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budget/planned spend vs bills (vs cash flow) - what am I missing for things like utlility bills?

n2it

I continue to struggle with Simplifi in this area. I did search through a number of other threads - but couldn't seem to find one that really helped - sorry if this is a repeat.

I think that the spending plan works relatively well for month to month balancing of expenses with income. Where I am struggling a bit is when I want to budget a bill as well as check my cash flow (as I am always a month behind as majority of expenses go on credit cards, but not all of them do). The problem is for variable amount transactions that vary wildly each month (or by seasons) that I have a yearly budget, but are a monthly/routine bill.

One example is my electric bill. I have a yearly budget for electricity $3000. So the average is about $250 per month - It is around $125 for 6-7 months and then around $350 for the other 5 months (Texas summers go from May to Sept). This comes out of my checking account and not a credit card. I also have a recurring power bill set up. The problem is that when the bill (actually the transaction from the bill) is included in the spending plan under bills, I can't use it the planned spend category with rollover to keep it in perspective of my yearly spend goal for that category. I want to always roll this over instead of release the funds to be spent.

The problem is that if If I remove the bill, than I remove the cash flow and bill tracking, but gain the rollover and it stays visible in the spending plan. And if I set the bill up as ignore from spending plan, then transaction is ignored from the spending plan, but shows up in my cash flow.

Am I missing something here? If not, what are some workarounds?

Obviously - it would be nice if I could flag a bill as ignore from bills in spending plan (and not force that on the linked transaction) which would allow the actual transaction to show up under a planned spend category.

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Comments

DryHeat

@n2it

A possible workaround for the electric bill is to have two different series, one for the low bills and one for the high bills.

You can do this by setting multiple fixed dates for each series … 7 of them for the low bills, 5 for the high bills. Like this:

It's a little clumsy, and you end up with two series that the bills connect to, but it will let you plan for higher bills.

SRC54

My workarounds:

I would edit my bills each month during the summer where my power bill would go from $100 to $250. I would do same for gas bill for winter that would go from $25 to $150. Of course, I could have just ignored it and enjoy the savings in the Spring and Fall when both utilities would be lower too.
Last year, I bit the bullet and went with the free budget billing that Alabama Power and Alabama Gas offer so that now my monthly bills are $130 and $70 every month. They adjust once in a while. (I expect the budget Power bill to go up after this month because of the more humid than normal (even for Alabama) summer.)

Quicken Classic also used to let you set an amount for each month when you set up the reminders, but I don't think it does any longer (at least in the Mac version).

Edit: This problem of big bills that come around has been a topic of discussion ever since Simplifi debuted.

n2it

Thanks - I'll think about this.

n2it

Thanks for the suggestion. Editing the amount may make the most sense - but that sure is tedious for software that is supposed to help me. Or again, I just ignore the cashflow implications.

As you suggest, maybe the easiest would be to use the higher amount on the bill as you suggest- at least then I am still always spending within my needs. Unfortunately, that effectively gives me additional money in my spending plan once the actual bill comes in and is less than the projected that I don't actually want to spend. Looking at the $ left / $ left per day in the spending plan helps me to not buy things I don't need

SRC54

I know, but if it like me, the power bill is fairly consistent from October to June so it is only really July, August and September that I edit (at the beginning of each month). I always find a few others that I can skip or edit as well just for that month.

I did check Quicken Classic and it has other choices, which is to use eBill, Avg from last year, or 1 Year Prior. This latter would be the one to use if they had it in QS. Of course, eBill isn't really a choice in QS with so few billers available.

n2it

Thanks again for the suggestion. What I have thought about is that the closest I can stay to a spending plan, the more I will be able to save - and how best to do that.

As I think about it, I am leaning towards planned spend is a better place to put something like this than a bill. If I put a max amount (with no rollover) than I might even be able to save more, provided I have the extra cash. If I need the rollover to stay within budget for the year, that works too.

A variable bill like you suggest (which is a great idea) makes it harder as some months it will seem like I have extra cash to spend and others I won't. If I do a maximum bill, once the actual comes in less than maximum, it is available to spend - so I have no way to capture it.

From there I can either ignore the cash flow implications (I think that is likely OK) or create a dummy bill that is excluded from the spending plan and never matches a transaction to capture the cash flow (and worst case delete the prior month at the beginning of each month or best case as soon as I notice my actual bill come in)…

DryHeat

@n2it

The Spending Plan is the most important part of Simplifi for me. I look at it frequently during the month to see how I am doing and to decide about whether and what to spend (particularly on non-essential things).

If that is your goal, you might do better by using a Planned Spend series with rollover. The trick would be to start the series at the end of the high bill season and to use an average monthly amount that covers your estimated yearly cost. That way the rollover will build up by the time you need it next summer. (The numbers don't work out well if you start during high season.)

The downside of this method is that it does not track your actual cash flow very well, because you are "earmarking" funds that your are not actually spending at the time. Again, it depends on what your goal is.

I use this system for things like semi-annual tax bills. I started the rollover series the month after paying one such bill and it effectively built up a "spoken for" amount each month that covered the next bill six months later. It looks a bit weird to have a planned spend item with no charges against it for months on end, but it works.