Cash Flow Needs to be Accounted for in the Spending Plan (edited)

hldrake

First off, I really love the spending plan feature.

But!! It’s kind of giving you a false sense of security… Because it’s telling me I have X amount to spend based on this entire months income - that I haven’t received yet!

Suggestion: change the math to account for pay periods. Would need to be user configurable (month, biweekly, semi monthly?) So then the app could intelligently look at:

1) expected expenses by date (which are already there based on bills, flex categories, and “other” - great real time calculations here)

2) verified deposits / income (because that’s actual cash flow) 

Then… current cash balances in “spending accounts” (maybe this is also a user config?) - (expected expenses) - (goals) = actual safe to spend without screwing up/emptying cash accounts. Divide by number of days remaining in pay period = true daily available to spend number.

Nobody has this crucial aspect of personal finance management (cash flow) baked into the budgeting numbers. I’ve been looking everywhere for it and you guys are so close!! It would be a big market differentiator .. Imagine actually knowing the TRUE safe to spend # within your personal pay periods to be able to crush your financial goals.

Right now, all of the apps do the same thing - account for $ we don’t have yet in a monthly projection (which who gets paid monthly?!) and suggest we spend future $$ daily - haha.. Maybe it works if you use credit cards for everything so cash flow didn’t matter. But personally a lot of my bills come out of my checking account … and if I overspent on either checking or a credit card or would still screw up my month.

Bonus points if you also push message my latest daily safe to spend amount 😍

(edited for readability)

Coach Natalie

Hello @hldrake,

Thanks for posting your suggestion to the Community!

I have gone ahead and turned this into an Idea post so that other Users can vote on it and our Product Team can review it. Please be sure to add your vote as well!

Also, based on your description, I believe that you may find this Idea post worthy of your vote as well: https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1114/rollover-checking-account-balance-to-spending-plan

-Coach Natalie

Lindz

Agree that time phasing of income is important in timing of bills. It would be a nice feature to be able allocate today’s income for next months spending. For example, if you are paid monthly and are paid at the end of January then that money isn’t really available for January’s bills. But it automatically tracks to the January spend plan even if you have it as a recurring income on the first of the February. Right now its a manual change to the actual transaction date to be able to do that.  Higher chance for errors. 

jagger

I agree, this is one of the big problems with all the software i have been using.  I get paid bi- weekly, so my pay dates shift all the time and they usually do not align with the beginning of the month.

For instance, In March my first paycheck is 3 March.  But my mortgage is pulled on 1 March.  The mortgage should count towards the Feb. Budget.  Not the March budget. 

 It could work if you had an option to let people decide when the month begins.

Coach Natalie

Hello All, 

The Community Support Team reviews long-standing Idea posts for relevancy and current interest. This Idea seems to have fallen stagnant and we would like to gauge the current level of interest in this request. 

If you would like to see this Idea implemented, please add your vote and a comment explaining how this request would be beneficial for you. More details on voting for Idea posts can be found in our FAQ here. 

Thank you,

Quicken Simplifi Community Support Team

RiversideKid

This was confusing when I started with Simplifi in May. I have grown accustomed to the interface but it would be helpful to new users if this was more clear. I am paid on the last day of each month so I just have to keep in mind that the Spending Plan is always going to use funds from last month. Someone paid bi-weekly may have more problems with this. The Cash Flow section is the savior here. (It does not work for me because my paychecks go straight to savings and I use the cash flow to see when to move funds to checking, but it would work for most.)

The Spending Plan is great for budgeting. It's simple and shows a great view of all transactions in an easy-to-read format. It's also great for my monthly Savings Goals contributions as the Savings Goals themselves tend to re-sort as I parse through them yet the Spending Plan section keeps them all in the same list while I am entering. The simplicity does remove details.

If this were my project, I would add another column to differentiate Budgeted vs. Cleared or in Simplifi terms, Received/Paid/Contributed vs. Upcoming/Past/Not Contributed. Maybe Budgeted and "Actual" might be better.

I agree that the Spending Plan could use something to make it more clear, but in a way that does not flat out duplicate the Cash Flow chart.

- My 2 cents worth