Allow a manual update of the balance on manual accounts (edited)

scottnliz

I’ve manually added a bank that isn’t yet supported (HMBradley) but I haven’t found a way to update the balance to keep it in sync with my actual balance.  Is there a way to do this?  

I would also like to be able to update the balances/value for manually added items like property or unsupported loans.

Coach Natalie

Hello @scottnliz,

Thanks for posting your suggestion to the Community!

In regards to keeping a manual account balance in sync with your bank balance, this is accomplished by manually entering the transactions that took place into the register so that the data would match what your bank has, including the balance.

I have, however, turned this into an Idea post requesting the ability to manually update the balance of a manual account so other users can vote on it and our Product Team can review it. Please be sure to add your vote as well!

-Coach Natalie

some_guy

the important point here is that an asset account can have a change in value due to a transaction or due to a change in the asset value. seems to me that manual accounts would be either a cash balance account (transaction updates) or an asset account (asset transactions and asset marking changes)

purdnost

I inadvertently added a handful of debt accounts as positive values, and instead of being able to simply update those values, I had to delete and recreate them all. If I can adjust “Opening Balance” transactions, I would think I should be able to do the same with any account type.

DavidsGirl

If I have an error I cannot find, I create an uncategorized adjustment transaction to fix it, and give it the tag "adjustment". I hide it from reports and spending. By giving it that tag, I can search through transactions and find any adjustments I've made over time if feel I need to do that. I would definitely rather know where the error occurred and fix that, but with just getting started in Simplifi I'm not going back 3 years to try to find a $3.26 mistake in my Apple Card account after importing 36 months of transactions via .csv one month at a time. 

I don't think that Simplifi could ever add manual balance adjustment. I defies the most basic premise of finance software. For those who used Quicken, recall that if you were reconciling a statement and the balance in your Quicken account didn't match the statement, if you clicked "finish" in the reconcile window Quicken created an adjustment transaction to zero out the unknown mistake. There is no other way to do it. That's how accounting works--balances only adjust with transactions. It isn't an arbitrary decision where you can just change the balance. Even with manually created accounts, the most we could hope for is the ability to adjust the opening balance, and please can we get that? I only have one manual account and I don't even see the opening balance in the register. Perhaps I set it at zero knowing that I was importing my transaction history, but why would there not be an opening balance entry in the register even if zero was entered?

worten777

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/3655#Comment_3655

Good afternoon Natalie. I have the same issue. Can I change balance or opening balance manually on my manual added accounts, without added transactions?

Coach Natalie

@worten777, yes, you can either enter transactions to keep the balance up to date or change the amount of the opening balance transaction to the current value. 🙂

I'm not sure if you're referring to an asset account specifically, but this article has more details on updating the value of manual asset accounts that could apply to any manual account: https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/3469358-asset-tracking-in-simplifi#h_bc22e95f7e

-Coach Natalie

dwayner79

I have a mortgage account which does not allow for automatic sync (RoundPoint Mortgage), so I added a manual mortgage account. Each month, as the mortgage is paid, the balance will go down. Simplifi only seems to allow positive transaction values. I want to lower the amount due each month, but can't seem to be able to do this.

dwayner79

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/20298#Comment_20298

In case anyone is like me (as in not very bright) you enter an adjustment using a "+" to reduce the open mortgage amount. Not very intuitive, but makes sense once you find it.

grassy_noel

Thank you @Dwayner79, exactly the answer it seems like the OP and everyone else is actually looking for! Worked a treat.

imdZigman

I actually the same problem - but with a twist: I added a manual Mortgage, but there is no way to add a transaction to update the balance. I simply see on-screen content that says: "You may view your balances for Loan Accounts, but loan transactions are not currently supported." How are the rest of you adding a transaction to update your balances?

Brian23

@imdZigman - try using "Other Credit" as the type. Simplifi will then let you record transactions for this type. The down side is that it shows under Credit section instead of the Liabilities section.

imdZigman

@Brian23 Thanks for the suggestion! I actually deleted the account, and re-added it. Now it does appear that I can add transactions. When my Mortgage payment clears this month, I'll add it, and see if that works.

Colonel_H

Adding my vote. When calculating values of real estate, this number will fluctuate as everyone knows. I use Zillow to come up with a number. Additionally, I have a fund that is a private hedge fund that does not connect. There is no easy way to update either of these two scenarios. The real estate can easily be fixed by linking to Zillow like Mint does (did). The you would never have to touch it. The private hedge fund could be fixed with a place to update shares and price per share. My two cents.

Etch44

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/24322#Comment_24322

Are you sure that was a manual account? I have a mortgage connected to the bank and I get the message you were getting. That one may have actually been updating automatically and you just changed it to manual.

BeckyBuck

I have an account that I had to change to manual because the bank connection hasn't worked for several weeks. Just a few days ago, Simplifi changed the account balance and I can't get the balance corrected. The account shows all of the correct transactions, but the balance is not correct.

ptbrown811

Like BeckyBuck, I had to change an account to manual because the bank connection hasn't worked for weeks (Congressional Federal Credit Union, absolutely zero help on this issue from Simplifi help.) My checking account balance is now way, way off. I think this has to to with the opening balance, which I can't find and certainly can't change. What should I do?

Coach Natalie

@BeckyBuck & @ptbrown811, thanks for reaching out!

Since it sounds like you're both experiencing an issue that you'd like to troubleshoot, a Feature Request would not be the place to do so. Instead, you'll want to create a post in the appropriate area of the Community.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/8/how-to-post-to-the-community

I hope this gets you pointed in the right direction!

-Coach Natalie

switch35

It IS possible to edit manual accounts:

In the Android app, the balance of manual accounts can be adjusted by clicking on the main menu (3 bars upper left) and selecting Accounts. Scroll down to the section where the manual account is listed (Liabilities in my case, for my mortgage account). Tap on the account and then tap on “Opening Balance” below the search field. This doesn’t look like anything clickable, but it opens up a detail page where the details can be adjusted, transactions can be added (+ sign in the upper right) and searched using the filter icon.

In the web app (Safari browser, iPad) click on the Dashboard icon which shows a section to the right that lists all the accounts. You can also click on the Transactions icon which (I think by default) also lists all accounts to the right (these can be folded with the left arrow at the top in the section). Scroll down and click on the desired account. A pane will display to the right where the balance can be edited, transactions can be added, searched, etc.

scottishbaribone

Quicken Simplifi does not always have the ability to connect to various accounts. The workaround is to set up a manual account. However, there isn't an easy way to add/edit monthly balances outside of importing a csv file. Even if we do use a csv, we can't change a past month's balance without resetting the entire account. This makes manually tracking balances for reporting purposes very difficult.

It would be awesome if we could easily update monthly balances on manual accounts without needing to upload a csv file.

EL1234

you can create a transaction with the category "balance adjustment"

UrsulaA

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/41313#Comment_41313

Yes, that works well for me. When adjusting the balance to be higher, add a + sign in front of the amount.

SRC54

I upvoted this because b/c for some reason manual credit/debit accounts always seem to get messed up for me, and yes, you can add a balance adjustment but then when Simplifi suddenly learns how to add again, you have to go find it and delete it. (I always check its addition by choosing all the transactions in the account to see if it matches the balance.)

Yesterday, my UHC debit got off. I knew I was getting $10 Monday for moving 10 or more days per month. Since I play tennis 3x per week, I figure 2 hours of tennis is at least 30 minutes of walking. After 10 days of doing this, I get $10 on my debit card. (I use it to pay my court fees when I visit my rich friends at the Yacht Club!) Anyhow, I put in a future dated transaction for $10 and yesterday when it went live, it didn't update my balance. Deleting the transaction didn't work (it went down by another $10!). I only have a few transactions so I created a test account and started moving the transactions to that new account and watched as Simplifi correctly added in the new account but was all at sea in the old one. Once I moved everything to the new account, and there were NO transactions left in the old one, it showed a balance of $-10.00! How stupid is that? So I deleted the account and renamed Test Account back to UHC. Really, Simplifi, y'all must fix this!

I've noticed this behavior a lot even in connected accounts. If I put in a future payment in AmEx, it will mess up the balance when it goes live. But the next time I download, it will fix it, but we don't have that luxury in manual accounts and I have a lot of them and getting more thanks to the fact that more and more credit cards, faux checking accounts don't do downloads. I've made a mental note to try not to do a future transaction, which I hate because I love future transactions, but I think there is a problem with them.

So far thank goodness I haven't had a problem in my asset accounts. Since I still enter everything in Quicken Classic, I would know.

UrsulaA

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/42401#Comment_42401

Agree on this post, Simplifi should ensure all transactions, future and past, add up correctly on manual accounts consistently. This bug reduces the usability of the app.