Spending Plan Savings Goals miscalculation

LtDan1912

Version: 3.36.1 (17036/6d9e12eb5)

Description:

The Savings Goals total in the Spending Plan does not include funds "Withdrawn for another purpose"

Steps to reproduce:

1. Have 2 Goals (at least one with some contributions)
2. Withdraw from goal with funds for "another purpose" (i.e. not spending)
3. Contribute the withdrawn funds to the other goal

Expected behavior:

The spending plan should show both the outflow and inflow of the contributions and account for that in the total as a net change of $0.

Observed behavior:

The withdrawal of the funds does show in the Spending Plan as a positive value but is not reflected in the Savings Goals total in the Plan.

Example scenario:

• Savings Goals total in Spending Plan is $2,397.55
• Goal A has $1000 Available
• Goal B has $0 Available
• Withdraw $500 from Goal A for "another purpose"
  
• Contribute $500 to Goal B
• The Spending Plan now shows "+$500" for Goal A and "-$500" for Goal B
• The Savings Goal total should still show $-2,397.55, but instead shows "-$2,897.55"

Screenshots:

Coach Natalie

Hello @LtDan1912,

Thanks for posting this issue to the Community, although I apologize that you're seeing this behavior in Simplifi.

When attempting to reproduce this, I'm not personally seeing any issues -- my Goal contributions are being deducted from my Spending Plan as expected, and withdrawing for another purpose is adding the funds back to my Spending Plan accordingly. Contributing the withdrawn funds to my other Goal is also being accurately reflected in the Spending Plan, and the Total was updated accurately with each step that I took. 

With that being said, where is Simplifi getting the original $2,397.55 amount for the Savings Goal section of the Spending Plan? Do you have other Goals set up with monthly contribution amounts aside from $0 that are being included in the Spending Plan? If so, I think we're going to need to see the entire Savings Goals section of your Spending Plan so that we can get a clearer idea of what's going on and what's being miscalculated. 

Please let me know so I can best assist!

-Coach Natalie

LtDan1912

@Coach Natalie
I do have other Savings Goals, that are included in that number, but I tried to keep the screenshots relevant to the changes I was making.

I originally saw this when withdrawing from another goal and adding to a new one.
To more clearly show the issue I created "Goal A" and "Goal B" above.

I have since deleted them, but I will PM you the entire list as it stands now which still shows the issue.

Coach Natalie

Hello @LtDan1912,

Thank you for providing the requested information!

I have gone ahead and gotten this reported and will let you know as soon as I hear back.

-Coach Natalie

SIMPL-11800

LtDan1912

@Coach Natalie I think I have a better understanding of the circumstances in which this occurs.

This occurs when the goal you are pulling funds from has a planned monthly contribution of $0.
Under this scenario, the contribution in the plan is allowed to go negative in the spending plan.

Example:
"Emergency Fund" has a $0 planned Monthly Contribution.
If I withdraw $500 from it, it shows as "+$500" and the Savings Goals Total does change.

If "Emergency Fund" has even a $1 planned monthly contribution and I withdraw $500 it does not show "+500". It shows "-$1.00" because it knows I plan on contributing $1 this month even if I am at -$500 at the moment. 

If we are following that logic, the first scenario would show $0 since we plan on spending $0.
(and, in fact, it counts it as $0 even though it shows as "+$500")

[ pause to digest all that ]

I think there is a flaw in this though because we have no way that I can tell of taking from one goal and adding to another without messing up the Spending Plan calculation.

The total is correctly updated whenever we contribute to a goal, but it is not updated when we withdraw.
It either uses the planned monthly amount if there is one or counts it as zero if there is not.

Coach Natalie

Thanks @LtDan1912 -- I've added this to the Ticket.

-Coach Natalie

LtDan1912

@Coach Natalie
As I've been using the Spending Goals some more and shifting money around, I think the most straightforward solution to this is to be able to mark individual contributions as "Yes, subtract from spending plan" or "No, ignore it".

Currently, we can only do this for "planned contributions" when setting up the Goal.

If the user has the option for individual contributions, then they have the choice to not count it if they desire. For example, I would do this if I know the funds I am using were just withdrawn from another goal.

Another potential solution would be to have a feature that gives the user the ability to "transfer" from one goal to another. In this scenario, it would move the funds to the new goal without affecting the spending plan.

Coach Natalie

These are both great suggestions, @LtDan1912!

I'd suggest going ahead and creating an Idea post for each of these suggestions so that other Users can vote on them and our Product Team can review them.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/998/creating-and-voting-for-ideas-in-the-community

-Coach Natalie

LtDan1912

Idea posts for anyone who would like to vote:

• https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2955/add-ability-to-ignore-individual-goal-contributions-in-spending-plan
• https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2956/add-feature-to-transfer-funds-from-one-goal-to-another
  

Coach Natalie

Thanks for creating those @LtDan1912!

-Coach Natalie

Coach Natalie

Hello @LtDan1912,

Thank you for your continued patience as this is being worked on!

Since quite a bit of time has passed since we originally escalated this issue, I wanted to check in with you to see if it's still occurring. If so, would you mind providing us with a fresh example of the behavior, please?

Please also send us your logs via the 'Send Feedback' option:

1. Log into the Simplifi Web App.
2. Select Profile from the left-hand navigation bar.
3. With the Profile menu open, hold down the Option key for Mac or the Alt key for Windows, and then click Send Feedback. 
4. Leave all boxes checked, add a brief description of the issue, and then click Send. 

Much appreciated!

-Coach Natalie

Coach Natalie

Hello @LtDan1912,

Were you able to take a look at this, by chance? Please let us know, thank you!

-Coach Natalie

Coach Natalie

Hello again @LtDan1912,

I wanted to reach out one last time before closing out the escalation -- please be sure to let us know if the issue is still occurring and get those logs submitted.

-Coach Natalie

Coach Natalie

Hello @LtDan1912,

Since we haven't heard back from you, I went ahead and closed out the ticket. Let us know if the issue pops back up, though, and we can reopen accordingly with fresh examples and logs.

-Coach Natalie