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Should old Spending Plans expire or be archived?

SRC54

As some of you know, I keep up with durable goods in an Asset File I call Possessions. For a while I tried using the same category Home:Wares in the possessions account that I used to account for the purchases. This meant that anything I bought in that category was offset in Possessions. But I knew there was a flaw in this because as some of these items wore out, were discarded or just plain depreciated that I would end up with problems in the Spending Plan.

So I changed back to Transfer in the Possession Account and still use Home:Wares in the Spending Account when I buy them. The exceptions are big items like a recent new refrigerator or a car. There I just use transfer in both accounts and depreciate the item over time in the Possessions account or Vehicle account.

So anyhow, I went back through 4 years of Spending Plans and corrected them. (I know this isn't necessary but it is what I do 😀.)

So it got me to thinking, shouldn't Spending Plans for past years at some point become static. After all, when you make some accounting changes 4 years later, why should it change the Spending Plan that was really nothing more than a past monthly plan.

Has anyone else thought of this? Of course, now that I've gone back to using transfer, it shouldn't affect the Spending Plan any longer.

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Comments

SRC54

Well, I am not one to give up. I think this is a discussion worth having. If one reorganizes one's categories or adds categories, it will affect all past spending plans. Of course, one can ignore that but I wonder if old Spending Plans shouldn't sunset at some point.

When I started with Simplifi, it would not let me make a Spending Plan prior to November 2021, but now I have 4 years worth of them. I have redone them many times so that they will be right, but I wouldn't mind the option to archive them or just delete the really old ones.

@Flopbot @RobWilk @DannyB @UrsulaA What do you think?

Also, we don't really have any reports (unless I am missing something) that let us compare annual spending between or among years. That would be interesting. Another reason to keep old Spending Plans (2+ years past) would be to compare them but no easy way to do that either.

Edit: The Income and Expense Report will let you choose year as the interval. I was just able to do it. That's great, and I was surprised to see how much we spent in 2023. I have just 3 full years of data so far to compare.

Coach Kristina

Hello @SRC54,

Thank you for sharing your experience! Do the historical spending plans cause any performance issues in your Quicken Simplifi? If not, is there any real benefit to archiving or deleting them? Is the main problem that the data is there, but is awkward/time consuming to review and compare?

The way it is currently set up makes it time consuming to review older information, since there is no date picker to let you jump back to the exact month you want. I can see UrsulaA submitted an Idea asking for this functionality to be added:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/7992/ability-to-jump-to-a-specific-month-in-the-spending-plan-using-a-date-picker-edited

Thank you!

SRC54

Hi @Coach Kristina. Thanks for the response. My query is mainly to find out what others think, especially the old timers with QS. I don't see any performance problem at all as it isn't until one goes back in time that the data is put together in what seems a dynamic way. I have a fast Internet connection and a fast iMac so I notice no lag.

As I have experimented with categories and the way I purchase durable goods, it seems best to count them as an expense if they are rather small and not that long lasting but to do them as a transfer if they are going to last for years. As I changed things, the past Spending Plans get affected, mainly in the Planned Spending targets. Any bills or thing marked as bills update automatically. So I go back and release unspent funds or adjust categories that may now have exceeded the target limit.

None of this is necessary, but I like things to be as perfect as can be. So I was musing whether or not we ought to be able to delete old Spending Plans after a while. And I wanted to know others' opinions. I would say that after a couple of years, they ought to fall off. But I am fine with it as it is too. But as we go forward, we could have 10 years of plans after a while. If we were to be able to see Spending Plan on a quarterly or annual basis, that might make more sense.

Of course, Spending Reports, especially the Income and Expense Report, give us the information we need any time. The Spending Plan is exactly that, a plan, and after several years, it doesn't really serve any purpose. It's a fun trip down Memory Lane.

One good thing about my musing over this is that I learned that the Income and Expense Report does let you compare years. I found several discrepancies in spending totals that went up in 2023 from 2022, but were back down in 2024. Some of it was due to a slightly higher income in 2023 that fell back down in 2024. That higher income necessitated higher taxes and higher tithes. But I also saw that I bought several big items in 2023 that I decided should be transfers rather than expense. That brought 2023 back in line with 2022 and 2024. Since 2025 isn't over yet, I cannot do a good comparison with the earlier years yet.

So I find thinking about things thusly is of help to me conceptually and practically, and I hope others will find it so as well. The Spending Plan is unique to Simplifi. Old Budgets in Quicken Classic can just be deleted. So I wonder if we should ultimately do the same.