Balances with pending: see both balances or make toggling simple [edited] (1 Merged Voted)

syrilmathai

There are times where I need to record a transaction that has yet to be cleared. I have not seen where Simplifi presents the latest known online balance along with the calculated balance which seems to be cleared plus pending. I like the latter but definitely need the former as otherwise I have to keep logging into the bank site directly. I have found other tools provide this. Quicken shows the downloaded balance but it is based on the previous day balance and not real time.

To be clear, I would like the accounts page to show a column for online and a Column that includes all pending (whether from the bank or items I’ve entered). Additionally, in the individual transaction page it shows balances with pending and I would like the online balance to also show at the top.

Coach Tappan

@syrilmathai I understand what you're looking for. Bearing in mind that balances are account-specific, and Simplifi displays the balances provided to us by each financial institution, you'd like to see a second line that adjusts the downloaded balances to reflect the items Simplifi tags as "pending," plus any manually entered transactions for that account that are not yet showing as "cleared," or matched to a posted transaction. Let's see what other users think of the idea!

syrilmathai

@Coach Tappan that’ exactly what I’m show right now. The balance I see reflects the balance (cleared plus pending) plus any transactions I have manually entered that are not cleared and not present at bank yet. I would like something that shows me strictly the online balance per the bank.

Coach Tappan

@syrilmathai Okay. I get it now. An option to see the "pure" account balance from the financial institution, without any modifications. And I'll bet you'd like to see a time and datestamp for that balance as well. Am I right?

syrilmathai

If you give me a time and date stamp, I’ll take it. But I lived without it using Quicken and it’s not available to me on Mint. I’ll take it though!

IndyMx5

This is exactly what I'm looking for:

"An option to see the "pure" account balance from the financial institution, without any modifications."

I have to go to my institution, get the real balance, compare that the Simplifi balance and then figure out where I'm off. Right now, one of my accounts are off my $41.70 and I had to get that by adding everything up, substracting items, etc. Just knowing what the real balance is would be helpful to know if I've made a mistake or accidentally deleted a transaction, etc.

Matt

I have been a Quicken user since the 90s. I just discovered Simplifi and and am excited about moving to a browser-based version to free me from only using Quicken on my Mac. The one issue I have run into is with pending transactions. Why is Simplifi downloading those and treating them as if they are processed transactions? Quicken ignores these transactions until they clear as it should. The Simplifi account balances are inaccurate and do not match the actual daily balances with the institutions because of this processing of pending transactions. Here are just two examples cases where this is causing inaccuracies: 1) I stayed at a hotel over the weekend and the hotel preauthorized $700. This pending charge was applied to my account balance in Simplifi which is simply not correct. The actual amount cleared later and was of course less. 2) swiping a card at a gas pump sometimes preauthorizes $100 while the actual charge ends up being much less and clears days later. Pending charges like these can persist for days and even weeks. Please fix this annoying design decision by either ignoring pending transactions like Quicken does or provide an option where the user can choose to see account balances either with or without incorporating pending transactions. Quicken allows you to track balances by "Online Balance", "Today's Balance", or "Projected Balance" - Simplifi could add something similar. Thanks!

Coach Natalie

Hello @Matt,

Thank you for posting your feedback -- I can definitely understand your request with the examples provided!

However, as the ability to download pending transactions is a big part of Simplifi's interface, I have gone ahead and merged your post with an existing Idea post requesting that online balances be added to accounts.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

-Coach Natalie

Matt

Thanks @Coach Natalie! If you all go this route, it's important to provide a dashboard setting (like Quicken does) so users can choose to see the balances in the way that works best for them - Projected Balance (with pending & manual transactions), Online Balance (without pending and without manual transactions), or Today's Balance (without pending but with manual transactions). Today's Balance is what I have always used in Quicken because that most accurately reflects the current balance (it includes checks that I've manually recorded but have not yet cleared the bank for example). I am really surprised that Simplifi made the design decision to treat pending transactions as if they were cleared given the inaccuracies of pending charges. I was very pleased to see the capability to add manual accounts and manual transactions as that is why I couldn't switch to Mint.

Mrluke

I see we can choose to see account balances with pending transactions or without and that is great. 

I would like to see a "both" option or make toggling "back and forth" simple 

I would really like to see both balances at once and perhaps even a pending transaction total. It's all there it would be a matter of putting it together

EL1234

I'd like this as well. On the sidebar I prefer to see my actual bank balance, and then in Cash Flow, I'd like it to show the actual balance, and the balance plus or minus any pending transactions.

pawebb

I would like to see the Pending and Cleared balances on the Transaction view similar to the screenshot. Not for every month line, just for the current month and the Pending section. Or a running balance column added.

EDIT: I found another idea that covers this. Running Balance This can be deleted.

Coach Natalie

Hello @pawebb,

Thanks for posting!

Before we consider deleting this request, I wanted to share an existing Idea post to see if you're perhaps looking for the same thing in regard to how Simplifi balances currently work:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/708/balances-with-pending-see-both-balances-or-make-toggling-simple-edited-1-merged-voted

If you're looking for a running balance specifically, as you can see from the post you linked, this suggestion has been declined by the Product Team. The applicable Idea post is available here:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/19/running-balance-column-edited-3-merged-votes

However, based on your description, it sounds like you're looking for the first Idea post I linked above, as a running balance would be per transaction, not per section of "pending" and "cleared". I think your request would be a great addition to that Idea post, as it outlines a new way for both the pending balance and the bank balance to be displayed in Simplifi; I'd like to merge your post with that one if you agree. 🙂

-Coach Natalie

pawebb

yes, I was looking for a balance of the two sections, cleared and pending. If you can merge the two that would be great.

RobWilk

I would say that Simplifi -has- these two balances, Pending (with everything) and cleared (without pending). I think this is a reasonable. Though I think "Pending Balance" should be "Balance with Pending Amount" or something like that — otherwise it might sound like it's just the sum of the pending transactions.