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Bank is sending in a positive balance instead of negative balance for mortgage account (edited)

dthibode

Starting July 15th, my primary mortgage, which is properly categorized as a Liability, and which shows a positive balance, is now being added (instead of subtracted) from my Net worth.

According to AI Chat, it's because my bank is sending the balance as a positive amount instead of a negative amount. I confirmed this by logging into my bank and verifying it's the same as in Simplifi.

Maybe adding a "invert balance" switch to certain account types, or in the net worth reporting would allow us to correct these issue ourselves?

Thanks.

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Coach Natalie

@dthibode, thanks for reaching out to the Community!

It sounds like the underlying issue (the bank sending an inverse balance) needs some troubleshooting and potentially an escalation. I turned this into a regular discussion focused on the balance issue itself, so we can proceed.

With that, I can confirm that adding a manual mortgage account shows a negative balance, which is what you should see in Quicken Simplifi with your connected account. The manual account I added is also being plotted in Net Worth correctly (as a deduction from my net worth).

I'd recommend establishing a completely fresh connection with the bank by following these steps to see if doing so clears things up for you:

Make all of the accounts with this bank manual by following the steps here.
Once you see the account(s) listed in the Manual Accounts section under Settings > Accounts, go back through the Add Account flow to reconnect to the bank.
If the connection is successful, carefully link the account(s) found to your existing Quicken Simplifi account(s) by following the steps here.

Let us know how things go!

Otherwise, if you'd prefer not to go through troubleshooting and would like to stick with the feature request, let us know, and we can easily turn this back into the request. We just don't want to miss any opportunities to help solve issues!

dthibode

Thanks for the response Natalie.

My understanding is the balance is positive because that's what the bank is sending. I also confirmed it's positive on their side, so Simplifi is displaying that correctly. So readding the account isn't going to make it negative suddenly right? My only chance of doing this would be to switch it to manual. Currently that same bank pulls in two other accounts of mine, so this mortgage was just automatic, like the rest of them.

What I find odd is that the balance hasn't inverted recently, just that Simplifi has decided (on July 15th) to start adding the liability instead of subtracting it, from the Net Worth. I'm assuming this is the behavior moving forward and it's not in error then? And my bank is just doing it wrong, or at least against some industry standard practice?

With all that information, do you still think converting it to manual and back will fix anything? Or should I just make the mortgage permanently manual? I'd rather not do that because it's been automatic and working perfectly until the recent software change.

Thanks for the prompt response. I await your suggestions.

Coach Natalie

@dthibode, thanks for the reply!

Although we wouldn't know whether disconnecting and reconnecting the account would correct the issue, especially if the bank is also showing a positive balance, it's standard troubleshooting we'd have you follow here in the community. If our troubleshooting efforts fail, the next step would be to contact our Chat/Phone Support team directly for more advanced assistance, as they may need to escalate the issue.

While it's possible this is just the way your mortgage company works, I'd say, in general, a mortgage account, whether connected or manual, should display as a negative balance in Quicken Simplifi, since it is a debt account. Debt accounts should detract from net worth, not add to it.

What I find odd is that the balance hasn't inverted recently, just that Simplifi has decided (on July 15th) to start adding the liability instead of subtracting it, from the Net Worth. I'm assuming this is the behavior moving forward and it's not in error then? And my bank is just doing it wrong, or at least against some industry standard practice?

Are you stating here that the balance has always displayed as positive in Quicken Simplifi, but the Net Worth feature has plotted it negatively until just recently? If that's the case, there may be an issue with the Net Worth feature itself. I don't think the feature was changed to plot mortgage accounts positively, as I added a manual mortgage account, and it is detracting from my net worth.

You also definitely have the option of disconnecting the account from the bank and tracking it manually. Since my manual mortgage account is displaying a negative balance as expected and is being deducted from my net worth, this should work for you.

Let us know how you'd like to proceed!

dthibode

You're correct, the balance hasn't changed in my account (my mortgage is paid on the 1st of the month) and starting July 15th the Net worth jumped the exact amount of the mortgage balance. Here's a screenshot of the Net Worth banner on top of the screen. As far as I know, it's always displayed as a positive amount at my bank and in Simplify. It doesn't track transactions though, just the loan balance.

In the Net worth dashboard it also shows that the Home Loan went up 199%.

This all seemed to coincide with changes being mentioned to the Net Worth feature, so I thought I'd bring it up first.

I'll investigate the manual account change later, maybe that's a decent workaround.

Thanks!

DryHeat

In the Net worth dashboard it also shows that the Home Loan went up 199%.

That fits with the loan amount having changed from a negative to a positive on July 14th (or around there).

For example, you would see a 199% increase if the balance went from -100K to about +100k on that day. (It's not exactly a 200% change, probably because of your payment.)

Are you sure that the balance on the account didn't change from a negative to a positive on that day?

dthibode

As far as I can tell, nothing has changed except the Net Worth calculation. I'm 99% sure on the bank side, it's always shown my balance as a positive one, so that shouldn't have changed on the Simplifi side either. So what's different now?

I only noticed the change because it coincided with this post on reddit, saying they were improving the Net Worth experience, exactly 9 days ago, on the 15th. That led me to go into Simplifi and check it out, and I noticed it had changed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/simplifimoney/comments/1uxiv3n/upcoming_improvements_to_net_worth/

Is it that far off to think that something changed in the way they calculate Net Worth, when they posted about making changes to it?

Coach Natalie

@dthibode, I can confirm that the changes mentioned in the Reddit post did not affect calculations. Instead, these enhancements were:

Added a new assets vs debts view
A new stacked view option when viewing asset or debt account groups

I'm not sure why you didn't see the issue in Net Worth before, but I would expect accounts with a positive balance to add to net worth, and accounts with a negative balance to deduct from net worth. I would also expect that a mortgage account, which is a debt, would have a negative balance and, therefore, would be deducted from your net worth.

I hope this helps to clarify!

DryHeat

I'm 99% sure on the bank side, it's always shown my balance as a positive one, so that shouldn't have changed on the Simplifi side either.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I was talking about the Simplifi side, not the bank side.

I was asking if you are sure that the Simplifi account balance didn't change from negative to positive. I ask because the +199% change reflected in the image you posted makes it look like it did change.

If it did change, that would indicate the problem is with the way Simplifi gets (or interprets) the balance from the bank, rather than with the Net Worth system.

dthibode

I did some playing around with the account today. Here's what I found.

If I make it a manual account I can invert the balance to a negative and that solves my issue.

I guess my original suggestion for a feature still stands. In cases where banks send the wrong balance (positive or negative) a switch would be nice to invert how Simplifi sees the balance. At least in this case it would prevent having to manually manage an account.

Thanks.

Coach Kristina

Thank you for the follow-up,

I'm glad to hear that making the account manual allowed you to manually correct the balance. Did you test if the balance stays correct once reconnected, or if the balance is still being sent to Quicken Simplifi as a positive instead of negative balance?

Thank you!

dthibode

Once I reconnect and it syncs it automatically flips back to the positive balance.

Coach Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

If you would like to troubleshoot further, I recommend that you contact our Chat/Phone Support team directly for more advanced assistance, as they may need to escalate the issue. You can find their contact information and hours in this article: https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/5077917-how-to-contact-support#h_ae9ae33e3e

I guess my original suggestion for a feature still stands. In cases where banks send the wrong balance (positive or negative) a switch would be nice to invert how Simplifi sees the balance. At least in this case it would prevent having to manually manage an account.

Did you want this discussion converted back to an Idea post?

Thank you!