update the status accordingly as soon as any news becomes available.

-Coach Natalie

Nick S

Is there any way to know where this is on the product roadmap? Is this feature or something similar 1-3 months, 3-6 months, or 6+ months away from release?

The lack of this feature is preventing me from recommending this product to my colleagues, friends, and family. From the ones I have shown the app to all agreed that without this feature they would be unwilling to purchase a subscription. For the reasons listed above and all the other threads related to saving goals.

Without this feature this product is not different then other free tools on the market.

Coach Natalie

Hello @Nick S,

Thanks for the inquiry and feedback!

Unfortunately, there is no further info to provide on this request at this time. I'd suggest following this Idea post for future updates, though, as we will be sure to update it accordingly once any new information becomes available.

-Coach Natalie

RiversideKid

As spending for something that represents a savings goal I would like to easily categorize the transaction to the savings goal to remove money from the savings goal rather than remember the transaction amount, go to savings goals and withdraw funds for the purpose.

This could be handled by assigning a Savings Goal to an expense category. Each time we create a Savings Goal we assign it to a category so that when a transaction is assigned to a category the amount is deducted from the Savings Goal. I would love the inverse as well, if we assign income to a category that is assigned to a Savings Goal then the Savings Goal increases by that amount.

For example, I am saving for three vacations and as I spend money for airlines and rental car in advance of the vacation I would like to categorize each vacation expense to the correct vacation.

Of course reporting would be cleaner if I could have multiple nest the categories so that I have a category called "vacation" and a sub category for each vacation. (My top level categories are already Essential and Discretionary.

DannyB

I am squarely among those who want better integration of saving goals and expenses. I have been using our vacation savings extensively this year and it has become quite burdensome to manhandled all the vacation expenses ending up with quite ti discrepancy between expenses and balances. I never did get all our 2022 gifting expenses "properly" accounted for and reconciled with our gifting saving goal.

My dear planning, design and coding friends... please move us toward full integration of non-monthly expenses into our monthly Spending Plan.

Md2023

I just signed up and am very surprise that I can't consolidate my saved goal with my actual expenses. How do I know what my balance available is if I make multiple transactions toward a saved goal. I am considering moving onto another platform

PJ001

Similar experience here - I was saving for car maintenance and recently replaced tires. Tried to link that transaction to the saving goal but could not. I guess I can withdraw the amount from savings goal but to me, linking the transaction to the goal would be a better solution.

Md2023

2 months in and I think I have found an ok work around. To "use" SG, I would withdraw from my SG and "deposit" that amount by entered a transaction "+" excluding it from reports. This way I can see my true expenses in the reporting and use the savings for my current month spending. Of course this is a manual work around which if you have a lot of transactions, can be quiet annoying if you want to track this throughout the month. You could transfer an expected budget amount for the month to reduce frequent adjustments. This could also add to the "other spending" which I know some try to keep at zero.

I also use this to carry over amount in my planned spending. At the beginning of each month, I will add a new transaction to "deposit" the balance from the prior month (assuming you have a positive balance). This "deposit" would be excluded from reports.

The only thing I can't figure out is if this process would overstate my available balance for the current or prior months.

Will this work? Is there something I'm not considering?

shandranancy

would love if something like this could be implemented. i use a savings account to save for irregular bills and when that bill comes do, such as car insurance, it looks like I’ve overspent for that month since it doesn’t take into account the previous months’ savings.

or maybe an automated system where releasing the funds adds it to our income for the spending plan for that month. idk which would work better/easier

Tally Tim

Does anyone from Simplifi monitor and respond these community forums? This particular thread appears to have been going on for two and half years, with no action from Simplifi. I also feel there should be a way to link expenditures directly to goals to see what one's draw down, or remaining balance, is.

Fusionpro

Coming from mint using rollovers. Very much a needed feature. If I could easily decrement the Saving's Goals I've setup via transaction flags, it would make the feature much more useful. I've found Savings Goals often go up and down - and there needs to be a way to quickly tie that event to a goal without having to always go into the Goals section to decrement a goal.

Max1223

@Coach Natalie Any possibility of updating the community on this topic? Its been a while since any Quicken admin has replied here. Thanks

Beltifi

As I browse the community, many outstanding feature requests have never been resolved. This one is a great feature request that would help many people. Why wasn’t it completed? The ask goes back to 2021. I hope as soon as Mint users come through, the focus will be back to adding the features that can make this app great.

Max1223

As I attempt to learn how to use the Spending Plan as implemented, I've noticed that you cannot make a "withdraw from goal" if you don't have the funds (manual add to "contribute to goal"). While conceptually, I understand why that might be as in the case of a real bank account, this might throw a wrench into automated "take from" actions. If you don't have the fund, it might not let you "take".

I'll have to say, as is, to make the Spending Plan work for me, I'm doing work arounds and they are not ideal:

not being able to select multiple categories in a given Planned Spending group forces me to not include bills and subscriptions. So why even have that "automated" or part of my "income after bills and savings". As implemented, it would be more simple and clear to just state "Income" as all my bills and subscriptions are built into my "Planned Spending" categories.
not having roll over features in Planned Spending. So now I cannot include things like having a monthly contribution toward Gifts that rollover each month. So I create Gifts as a Savings Goals but the lack of automated "take" makes this a difficult, manual entry experience.
Strict Savings goal rules around "withdraw.." and "contribute" as mentioned above, which forces me to artificially manipulate contributions if I want to track all contributions and withdrawals. The workaround is I just create a Watchlist to track gift spending and hope my average monthly matches my goal. Watchlists are great but in this case have no impact or calculations relative to the Spending plan or Saving goals.

Which in the end, I think I'll abandon Saving Goals, "exclude" all subscriptions and bills in the income section and use watchlist to track expenses.

@Coach Natalie @UrsulaA love to hear your thoughts. Thanks

UrsulaA

Hi @Max1223 - your workaround seems reasonable given your needs. I do not use savings goals due to the inability to link multiple accounts to them.

The workaround I read is "abandon Saving Goals, "exclude" all subscriptions and bills in the income section and use watchlist to track expenses."

Max1223

@UrsulaA probably not the way Quicken wants people to use this feature.

NordEaster

mint count do it lol. I feel I will say this a lot , coming from the software industry it’s always sucks when you migrate and create a feature gap.

Max1223

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1357/link-from-transaction-to-take-from-savings-goal-1-merged-vote

@nanoviking here is the vote for taking savings from a Savings goal linking it to a transaction.

Max1223

@Coach Natalie the other aspect of this idea that needs to occur, is once the transaction happens, it needs to be hidden from the Spending Plan so its not double accounted in that period. So a link to take and ideally, an algo that checks the hide from Spending Plan box

mason3k

Currently, savings goals are virtually useless to me because withdrawing is meaningless. It does not add to my "available to spend" nor does it apply towards a certain transaction. I agree with other users that having to select from a certain account is limiting. I think the intuitive way to implement this feature is to set aside money in a savings goal, yes, but to not have to use a certain account. Then, spending transactions could be linked and any "unlinked"/manual withdrawals would simply act as "income" for the month it was withdrawn.

I love the app overall but the way that it handles big purchases that are not part of recurring expenses is a huge miss for me—and something that apps like YNAB do much better.

np25

Agree with all comments above. The savings goal feature is minimally useful without the ability to link transactions to savings goals. When I tag a transaction as a specific savings goal, the credit or debit should automatically show up as a withdrawal or contribution to said savings goal. @Coach Natalie please impress upon the developers the importance of this feature for the community per the comments above. I am new to Simplifi and considering switching products given the request was initiated 3 years ago and has no timeline for implementation.