Split Transaction, Spending Plan, & Reimbursable Transactions
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jonhaydu
Member ✭
Forgive me if this is not technically a bug, I'm not quite sure where to post this.
I am having an issue with split transactions and the Spending Plan, and I'll do my best to explain the issue below. I'll use my cell phone bill as an example because a portion of it is reimbursed by my company (not the entire amount).
Let's say my cell phone bill is $300, and I receive $100 in reimbursement each month.
When the transaction arrives in Simplifi, I modify the transaction by splitting it as follows:
At a minimum, I was hoping the behavior would be:
Ideally, I would like to have the ability to ignore an entire category of spending from the Spending Plan.
I am having an issue with split transactions and the Spending Plan, and I'll do my best to explain the issue below. I'll use my cell phone bill as an example because a portion of it is reimbursed by my company (not the entire amount).
Let's say my cell phone bill is $300, and I receive $100 in reimbursement each month.
When the transaction arrives in Simplifi, I modify the transaction by splitting it as follows:
- $200 categorized as Utilities:Phone
- $100 categorized as Reimbursable Business Expenses
- Payee: AT&T
- Recurring Amount: $200
- Frequency: Every month
- Category: Utilities:Phone
At a minimum, I was hoping the behavior would be:
- $200 listed under Bills
- $100 listed under Other spending
Ideally, I would like to have the ability to ignore an entire category of spending from the Spending Plan.
Tagged:
1
Best Answers
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Hello @jonhaydu,
Thank you for taking the time to report this to the Community, although I apologize that you're seeing this issue with split transactions in the Spending Plan.
When testing this, I am also seeing that the split transaction is not being properly calculated in the Bills section of the Spending Plan, nor is the portion of the split that should have gone towards a Planned Spending expense being properly applied, so there is definitely something funky going on here. I know in the past, the entire split transaction would display under 'Bills' in the Spending Plan once linked to the Reminder, but the totals would be calculated properly, however, I am definitely seeing some miscalculations occurring now.
With that being said, I have gone ahead and gotten this escalated, and will be sure to post back as soon as I receive an update.
-Coach Natalie
SIMPL-110150 -
Hello again @jonhaydu,
I almost forgot! I also found some existing Idea posts that you may be interested in adding your vote and feedback to:
https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/133/excluding-categories-and-tags-from-trends-edited/p1?new=1
https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/98/using-splits-multiple-categories-in-recurring-transactions/p1?new=1
https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2099/option-to-hide-items-from-reports-and-spending-plan-in-split-transactions-edited/p1?new=1
https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1542/link-part-of-split-transaction-to-recurring-bill/p1?new=1
-Coach Natalie0 -
Hello @jonhaydu,
Thank you for your patience as this is being researched!
When reviewing this behavior, I think it may actually be by design. Once a transaction is linked to a Recurring Reminder, it will be counted toward the Bills and Income section of the Spending Plan and will not be assigned to other areas of the Spending Plan, regardless of the splits.
When testing this, I am seeing that the total amount of the transaction is assigned to the Bills and Income section. When I split the transaction to assign a portion of it to a Planned Spending expense, it is not assigned to Planned Spending, which is definitely by design; when splitting it to assign a portion of it as "Uncategorized", I am also not seeing it in Other Spending. However, since the portions that could potentially be assigned to other areas of the Spending Plan are not, and the total amount of the transaction is instead assigned to the Bills and Income section of the Spending Plan, you are still given an accurate "Available" amount. This seems to all be working as expected.
When originally reporting this bug, I had noticed different behavior that was indicative of a bug, however, that behavior is no longer occurring. What I'm seeing now matches your description above, which seems to be by design. I am looking to close out the escalation, but just wanted to double-check with you first.
What I have personally done to work around this design for a transaction that occurs every month for me and covers three different bills (I go to the store and get money orders once a month) is I created a single Recurring Series that covers all 3 bills. That way, when I link the transaction to the Reminder, the transaction itself covers all 3 bills, and the Series itself also covers all 3 bills. This seems to work for me. I then split the transaction after linking it so each portion can be properly accounted for in Reports, etc.
Please let me know what you think!
-Coach Natalie0
Answers
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I am having a very similar concern in trying to split any bills to accurately reflect as I intend. My situation, I have a monthly House payment that I want to split between what is applied to my mortgage, my escrow, and the interest. When I tried to set that up, it added the amounts in the escrow and mortgage and changed the total amount changing the balances in my checking account.0
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Hello @FamilyShrink,
Thanks for posting, although I'm sorry to hear that you're seeing an issue with split transactions in Simplifi.
To clarify, is this something that's occurring in the Spending Plan specifically, or are you referring to using splits that contain 'Linked Transfers'?
Please let us know so we can best assist!
-Coach Natalie0 -
@jonhaydu, full disclosure, I don’t completely understanding the problem and don’t really have any similar situations. That said, have you tried simply categorizing the refund using the same exact category as the original transaction?
For example:
Original Transaction: -$300 “Utilities: Phone” on 2/12/23
Refund Transaction: +$100 “Utilities: Phone” on 2/20/23
Final Amount Spent by You in February: $200
I do something like this when someone randomly pays us back for expenses in our “Groceries” or “Eating Out” categories.
As best I can tell, this works just fine with Simplifi’s Spending Plan”. The only downside I’ve come across is that if the refund is made in a different month than the bill, it throws off the ‘Available to Spend’ amount for both months…for me, not a big deal.Chris
Quicken Desktop user since 2014.
New to Simplifi in 2021.2 -
Hello @jonhaydu,
Have you been able to take a look at this, by chance? Please let us know, thank you!
-Coach Natalie
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Hello again @jonhaydu,
Since we didn't hear back from you, I did go ahead and get the escalation closed out. As mentioned above, I do believe this behavior is by design.
Let us know if you have any questions!
-Coach Natalie
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This discussion has been closed.