Bright Start Savings - for investors NOT advisors

bowgy4

In Mint, I can connect to Bright Start Savings (a 529 plan) but in Simplifi, it only shows Bright Start - Advisor (which is for the financial advisor-sold version) or Bright Directions (which is a different advisor-guided 529 product). I would like to request that the Bright Start Savings account type is added. Login is at https://csp.ubtrust.com/paweb/logins/login.aspx?planname=Bsdir&user=shareholder.

Coach Paco

@bowgy4 Added!

bowgy4

Wait @Coach Paco , added to the list or added for access?
I hope this is an easy add. The login pages are identical looking, just that the advisor one is here: https://csp.ubtrust.com/PAWeb/Logins/Login.aspx?planname=Bdadv&user=broker

And the one I need is here:
https://csp.ubtrust.com/PAWeb/Logins/Login.aspx?planname=Bsdir&user=shareholder

Not sure about the underlying site since I can't log in as a financial professional.

Coach Paco

@bowgy4 Added to the list, sorry about that

bowgy4

@Coach Paco said:
@bowgy4 Added to the list, sorry about that

No worries, that's what I thought, but I didn't want to assume and find out a month from now that it was added and I just wasn't seeing it. I've set up manual bank accounts to at least track the deposits for now, even though it won't reflect the value of the investments.

Terriers2007

@Coach Paco do you happen to have an update on setting up this connection? I tried to add my Bright Start Savings 529K account yesterday (as a new user) and it doesn't appear that this update has been made.

Coach Paco

@Terriers2007 I haven't received any notifications as of yet. Let me reach out to our team to see if I can get some info on the status of the request.

bowgy4

@Coach Paco Can this account type please be added. This is an investment account, so it's near impossible to track the value using the manually added account type.

Coach Paco

@bowgy4 I understand where you're coming from but unfortunately, we are still working on getting that connections established.

MrGood

Hi Paco -- I'm not sure how the list of requested connections gets prioritized but if it helps, the Bright Start Savings 529 is the *official* 529 plan that is sponsored by the State of Illinois. Additionally, in terms of level of effort, as bowgy4 already noted, there might not be too much work to do to enable Bright Start since a sister connection (Bright Start - Advisor) is already enabled. Might be a quick one to enable Bright Start Savings.

bowgy4

@Coach Paco I opened a chat 5 weeks ago and the person I spoke with, Coach Pablo, responded after working with support for a bit that the request had been submitted to Bright Start:

"It seems that although the request has been sent we still haven't received any updates from Bright Start's side.
11:36 am
Got it. Thank you. Anything I can do to assist as an account holder?
11:38 am
For the time being we still need to wait for Bright Start to give us a green light so we can finish the enrollment."

I just submitted a request to Bright Start support to please enable this connection, as it's been a year and this connection still isn't enabled, but I can get it through Mint and Quicken

MrGood

I thought that Simplifi still used Intuit's aggregator service and Mint has had Bright Start for at least a couple of years. In fact, I can even add Bright Start to my Ally account (they allow you to track accounts at other institutions). It's very perplexing that a sister product like Quicken has access but Simplifi does not. Seems like Simplifi is the outlier here amongst everyone else that has been able to connect to Bright Start.

@bowgy4 - I also submitted a 'Contact Us' request inquiring about the connection to Simplifi. Maybe there's power in numbers on this one.

Terriers2007

+1 to this.

I've been monitoring this convo since I converted over to Simplifi. So when I recently received a survey about my experience so far, I noted my dissatisfaction about how this still hasn't been resolved when competitors have clearly figured this one out. Submitting to Bright Start now.

Coach Paco

@bowgy4 Unfortunatley at this time, it's still in progress to be added into Simplifi. Once we have an update, we will leave a comment to let you all know. We appreciate your patience while we work on this request.

bowgy4

@Coach Paco Are you able to confirm whether or not Bright Start needs to do something or if the ball is in Simplifi's court?

Coach Paco

@bowgy4 We are currently waiting on our service aggregator. We've submitted the request for the script to be created and added but we are still waiting on our service aggregator.

MrGood

I thought that Simplifi still used Intuit's aggregator service and Mint has had Bright Start for at least a couple of years. In fact, I can even add Bright Start to my Ally account (they allow you to track accounts at other institutions). It's very perplexing that a sister product like Quicken has access but Simplifi does not. Seems like Simplifi is the only outlier here.

@bowgy4 - I also submitted a 'Contact Us' request inquiring about the connection to Simplifi. Maybe there's power in numbers, even if its just

jpv121

I would also like to request this addition. It seems crazy to only allow connection to the advisor-site when the websites are identical.

MrGood

Just bumping this thread to see if there has been any progress on this one? It's been almost 2 years since the initial request and no action. Furthermore, other competing services such as [removed] have offered access to Bright Start since when this was logged and to this day offer this connectivity (I just checked).

Coach Natalie

Hello @MrGood,

Thanks for the inquiry!

Unfortunately, there's still no update to provide on this request. I see that Bright Start Savings has been added to our list of requested connections, so we are working to establish the connection, however, we do not have an ETA to provide as to when or if we'll be able to add them to Simplifi.

I would definitely suggest continuing to follow along here for updates! 

-Coach Natalie

bowgy4

Good morning - I would like to submit this request again. Please note that [removed] has this connection active and it works just fine. I really think it is possible that whoever set the connection up in Simplifi as "Advisor" just has the connection pointed at the wrong login address (in [removed], they correctly use brightdirections for the advisor login and brightstart for the account owner login - in simplifi, both addresses point at the advisor login).

For clarity, the correct login address is: https://portal.ubtrust.com/Portal/paport/brightstart/#login. 

MrGood

I 2nd @bowgy4's comment.  We are amongst the earliest supporters of Simplifi and have been patiently waiting for 2 years for this (while the free competitor has had this all along).

bowgy4

@Coach Natalie or @Coach Paco - can you comment on this or provide any insight as to why Quicken's own other products connect to BrightStart but Simplifi still does not? Having this would greatly simplify my monthly activity so I don't have to keep updating the investment values manually with every monthly statement. I'm sure @MrGood and others would appreciate it. I generally enjoy Simplifi and have contributed to several of the improvements early on, specifically the ability to quickly add new categories from the transaction. This one is just really frustrating because 529 plans are really common and this is the connection for the Illinois 529 plan, so no updates and no progress after 27 months - this is starting to feel hopeless.

Coach Natalie

Hello @bowgy4,

Thanks for the inquiry! 

Unfortunately, we don't have a whole lot of insight as to why Simplifi doesn't offer this connection when other products do. I'm not sure what other Quicken products you're referring to, though, as I'm seeing the same option listed in Quicken as I am in Simplifi, which is "Bright Start Savings - Advisor". 

With that being said, however, I can confirm that this connection has been officially requested for Simplifi. Although we can't guarantee that a requested bank will be added, it is at least being worked on so hopefully we see some movement and success with this in the future. 🤞

I hope this helps!

-Coach Natalie

MrGood

This entire request has been very perplexing to me.  My understanding is that both Simplifi and "the-other-service-with-a-green-leaf" both use Intuit as the financial aggregator.  I tried using the "other service" today with my Bright Start account and it worked flawlessly, so really not sure where the issue lies in getting this to work with Simplifi.

Jdf15

Still waiting on this, for years...  it is the state's official program.  This should not be that hard.  This, plus the ongoing Aidvantage snafu, has me seriously wondering why I am continuing to pay for this service.  

Kandaswamy

I am trying Simplifi this week and not able to add IL 529 (Bright Start savings) is a deal breaker. Disappointed in this.

SandyD

[removed] also offers this connection for years.

Jdf15

@Coach Natalie @Coach Paco any progress on this?  It is a basic, very common account that other products have, and this request is now 3 years old...

Coach Natalie

Hello @Jdf15,

Thanks for the inquiry!

Unfortunately, there is no further update to provide on this request at this time. Once an update becomes available, we'll be sure to update this post accordingly.

-Coach Natalie

Jdf15

[removed]  Is there *any* progress being made on this at all, or are we exactly where we were when this request was made in November 2019?  You folks are not doing much to instill confidence or justify our continued investment in this service.  It looks an awful lot like you are continuing to take our money each month and providing nothing in return.