Ability to add Planned Spending Items to our Projected Cash Flow [edited] (4 Merged Votes)
Comments
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Doesn't seem like planned spending is included in cashflow projections at all right now. Would be great if it was, or even better if there was a way to toggle that on and off.
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Your request is already in review. It is better to start with more than one vote to increase the chance of consideration.
[removed link to merged thread]
Simplifi User Since Nov 2023
Minter 2014-2023
Questionable Excel before 2014 to present
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@Melissa D Schedule an recurring transfer for the $1000 on that date and it will be reflected in the cash flow chart.
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Rob Wilkens2 -
I add my vote for including the planned spending in the cash flow projections. Do it on a smoothed out basis for the month. The spending plan shows how much is left for the month, it could project on a straight line basis to fill up to the spending projection for each category. I find the account projection graph to be pretty useless as it only shows part of the story. I find that I start with the existing balance, the go through the spending plan and adding up all the yet unused amounts to manually project. Please include at some point/
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This just has to be fixed. I can't believe it wasn't included in the initial release of Simplifi, it is such a basic, but critically important feature. PLEASE ADD THIS FEATURE IMMEDIATELY!!!
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IMO, each planned spending item should have a date associated with it. That is, what day of the month would you like the planned spending item to be calculated into the cash flow.
I have Entertainment and coffee shop planned spending items that I would calculate at the end of the month. I have a groceries planned spending item that I would calculate weekly.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye2 -
since Simplifi can project my spending based on past months, it should be able to show that on the cash flow
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Not just a date, but an account. And, it needs to account for spending-to-date in the period so that you arent double-hit in your projected balance.
EX my CC cash flows quickly run into negative balances because I have scheduled payments every month based on my average bills. But I don't have very many scheduled charges because I can't schedule things like the grocery store or gas station. And if Simplii takes my Spending Plan value, and associates it to CC#1 at the end of the month, on the 25th I want it only applying the unspent amount for that Spending Plan category.0 -
@Coach Natalie Have you heard any update on this from the team? This is really the last major thing that prevents me from fully moving off of excel as a supplement to Simplifi. Being able to see expected balance across accounts based on recurring + spending plan would be a huge benefit for planning purposes.
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Objective: Allow dates to be assigned to planned spending so they appear in Cash Flow without reducing project fidelity.
From what I gather, the two remain separated (Cash flow and planned spending) because introducing date-less spending amounts will reduce the fidelity of the cash flow projection to identify where balances are expected to drop below pre-set thresholds or below zero.
However, you can allow planned spending to be captured in cash flow projections if you can program planned spending items with dates.
For example, I will grocery shop on my next payday, buy an additional solar panel on the second payday, and send $1,000 to my son for college and the end of this month. None of those are bills, and I want to keep them separate from my bill list while seeing them in my cash flow projections. I need this to answer questions like, “Can I afford to send another $1,000 to my son in August?"
Cash flow is a great quick-look tool for this, but I am only getting a partial idea of how my planned spending merges with bills and income. Plus, the planned spending summary is limited to only one month, whereas cash flow extends to six months.
It would be fantastic to add expected dates and a radio button or toggle to show the specific planned spending or expense category once a date is assigned in cash flow.
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Hello,
I think that would be very helpful to add the Planned Spending to the cash flow projection.
Right now, if you look at the cash flow projection it provides you biased information because it does not consider other planned expenses.
For example: If I am planning to go grocery shopping every week and I want to spend $100, I can not see that in my cash flow. And if I look at my end of month cash flow projection it is not even close of what will be my cash position at the bank for the same period, because I cannot included this "other projected expenses".
Right now, I am using the bills section and creating a recurring bill for Groceries, but it is very confusing when I look at the bills and I see other expenses there that are not related to the bills.
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Good news! this request already exists and has 150 votes. Add yours!
[Removed link to merged post]
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye2 -
@Coach Jon do we have an update on this?
Thanks!
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Idon't have any particular insight, but I would imagine that at the moment, rollover and apple card are occupying the majority of the development effort right now.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye0 -
Please add this in the future! What good is an automatic cash flow projection if you have to manually subtract the spending you planned from your cash flow?
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I'm also desperate for a way to preview what my position will be at any date - and so far the solution that looks the most suitable - would be to incorporate the planned spending into the cash flow.
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This request has been asked by members for 3 years… Is it time to lose hope?
I hope product development will take this one seriously as cash fow projections are the main tool to plan your savings… which is pretty much the reason why this software exists!!
Maybe with the migration of Mint user they will have more ressources to improve their product. I miss Mint terribly.
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Why is this feature still showing “in review”. We saw immediate response to the requests of users coming over from mint, but (almost 200?) votes for this feature and we haven’t gotten a proper update or timeline.
Spending plan is CORE functionality to Simplifi. The recurring charges and cash flow projection associated with accounts is CORE to Simplifi.
Planned spending probably represents at least 50% of a typical users monthly spend (gas, groceries, etc. ).
the fact that spending plan can’t have each “category” spend allocated against the cash flow of a selected individual account is ABSURD at this point.You emphasized the importance of the cash flow projection function recently by extending it to 12 months. But you completely negate its accuracy by pretending that planned spending doesn’t affect cash flow. How has this design flaw not risen to your attention.
I’ve used Simplifi for years. I’d upvote the feature suggestion but it appears to be locked. Will cross post to Reddit.
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Having the ability to monitor your cashflow should have been included when Simplifi first launched. The fact that it doesn't include this important functionality, years later, is mind-boggling! Come on Quicken, get this feature added sooner rather than later!
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Completely agree with Jwebs on this. The cash flow and planned spending being in their own silos and not tied together doesn't make any sense. I currently have to add my bi-weekly budget items as recurring items on my cash flow just to account for how it will affect the cash flow. The fact that it doesn't automatically do that when you add items to your planned spending makes both features less useful and adds more work for the user. Please take this out of review and implement this feature to make this product more well rounded.
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I am also voting for this.
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So maybe I missed a comment or two, but this seems to have a complication that hasn't been addressed.
Cash Flow is (currently) at the Account level. There is no "cash flow of all my money in all accounts".
So, how would the system know what account to apply planned spending to and what dates should items reflect at? I'm sure plenty of people pay bills out of multiple accounts. Additionally, when I spend money it goes to a credit card on the date of the transaction and then you have to factor in when the statement cuts (which I dont know if Simplifi even knows) to know which CC payment due date it comes out of my checking. And then on top of that, planned spending doesn't even have dates just months. Do you expect it all to happen the last day of the month? 1/4 if it every Friday? These kinds of things were asked way back when and the people responding at the time basically brushed them off and didnt give answers.
I'm not calling these impossible questions to answer. But a plan is needed and I don't think its as simple as "we have 175 votes, do it now!" HOW do you want these things addressed? Otherwise we'll get a crap implementation that no one is happy with.
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I agree with the above - it's complicated. Personally, I only use Planned Spending for purchases that go on credit cards - so they would only affect my bank account's cash flow once I pay the credit card bill. I use the $1 recurring bill method for my credit card payments (posted a few places in the community and I can find it for if anyone needs) and update the reminders when I know the statement amounts, so that my cash flow projection is more or less accurate for the next month or so. It'd be cool if Simplifi could pull in the statement amounts for me to save the manual step (you can vote for that) but aside from that, I don't see how Simplifi would know which credit cards and on which dates to expect to have those planned spending items (and there are some categories that I almost never spend the full amount allotted each month, so putting those on cash flow would not be helpful). And rollover just complicates this even further :).
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I guess people who do most of their spending via cash or debit card would have more of a need to show the planned spending in cash flow projection, but they would still need a way to configure where it's shown on the timeline (a little bit every day? weekday? once or twice a month? weekly?) - and if it's just a guess it could make the cash flow projection less accurate, ergo, less useful.
If it's an expense that's once a month or week regularly, you can create a recurring bill for it and it'll show on the cash flow projection for the account you chose. (I've got that set up for a few monthly bills that are paid straight from my checking account.)
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I agree with this, but hesitate to vote against it (i haven't voted for it) because so many people seem to want it, and also maybe the developers have ideas on how to fix this, such as by assigning planned expense categories to accounts. I don't know enough about how to vote for it. It's also unclear how it would be withheld date-wise, but maybe the developers once again have ideas. The other thing, in my case, a planned expense on a credit card gets paid by a checking account, so it affects the balance there too.
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Rob Wilkens0 -
I also haven't voted for or against this.
I have one or two recurring that are paid via credit card - it's not a problem. The actual expense shows in the Bills section of the Spending plan, and on the Cash Flow projection for the credit card, and then when I pay the card from my checking account it's a recurring transfer which shows on the Cash Flow for both the checking account and the credit card, but isn't counted again in the Spending Plan since it's a transfer.
If these were under Planned Spending and if Planned Spending shows on the Cash Flow, it would show on the cash flow diagram for that credit card account, not for your checking account, since that's how you pay them.
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I go with my average CC bill rather than $1. Its not really accurate in the short term for cashflow, but in the long term it helps prove out if I am trending in the wrong direction which is all I am looking to do. I don't try to use Simplifi as a check register to prevent me from overdrawing my account.
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