Running Balance Column [edited] (3 Merged Votes)

UrsulaA

This request was already considered by the product team and declined. See reasons on the last comment of this thread.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/19/running-balance-column-edited-3-merged-votes

landesemile

The ongoing refusal to have a running balance column option is silly for a budgeting tool. I want to be able to clearly see how my accounts' end-of-month balances compare month-to-month and year-to-year. It's also helpful to be able to see any time (not just end-of-month) how some accounts are doing compared to 1 month ago/2 months ago/etc. Seeing only the current balance does not give enough information to properly manage my finances.

RobWilk

End of month balances are available in net worth report.

DannyB

In my understanding, QS by design is not a checkbook nor does it include an accounts ledger with a running balance. I personally wouldn't find a running balance column in my transactions lists to be useful or helpful. I can see my account balances as of the current day without the added business of a running balance column crowding the transactions list.

Gabrielle

Why was this declined by the product team? I would be curious to understand. I also would like not to have to scroll my cursor over the chart to see the balance.

Flopbot

@Gabrielle ,

See Coach Natalie's post from Oct. 2020 (on the first tab of this string). It's probably the closest to an explanation/reasoning that you're going to find. If it gives you hope, Simplifi had refused to add a Check # field and just - yesterday - reconsidered. That made lots of people happy! Not saying that they'll change their minds here, but…

(edited for readability)

FireMedic

PLEASE reconsider this! I've pretty much stopped using Simplifi because I can't trust it. Coming from Quicken, I tried Simplifi for a while without a running balance and thought I could get along without it. Then I found that transactions were missing or being duplicated. I had issues with memorized recurring transactions that were different from the actual transaction (e.g. water or electric bill) and transactions that were deleted. Once I found these errors, it made me lose ALL trust in the accounting. Without a running balance, it is pretty much impossible to ensure that the transactions in Simplifi are accurate. Yes Simplifi maintains a current balance but that's not why I use accounting software. Every credit card and bank account has a mobile app so I can easily get that information from there. I use accounting software so I can accurately categorize activity so that I can budget and track my finances, plan for the future, and project balances. If I can't trust and verify that Simplifi is accurate, why use it?

I've mostly gone back to using Quicken Online for this reason which is unfortunate because Simplifi is easier to use. Quicken Online has been messing up transactions as well but because it has a running balance, I know when things go wrong and I can go fix it.

tobyN

Strongly agree with the above. At this point I have no confidence in what I see in Simplifi and I’m frequently trying to figure out what happened. Shouldn’t have to be doing that. The running total column would sure help with debugging, but I guess they have ruled that out to make it easier on themselves.

rtrue983

I know that you have an article that states that the running account balance would not match what is online but I beg you to reconsider. There are so many instances that this would be very useful it figuring out pending transactions and future transactoins.

There have been multiple occations where the pending transactions are imported/shown wrong and it becomes very difficult to figure out what is going on.

It would be very easy to show the running balance and still show the online balance at the top… it would show a discrepency, which would be benificial for anyone trying to keep a clean balance sheet.

Ryan

rtrue983

Why can this feature request not be reopend or reconsidered? I'm a bit dissappointed my feedback/feature request was just merged to a closed question when so many above agree that it would be helpful?

RobWilk

The app DOES NOT TRACK RUNNING BALANCES INTERNALLY. It starts with the bank balance and sometimes applies pending/manual transactions (depending on bank/settings) to get the current balance. For the purposes of net worth report, they start with today's balance, and reverse each bank transaction to get to older balances. If it showed running balances, it would not show discrepancies - older balances would just be more wrong. It works this way to reduce the number of calculations it has to do i believe, which is important because (1) this is a 'cloud' app and cloud processing time costs money (and people complain about the price -now-), plus (2) More calculations in the cloud means a potentially slower app both because of the calculations plus perhaps added data transfers back and forth.

Disclaimer: I am not a simplifi employee and have no insider info, this was partially discussed in the community here in years past.

EDIT: In theory the way it works, the current balance is more often right - in practice (i.e. with chase outside of banking hours) that doesn't always work out.

dddaddd

I can check my balance anytime and do not need simplifi to do that for me. I need a way to verify that the amount of money I think I have in my bank matches the amount of money my bank says I have. Simplifi wants you to blindly trust that the bank is right. That is a foolish assumption.

tobyN

I agree now and have agreed several times before (to deaf ears, apparently) that the lack of a running balance in Simplifi is a huge downside to using this product. Also, the lack of some sort of transaction list for savings goal transfers in and out. Maybe if some of the bugs I encounter would get worked out it would not be such a big deal, but for the moment, I am frequently confused by the state of some accounts and have to try manually fix things. But then after a couple of days I end up having to try to back out my changes because some things get sorted back out once there is another state change with the transactions. I've learned the hard way not to touch a transaction until a couple of days after it posts.

With Quicken Classic, I almost never got confused about the state of my account balances. But with Simplifi, I am frequently scratching my head trying to figure out what is going on. I can only hope that one day the features of this app will be more robust so that I can feel more confident that I understand my financial situation.

RobWilk

@dddaddd Questioning the bank with your personal list of transactions is unlikely to correct the bank balance. You can't tell the bank "You're wrong, here's this deposit here that you're missing —- or you have a record of a debit i don't have a record of." At best, you can challenge individual transactions ("dispute them") but they won't give you money because you said your records say so.

rtrue983

@RobWilk my goal is a littler different, but similar complaint. It seems like the idea of Simplifi is for it to stay up to date and current with the balance and transactions it has loaded from the bank. This seems very much to not to be the case from my experience. Maybe it is just with Huntington that lets transactions pend all weekend + a day or so each week my balance is wrong at least a few times in simplifi. My goal would be to simply edit the wrong imported (typically double transactions) manually so that my spouse can get an update to date balance from simplifi. Having a running balance greatly increases the ability to make manual fixes.

Maybe I'm attacking this wrong and should ask Simplifi or my bank why the balances almost never matches what is in my bank if anything is pending.

dddaddd

@RobWilk

I did not say I was questioning the bank's amount (although banks are not infallible). I said I need to verify the amount of money I think I have in my bank matches the amount of money my bank says I have.

I have multiple accounts across multiple banks. I often move money among them and it can take up to 10 days for monies to land. I input movements in Quicken when I make the transfers; the corresponding deposits often don't show up for several days. A daily balance helps track these movements and ensure I did what I think I did.

Also, I can tell the bank "You're wrong… ." I have caught many bank fees that were assessed incorrectly. Why is the bank's balance $65 less than mine? Because there was an interest charge (trailing interest is a new one) that occurred when the post office failed to deliver a payment on time due to the flood / hurricane / fill in the blank.

It is much easier and quicker to check the balance on a given day (maybe twice per month) and then investigate why the balances between two dates don't match, than it is to monitor each transaction in that same timeframe. I only want to look at the line level if I need to. If the balances match, there are no issues and I don't need to look at the line items.

akogan

The issue here is simple, Simplifi.

If my bank account has 3 cleared transactions: +$10, -$5, -$3, today's balance is $2, and Simplifi shows me $2. Great!

But if one of the transactions (e.g. -$5) doesn't get imported or is accidentally deleted, my account in Simplifi will show transactions +$10, -$3, but the account balance will still show $2 because that's the balance coming from my bank.

Now, because the -$5 expense is missing, my spending plan data is incorrect, so my reports are incorrect, but I might not realize it because the account balance looks correct and might not raising any flags.

In this example, it would be pretty easy to realize the issue because 1 of 3 transactions is missing. But imagine if my account had hundreds of transactions? Thousands of transactions? Without a running balance, you're making it extremely difficult to figure out what is going on.

akogan

I understand the rationale mentioned above about simplicity/flexibility but I feel the product team is missing a very critical piece - Simplifi isn't just about current/project account balances, it's also about tracking a spending plan. If transactions are missing or duplicated, that would give you incorrect numbers in your spending plan. With Quicken Classic and other products, you can easily determine if there are missing or duplicated transactions because there would be a discrepancy between your running balance and the balance reported by your bank. With no running balance, it's extremely difficult to figure this out and ensure your spending plan actuals are accurate.