Ability to reconcile accounts [edited] (1 Merged Vote)

jason518
jason518 Member ✭✭
edited July 2022 in Feature Requests

Why isn't account reconciliation part of Simplifi? This is a basic feature in personal finance software to ensure accounts are correct.

66 votes

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  • Coach Paco
    Coach Paco Moderator admin
    edited November 2019

    @jason518 Reconcile is a feature mainly used by users who manually enter transactions. Since Simplifi is intended to be connected to your financial institution and download cleared transactions, there isn’t a need to reconcile. Simplifi allows the ability to create manual transactions and accounts but that’s not what it’s intended to do but we are always open to suggestions and we appreciate your feedback!

  • I also thumbs this up. I just started using Simplifi and it does work. But as others comments are mentioned, I pay bills that are outside of the range of this apps ability to correctly find the 'matching' dollar amount. So for that, let me at least reconcile the transaction because the bank has already taken the money, so I need simplifi to show that as well. I still have something from a week ago that hasn't cleared, but the bank has cleared it 2 days later. So, this is something that I feel (like others) are an important feature to add.

  • bcrossman
    bcrossman Member ✭✭✭✭

    Two things, and hopefully the coaches will correct me if I’m mistaken on either.

    1. It appears to me that account balances update independent of the transactions. In other words, when Simplifi syncs an account it pulls and displays the balance from your bank, even if that balance doesn’t match the sum total of the transaction listed in Simplifi. Therefore, an account shouldn’t be out of balance with the actual balance, though I suppose it may not always match the sum total of the transactions listed. Perhaps that’s what you’re concerned about. Personally, I’d rather know the balance listed is correct.
    2. When I pay a bill that Simplifi does not recognize as a recurring transaction, I can mark it as recurring and Simplifi asks if I’d like to assign it to an existing recurring transaction or create a new recurring transaction. Assigning it to an existing recurring transaction seems to “reconcile” the transaction, as I understand it.

    Again, I may be misunderstanding the problem or how Simplifi works here, so I’m happy to be corrected.

  • Coach Paco
    Coach Paco Moderator admin

    You hit the nail on the head @bcrossman :smile:

  • IndyMx5
    IndyMx5 Member ✭✭✭
    Not sure how this got voted down. Just voted it up and we're at zero. what I need is simply to know if what simplify shows as my balance is my actual account balance. I'm off by $41.70 in one of my accounts and I can't tell where that money went. I'll likely make an adjustment, but if I knew the real balance, it would be pretty obviously that I mess up somewhere; perhaps even accidentally deleted a transaction.
  • Are there plans to eventually add a feature enabling reconciling Simplifi account with the bank? That is the feature I miss most from my previous use of Quicken. Otherwise I love Simplifi!
  • Flopbot
    Flopbot Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Agree with @jason518 . Responding to @"Coach Paco" , I'm someone who relies on downloaded transactions - not entering them manually. However, I for one really, really want to do account reconciliation.

    Reasoning:

    ~ With years of experience in Quicken, I don't trust the automatic downloads to go off without a hitch. Even during the best of times, there are frequently weirdnesses that only show up when you reconcile.
    Trust but verify.

    ~ It's a double check of my work.

    ~ It just makes me feel better to have finished everything that I need to do at the end of the month.
    Chris
    Quicken Desktop user since 2014.
    New to Simplifi in 2021.
  • Flopbot
    Flopbot Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2021
    Oh, and I thought of one more "real world" example of why you might want to reconcile.  Lets say my laptop gets left on while I'm grabbing a drink and when I come back, I find a certain 3 year old happily hitting buttons at random.  Several times I've dumped hours and hours into tracking down differences between Quicken & my bank's online amount only to eventually discover that one or two transactions mysteriously disappeared from Quicken's register.

    Not that that's ever happened to me mind you...posting for a friend.  :)


    Has anyone found a workaround in Simplifi to do a sorta-reconcile process monthly when the bank statement comes in?  Event if it's not full blown, it might suffice as a double-check or as a way to tack down missing transactions.
    Chris
    Quicken Desktop user since 2014.
    New to Simplifi in 2021.
  • Rkg
    Rkg Member
    Hello - Any updates on the potential to reconcile in the future?
  • Coach Natalie
    Coach Natalie Administrator, Moderator admin
    Hello @Rkg,

    Thanks for reaching out!

    It doesn't look like there's an update to provide on this request as of yet, however, please be sure to stay tuned for future updates. :blush:

    -Coach Natalie
  • Flopbot
    Flopbot Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭
    @Rkg, after living with Simplifi for a few months, I think I found a workable work-around.

    Each month, when I receive my statement, I simply use the green “Reviewed” column (on desktop) to do a reconciliation of sorts.  I check off each transaction on my statement with pen and then mark it as reviewed in Simplifi.  Once an entire month has been turned green, I minimize it by hiding all the individual transactions.

    This process HAS found errors which - in my mind - is one of the main reasons for doing a reconciliation.

    Yes, it’s a workaround and yes, Simplifi should create an actual reconciliation process, but in the meantime, I’m happy enough with this general process.
    Chris
    Quicken Desktop user since 2014.
    New to Simplifi in 2021.
  • Would just like to add another plea for ability to reconcile!! 
  • The work around by Flopbot is about the best we can do.

    Quicken user since 2007
    Simplifi user since Dec 2021
  • dmc1
    dmc1 Member
    edited February 2022
    This would be a great addition to software. 
    I just spent a weekend making the switch from quicken to simplfi. 
    I am an accountant so my experience may be different than others. I exported each account from bank site to cvs then imported into simplifi. Once in simplifi each transaction defaulted to uncategorized. 

    Performed a completed reconciliation to last reconciled bank statement. Created a tag "R" and "U" to tag all reconciled transactions with R and the remaining transactions with U. When new bank statement arrives filter on all unreconciled.
    This is current work around that will verify all current transactions are included  on bank statement.

  • I think this is a really important feature to have because I have had a couple of significant transactions go missing in Simplifi. It becomes hard to trust that all the transactions have come over accurately.
  • rhart1716
    rhart1716 Member
    I love Simplifi!  With that said, i still have to keep an excel sheet to balance my account.  If there was a way to balance my accounts in this app i would not have to have that open as well. 
  • RobWilk
    RobWilk Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭
    I only believe in a need for reconciliation on MANUAL ACCOUNTS (meaning ones that don't sync to a bank).  All other accounts start with today's balance being based on the balance reported today by your bank, so they "should" always be right.   I say "should" but I know past balances are pretty much always a problem in simplify (I know what they're doing wrong, but have already had a bug report filed on that last week).

    -Rob


    Rob Wilkens

  • @jason518 Reconcile is a feature mainly used by users who manually enter transactions. Since Simplifi is intended to be connected to your financial institution and download cleared transactions, there isn’t a need to reconcile. Simplifi allows the ability to create manual transactions and accounts but that’s not what it’s intended to do but we are always open to suggestions and we appreciate your feedback!


    While I completely agree, this is the only true cloud option and it would be great if the application would consider accommodating both the manual transaction and reconciling users (like myself) and the true download users. This latter user seems to want to see the transactions from multiple accounts in a single view and be able to categorize those transactions which is exceptionally powerful.  I would like to do that and use reconciliation and budget reporting (as I transition from Quicken to this cloud solution). Overall great application

  • prbell123 said:
    Hi again Natalie,
    As a current Quicken user considering a switch to Simplifi, I totally agree that the ability to reconcile my accounts is very important.... I do this all the time with Quicken, and I can't imagine not having this feature in Simplifi.
    Thank you.

    This (and budget reporting) is the biggest feature hang up for me to move to Simplifi during my 30 day trial. I am trying to work around it. I worry about that check I wrote in December that didn't cash because it got thrown away with wrapping paper, and I didn't realize the recipient of the gift didn't receive it (as another real use case).
  • Flopbot said:
    @Rkg, after living with Simplifi for a few months, I think I found a workable work-around.

    Each month, when I receive my statement, I simply use the green “Reviewed” column (on desktop) to do a reconciliation of sorts.  I check off each transaction on my statement with pen and then mark it as reviewed in Simplifi.  Once an entire month has been turned green, I minimize it by hiding all the individual transactions.

    This process HAS found errors which - in my mind - is one of the main reasons for doing a reconciliation.

    Yes, it’s a workaround and yes, Simplifi should create an actual reconciliation process, but in the meantime, I’m happy enough with this general process.

    This is great - Thank you. I have been using pending / cleared but I am fully manual at this point to avoid confusion. It doesn't necessarily update the totals on the top of the page but I can still keep track of those activities that aren't clearing when I review weekly. For a mixed use (manual and sync with the bank) I am not sure if this would work.

    Quicken user 2010
    Simplifi user (August) 2022
  • Flopbot
    Flopbot Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭
    @lmallen1129,

     You’re right that due to the way Simplifi works, any changes you make in the register won’t cause a change in the amount at the top.  This is by design (click here for details).  Just so there’s no confusion, the ‘circle with a check mark inside it’ button has/or is going to change colors from green to black; depending on your settings.  The process still functions the same regardless.

     I’m fully synced right now and it works okay for me so it should work for a mix of both types of account’s.

    P.S. Farewell old friend…the green button.
    Chris
    Quicken Desktop user since 2014.
    New to Simplifi in 2021.
  • Allow reconciliation which would lock or give warning if reconciled transactions are accidentally modified.

    Allow selecting multiple transaction at one time rather then clicking the checkbox for each individual transaction.
  • I'd like to start out by a quick explanation.  I've used Quicken Desktop for years and we've gotten along pretty well.  I do everything manually.  I choose not to have Quicken (and now Simplify) "automatically" do anything for me including tying to bank accounts or bills to pay.  I enjoy using Simplify simply as a "check register" so that my spouse can also see the daily balance moving forward without having to log on to the Quicken program.  I like Simplify enough to actually drop Quicken.

    With that being said, here's a feature (again noting that I (and I'm sure others) like to enter everything manually) that would be worth considering:

    It would be nice to be able to balance the account meaning, as in Quicken, you can go through and grab your cleared balance from your bank and mark pending transactions as cleared.  Granted, it's possible to do this by taking your cleared balance, marking transactions and then adding up the Pending to make sure everything jives.  The problem is some of us are paid only once per month.  This means that most bills get paid at one time which leads to A LOT of pending transactions that even the bank doesn't see yet as posting times for different bills/utilities, etc. take different times.  Adding up all of those Pending transactions on a calculator takes time that could be calculated through the software.  At the very least, it'd be nice to have a "Cleared" balance and a "Pending" balance.
  • KimH CPA
    KimH CPA Member

    SImplifi absolutely needs a reconcilation feature. Those (including moderators) who are stating that because Simplifi is always up to date with bank activity are woefully incorrect. Without a reconcilatiation function, Simplifi doens't take into account checks or payments which are outstanding. I am finding that Simplifi can't do the simplest things—produce an income statement, provide an accurate check register (with check numbers!) or any other basic information that would be needed by people to complete their tax returns, apply for a mortgage or other loan, etc. Big disappointment