Recent past balances on Cash Flow Charts not displaying

RobWilk

On cash flow charts, there is a marker for today's balance (jan. 22).

There was a time that numbers to the left of that line showed 'recent' (last few days?) past balances plotted on the chart, but that's not happening anymore. The numbers are wrong to the left of the line — if this is desired behavior, why bother showing those dates?

In this chart, it looks like my balance has been $4265 since at least Jan. 17. However, you can see on Jan. 21 I paid $380 (see the bottom of the screenshot). So, you would expect that, prior to today (Jan. 22), there would be a backward-calculated $ 380 decrease in balance (or it would be $380 higher prior to Jan. 21). That's not what's displaying; it's a straight, unchanged line.

EL1234

Same here - I just see a straight line until yesterday and then it jumps to today's amount.

FWIW I didn't look at the past balance much since I didn't find it so accurate necessarily.

Coach Jon

Hello @RobWilk,

Thanks for reaching out! I myself do not remember if past balances were ever plotted within the projected cash flow chart. I do know that it does display your recurring reminders for your income, bills, subscriptions, expected refunds, and any future-dated transactions for that account, so I am not sure if past transactions would have ever been plotted for this reason. As for the line itself, was your balance significantly different before January 22nd?

RobWilk

yes, it used to work, probably before you became a coach. A tew days ago, it was probably 5-10% different.

why show previous dates if they are incorrect?

Coach Jon

Hello @RobWilk,

Thanks for the reply! I did check our knowledge base as well, and there is also no mention of past projection plot points for projected cash flow. Due to that, I would not assume this issue would be a bug. Is everything else correct regarding your projected cash flow chart?

RobWilk

I know I helped them fix this in the past (by showing how it was miscalculated, which they fixed). It might've been 2022-2023, when they were doing wrong calculations on past balances.

Okay, January 17th is a date on the chart in the image i had shown, if it's on the chart, it should have an accurate balance, or it shouldn't be on the chart.

You have to make up your mind. Either the prior date should not be there, or it should be correct.

-Rob

Coach Jon

Hello @RobWilk,

Your projected cash flow chart is measured in increments of $1000, from what I can see. Was the account balance still between $4000 - $5000 as of January 17th?

EL1234

This is replicable on my credit cards also. For example, here is a credit card which had a payment of over $1500 go through on 1/18. There were a couple of purchases since then totaling around $150. The balance definitely changed since 1/15.

I agree with @RobWilk - either show the historical balance correctly, or start the chart with today's date.

Incidentally, my real estate account with zillow does show historical balances in the chart.

Coach Jon

Hello @RobWilk and @EL1234,

I reached out to my product team regarding the feature and how it should work, and I will follow up here with my findings! Thank you both for your patience!

EL1234

Thanks @Coach Jon

Coach Jon

Hello @EL1234 and @RobWilk,

After researching further, it does appear that Projected Cash Flow is currently working as intended within Quicken Simplifi, since it is meant to display your recurring reminders for your income, bills, subscriptions, expected refunds, and any future-dated transactions for that account. We do, however, have an existing idea post you can follow and vote for if you would like to add the ability to Quicken Simplifi.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/14103/ability-to-view-the-past-in-projected-cash-flow-edited

Thank you!

RobWilk

You know what, for what I pay for this app, I can't really complain. I did vote for that idea post, though.

-Rob

EL1234

Voted as well. I'd suggest though that until it's implemented, remove the dates prior to today from the X axis so that it doesn't make you think that Simplifi is telling you the balance on those dates. But we'll manage either way :)

DryHeat

@EL1234

I'd suggest though that until it's implemented, remove the dates prior to today from the X axis so that it doesn't make you think that Simplifi is telling you the balance on those dates.

I'd be happy if they'd just do that. Past dates aren't needed in a Projected Cash Flow graph.

EL1234

Right! Though sometimes it would be nice to be able to see the history. I didn't used to pay attention to it since it often had weird spikes that didn't make sense.