Authorized User with certain Permissions/View Access to Account [edited] (6 Merged Votes)
My spouse and I like to go over our financial health, and it would be great if there was some way I can share the info from my simplifi account without sharing my password. This can also just be a view account if security is a concern. Thanks!
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What a great suggestion! I hope other users vote to see this feature too. I think it would be so helpful to not have to share a username and password between multiple people (i.e., spouses or children). Thank you for the feedback!
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Agree! How can I share with my spouse?
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Me too please... same exact reason. I do all the footwork but she wants to be able to log in and view data and run reports.
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@michelekbrady @mazar1977 Thank you for your "votes" for a solution to this problem. That will move this issue up our priority list. You can, of course, give your spouse or partner permission to use your login information, but if I understand the request, you'd like them to be able to at least view all of your information without using your password -- either as a "authorized household user," or as a "joint-account member" with full privileges under their own password. Is that what you'd like to see?
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@Coach Tappan I think a simple "View Only" or "Reports Only" user that just has view privileges and a "Joint-Account User" that has full read/write and editing privileges would be great.
Just the 2 types of users. "View Only" and "Full Access"
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@mazar1977 Got it. For some reason, many financial institutions have been moving away from full access "joint accounts" over the past few years. New credit cards usually require one person to be the "primary cardholder," with anyone else an "authorized user" with limited access. I'm guessing that a "View Only" status under a separate email (but using the same bank logins, of course!) will be the easiest to implement quickly, but I'm make sure our development team is aware that both options have been requested by our users. Thanks for the feedback!
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@Coach Tappan I totally understand. I deal with that issue with the banks day in and out as I do tech support for QuickBooks Online. I would think that from an IT standpoint it would just be a "View Only" user whose view is populated using the primary account holders login credentials.
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Exactly. We've been making a point of posting a note in the original topic if a suggestion is implemented. So you can track it here, or keep an eye on our Product Updates discussions to see if the function has been added in a future release.
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Adding another household as an authorized users to may be view some or all accounts with certain permissions (Read/Write or a combo of both) would be a good idea instead of sharing the credentials with them for example if you are teaching a teenage how to manage money and provide them with tools to view their spending etc., I think it would be nice to have that, thanks! Also it helps for Spouses as well to log in and check the financial pictures putting everyone on the same page
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@TGP Appreciate the suggestion for adding an authorized user for Simplifi but, for example, if the teenager has an authorized user login for the bank to see the account, they can create a new Simplifi I.D and add the bank to Simplifi. Ultimately, it's up to the bank to allow access for authorized users. I'm going to change this to an idea so we can have our community vote on it!
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New account with new subscription fee, while we already have an account. Trying to avoid that with a better idea as adding an authorized user! As a family, I do not think we should pay for multiple accounts, plus, I would like to give those users maybe limited access to maybe view certain accounts activity or read-only on the rest. I think it should go back as a discussion matter or a feature request. I believe it is qualified as such.
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@TGP I also noticed that we have another post opened in our community about this as well with a good amount of votes on it! I'd recommend casting your vote on that one and I'll move this post with that one
Great minds think a like!0 -
What is the direct link to the other post please?
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Oh, I seem to have come late in the game, I had another on going https://community.trysimplifi.com/discussion/220/adding-an-authorized-users-with-certain-permissions#latest thanks to @Coach Paco who directed me to this post. This post definitely has my vote!
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My wife and I both do our finance together. While "view only" would be a first step in the right direction, expanded permissions would be valuable to numerous families across the nation/globe. I would pay more for an additional user account.
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I don't mean to be rude. The fact that your system does not recognize that it is not unusual for adults to be married or have some other kind of fiscal partner seems to not just be the norm but the universal expectation from financial management apps. Why anyone would want to share a financial management app with their spouse or life partner apparently is just not something software developers understand. It seems like a pretty obvious user story though.
I find it quite bizarre and very frustrating that personal finance apps seem to have no knowledge of marriage though. I thought it was pretty common knowledge and the fact that his use case is so regularly overlooked it frustrating.
It is disheartening though to see instead of prioritizing fixing your system (which I can not regard as anything but broken for failing to recognize some of your users might be married) you suggest people share user names and passwords. The fact that people running IT systems that is designed to access bank accounts seem to not understand that for over 30 years it has been very clear it is bad IT security practices to share usernames and passwords, probably explains a lot about why IT security problems are a common headline in the news. If that is not obviously - particularly considering I just expressed astonishment at people's ignorance of the existence of marriage and the desire to share access - Let me explain why. Two factor authentication is no longer, optional, special enhanced security. If you do not support that at part of your login system, you are doing a bad job. That is not a debatable point. You are just doing a bad job if you do not allow two factor authentication. And if I care enough to something as simple as using two factor authentication, then I can simply not share the username and password with my spouse. Because the whole idea of having a second factor is that that second factor is not just some password, it has to be something that is hard to share with another person. For instance, my spouse would be pretty pissed if I insisted on taking physical possession of her cell phone, because I would like to log into our personal finance app. But if we use our phones as the second factor that is what I would have to do, if we just share the username and password, because now we have to share the second factor too.
The good news is, your app is broken in the same way that all personal finance apps are broken. You do not understand that people's personal fiances involve other people. I spent a solid 12 hours evaluating apps, looking for this exact feature. I am using simplfi now. But I promise you as soon as another personal finance app supports syncing my bank account with it and recognizing I have a spouse, I am going to switch.
Ironically, it may be that my bank, which has long recognized that my spouse and I should be able to login without sharing an account, is starting to develop a pretty good personal finance app. And since they understand that 2FA is a good idea and that sharing usernames and passwords is a bad idea, they figured out how to implement it.
Please update this from a mere request you might add in the future to a report of a security flaw. This is broken part of your application, not a missing feature. You should also educate your help desk staff to not publicly recommend bad security practices. sharing user names and passwords was a bad idea 30 years ago. It is still a bad idea. The fact that companies are suggesting it still is clear evidence of the incompetence of your information security program. The only saving grace being that incompetence in information security is all too common, so your company is in good company. I don't actually blame your developers or your helpdesk. The fault lies with your Information security officer and whoever is responsible for user exerpeince/design. And if you lack people assigned to those tasks, then the fault lies with your management.
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Agreed. It's kind of crazy that this type of functionality was not designed in from the beginning. Seriously, do the designers and users NOT see the obvious issues with joint accounts and financial management in a marriage?
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Great idea. YNAB does this my using Google Accounts for Auth. My wife and I both have accounts to log in. In addition...capturing the last modified by user would be ideal.
Me: "Who changed...? "
Partner: "Wasn't me..."
Me: "Oh sorry, Simplifi says it was me."
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I'm just testing out Simplifi and YNAB as I'm trying to pick out which one my wife and I will go with, and this is very disappointing. We both really liked Simplifi on my phone, but sharing a password/login is very hacky. Seeing that this isn't a priority doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the security practices of the company behind the software.0
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It is a pretty basic ask, all you got to do is provide an option to add authorized users. I would love to share the college expenses with my daughter etc.,
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Me too! This is critical.0
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Registered just to +1 this need!
Seems silly that it's not a default available option/addon.
Looking at YNAB too as I've heard many say they can share with spouse/sig-other/family0 -
I agree. The app should allow married couples to share a family budget via one account with two separate credentials. This should be a standard feature.1
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Dropping by to say that I too am in need of this functionality - was pretty surprised to find that it wasn't already a thing, considering all the other great features Simplifi has...1
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Seriously disappointed in this missing functionality. I am currently in day one of the trial and was shocked that the app doesn't have the ability to have a second user. I like the rest of the app, but only one login is going to be a major pain. It is also telling that this thread has been up for over 2 years with no action by Simplifi.1
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Same here and the ad video suggests it’s possible0
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It looks like this request/suggestion isn't going anywhere. Which is frustrating. I just switched from trial period to subscription and I'm not sure if we're going to stick with Simplifi if major functionality issues do not get addressed in a timely manner. It's one thing when it's a free app like Mint, but with a subscription-based service there is a higher standard of user experience.
Even if creating authorized users and multiple sets of credentials linked to one central account is too daunting to figure out in 2 years (and 22 days) since this request was opened, there are other options that could be a stop-gap measure in the meantime. For instance, some users suggested allowing Simplifi users to "share" a view-only look at some of the features, like the current month's spending plan or a report. It could be set up so that anyone with the link can view that read-only version of that particular page for a limited amount of time. To increase security, it could even be set up so that the viewer needs the link and a one-time passcode given to them by the other user to even open the page or when the viewer clicks the link to the view-only page, the authorized user would get a notification asking them to confirm the viewer's access.
This proposed temporary solution isn't the same as creating a family or joint account with multiple authorized users, but it would at least create a portion of the functionality we're asking for.1 -
It is disappointing that this is taking so long. But it is MUCH NEEDED! Please move this to the front of the development queue!!4
