Ability to add Planned Spending Items to our Projected Cash Flow [edited] (4 Merged Votes)

EL1234

I've thought about that but since I like to update the statement amounts, going with $1 makes it easy to see which reminders still need to be updated. I do see an advantage though the the averages method since you can "sort of" project for further out than just one month. It would probably work better for someone who just has one or two credit cards (I have a few and so each card's monthly average could vary a lot).

Wedo778

Ahh, yea see I'm the opposite and want to do as little manual updating as possible. I'll leave the current amount alone until such time as the idea to pull statement due balances from the banks get implemented.

And yes on an individual card basis my averages can be wildly off because i spent more on card A instead of card B this month. But the sum total is still relatively accurate for a 3-6 month projection. The only thing that trips it up is unplanned major purchases like a new furnace or roof.

EL1234

Got it! For me, the few minutes a month that I spend updating those reminders is well worth it to help me keep stay on top of my upcoming cash flow for my checking account (and transfer funds in and out of savings as needed). I do see the benefits of just taking an average, though, if only there was a way to have the benefits of both ways :).

Chas63

It's been over three years. Please add the option to include planned spending in the cash flow projection?

Abi Pop

Commenting to keep this open. The cash flow is otherwise useless to me.

jflores11

This has been in review for nearly 3 years. Any updates??

bad_money_man

Quicken you may as well delete "Cash Flow" from your app because without it accounting for Spending Plans it's absolutely worthless and wrong. [Removed - Disruptive]

juli7

This request has 194 upvotes and has been in review for 3 years!!!

jflores11

The cash flow is not accurate without the planned spending.

RobWilk

It is for me. IT deducts specific known expenses at specific dates.

"Planned spending" has no dates, is it before the next paycheck? After it? When would it apply and when would it be "accurate"?

Edit: I was a non-vote, now I'm a NO-vote.

jflores11

Rob, someone with $2500 in planned spending on monthly basis will always have a 2500 discrepancy in their cash balance forecast. this is just a fact. There are at least 4 other finance software programs that I'm aware of that incorporate a cash balance forecast similar to simplifi that include budgeted spending… ALL of it, not just specific expenses. Budget for groceries is still spending, correct? It still affects your cash balance. Shouldn't it be incorporated?

To answer your question, it is incorporated in the other programs in a couple ways. One, as a one time expense at a date of your discretion. Another takes the monthly spend and divides it to a daily value and deducts it that manner. As a monthly grocery budget would likely not come out one given day. There are a few ways to do it. The folks on here supporting this are just asking for SOMETHING. And it could certainly be something you can have turned off if you don't want it to be incorporated, as in your case. Adding in a note about voting "against" it now is frankly petty, as this software should be for everyone, and clearly many find the feature useful. You not finding it useful is your own business.

Last point, your no vote won't matter. This has been sitting at "in review" for 3 years. And with no roadmap available for us (another feature that has been "in review" or otherwise, for years), we can't see the future of this software, making it a risky purchase. Other software I'm testing is more actively developed at this point and already includes true cash balance forecasting. I'm finishing out my annual subscription hoping for some change in this, but not expecting to see it.

DryHeat

I am curious about how this would work. Here's my main question:

My Planned Spending items use funds from different accounts (checking, various credit cards). On which account would the planned spending show up in the Projected Cash Flow? Would I have to designate the source for each item of planned spending?

jflores11

Each account has its own balance forecast. The appropriate way to implement this is as you said, add a drop down menu "source" for each spending item as its added. So the system knows where the planned spending item should be accounted for.

DryHeat

@jflores11

When you refer to designating a "source" for each "spending item," I understand that to mean that each Expense added under Planned Spending (see image below) should be linked to a particular Account and not just to a category or categories. Let me know if that is not correct.

I use Planned Spending for fairly general categories of spending. Each specific transaction that falls into a Planned Spending Expense bucket may be paid out of a different account.

Using "Auto Expense" as a hypothetical example… auto insurance is paid directly out of my bank account while fuel usually goes on my Costco card and car washes or other service goes on a different card.

If I'm understanding correctly, I would need to separate Planned Spending amounts and create different Expense buckets according to my prediction of which payment method I will be using for that portion of the expense. I'm not sure that's workable for me.

jflores11

@DryHeat

This is a fair point. I guess for the purposes of a software meant to support as many different financial scenarios as possible, its not as simple as doing a drop down menu. However, to make the software "simple" as Quicken's vision is for this software, having the planned spending categories be more straightforward with how they are assigned might be the only way to keep things streamlined. So keeping a single source per category. Starts getting too complex if they dive deeper in that.

RobWilk

It comes down to this for me: a budget is different than a cash flow forecast. I can put in planned spending that i plan to spend $200 on gas this month, just to hold that money aside for the budget. I might not spend $200, i might spend less, i might spend more, budgetting is just to get an idea: is my spending and savings goals in reality reachable, or do i need to adjust it. That has nothing to do with how cash will actually flow, though. If I knew I was going to spend exactly $200 on gas, and wanted to hold it aside starting on a particular date, right now i could create a recurring (even one-time) transaction that deducts that money from the cash flow starting on that date, and if i don't match it to a transaction, I believe the date on that moves forward on the cash flow chart such that it keeps deducting that amount until it is matched. Budgets and cash flows are different beasts.

DryHeat

@jflores11 "So keeping a single source per category."

I can see how that might work for people who have a more granular approach to Planned Spending. I tend toward just a few fairly large Planned Spending buckets myself, each concerning itself with a general area of spending that I have some control over. So it would be hard for me.

My view on this is probably colored by the fact that, like @RobWilk, I treat the Spending Plan more like a "spending control mechanism" to help me visualize whether I am slowly going up or going under in the long run — and to temper my behavior if going under is winning out. Conversely, I treat Cash Flow more like a "current resource monitor" to help me make sure that I have the needed funds on hand in the near term.

Those two separate viewpoints make me less interested in trying to make the two parts work together. But there are scores of comments in this community showing that many people see it the way you do.

dmherm

I like the product better than the Quicken desktop product which I stopped using.

I use Simplifi for cashflow projection only.

I need planned spending per category per month - actuals in my cashflow projection.

For example: planned groceries (the average I input to planned spending) less the actuals and pending for the month in that category. Can't you give me a toggle to show planned remaining balance in an account cashflow? Just one account would help a lot since I charge most of my groceries using one credit card.

rabbilawyer

Agreed that the option to include planned spending in the cash flow projection would be extremely useful.

gorbin_time

It would be extremely helpful to be able to add a spending estimate for an entire category (like groceries) to the Cash Flow tool. In the middle of the month, it would automatically create an expenditure for the projected remaining spending for that category, a value which is already generated in the Watchlist widgets, and project out the future months using (perhaps) the YTD monthly average.

For context: right now, I track categories like Groceries by creating a bogus series with a bogus (but hopefully plausible) value. I have to manually keep it up to date and ignore the upcoming expense at the end of the month, which feels like an unnecessary workaround.

kinz

Since business expenses don't show up in spending plan it would be nice if we could access planned spend in the cash flow tool to see how it impacts cash flow without needing to manually create reminders. A toggle for showing planned spend would be nice.

Dan83

I use Simplify to manage my budget in retirement. It would be really helpful if the cashflow feature had the option to include planned spending from my budget. Today it only reflects future bills which is only half the picture.

In addition, it would be helpful if I could save what I want to see in the cashflow view instead of having to uncheck property, investments, etc. each time.

Finally, add the ability to model changes and impact to future cashflow. Lets say I plan to sell one of my vehicles which means my insurance should go down. Let me model that into a cashflow scenario.

Today I run these models in Excel after I manually enter my spending plan which would be easier if I could export the spending plan.

TwelveSilverPennies

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/66622#Comment_66622

Yes to all of this for sure! The cash flow feature has so much potential to be an incredibly powerful tool for budgeting, but as it stands now, it's pretty useless.

DryHeat

@Dan83 @TwelveSilverPennies

A lot of people support this idea. I've got a question about how it would work.

As Cash Flow works now, future expenses (bills) are charged against particular accounts. Is there a way for Planned Spending buckets to do that? Would it require that I declare ahead of time which account certain Planned Spending would come out of? Or would there be some other way for them to be represented?

jflo11

@DryHeat I think that is the idea. You create your planned spending, or "budgets" and select which account they should come out of. I've seen people ask "what if that spending will come out of multiple accounts?" then you create multiple budgets. I currently have a work around where I create the spending as manual recurring transactions on my cash flow, and I add a "0 - " in front of each name so they appear at the top of my recurring list, so I know its not part of my regular bills. In this example, every Friday I have 300 dollars ear marked for groceries. On Friday, I just delete it and go get my groceries as I normally would. That way it "holds" the money on the cash flow so I can get a better estimate over time. Its not pretty, but it works for now. Hoping this idea finally gets implemented, as its been sitting for years.

DryHeat

@jflo11

(I assume that by "budgets" you mean the expense series that we define under Spending Plan:Planned Spend.)

I'm not sure how well designating future expenses by account would work for me. As I look back at the expenses that fell into each expense series (or "bucket") I see that they come out of multiple accounts in a fairly unpredictable way.

I would end up with a lot more expense series (at least 2x more), and things still wouldn't necessarily match up. I suppose I could monitor the spending during the month and make corrections, but that seems unnecessarily complicated. I can see how this could work in relation to overall cash flow, but not on an account-specific basis.

dmherm

I don't use planned spending.
I use reminders (most recurring).

All of my income is deposited or produced in my brokerage account where I get money market rates without the local bank term restrictions.

Cashflow projections based upon reminders and not budgets is why I use simplifi.

My expense categories are grouped under two main branches - cash and credit. I charge everything I can without incurring fees (the billing cycle ends on the 1st). And I pay the statement balance monthly. IE one due date for most of my monthly transactions.

I have a "WAG" monthly credit card payment reminder set to my average monthly credit expenses. I determine the "WAG" by reviewing actuals (reporting).

I also have a recurring monthly credit card payment reminder set to $0 (it autopays from my local bank to the credit card bank late in the month after I set the current month reminder to the last statement balance). Then I review the current month cashflow.

Then I push money from my brokerage account to my local bank to cover the last month credit card bill and pay the current month planned cash transactions. IE, ensure the current month cashflow is positive.

What is useless to me is a system where cashflow is derived from budget categories. I don't want to see a set of positive and negative category balances and calculate cashflow from that.

It is only actuals and the projected month/year that matter to me.

DryHeat

@dmherm

What is useless to me is a system where cashflow is derived from budget categories.

I think this highlights the fact that people have different financial management needs depending on their preferences and circumstances.

• My own use focuses on spending behavior, which I want to understand and moderate with an eye toward maximizing long term outcomes. I seldom look at the cash flow projections.
• Others here have written about how their primary focus is on managing cash flow in the more immediate future.

It seems to me that Simplifi, and in particular the Spending Plan, is better designed for my approach … which is probably why I like the program.

dmherm

@DryHeat I agree with your statements.

I made my comments so that the developers would not break the functionality I depend upon. 8>)

SRC54

I enter this conversation with some fear and trepidation. LOL. It really comes down to what kind of app you want to have. I too like the app the way it is, but with that said, if they can find a way to accommodate others without "breaking" the app, that is fine with me.

To me, Planned Spending is not real; it's just an arbitrary limit I set for myself. Often I return hundreds of dollars at the end of the month. How much will I spend on gasoline? Depends on the price (higher now) and how many trips I make. Groceries? I am dieting and saving lots of money. Beverages? Ditto.

Now Bills are real. The Power Bill comes due and I HAVE TO pay it or no electricity. When the insurance is due, I pay it or I don't have insurance. So I want the bills on the Cash Flow but Planned Spending is up to me and it isn't real until I pull out the debit card.

I do look at the Cash flow for particular accounts, especially my slush fund small checking as I can see when I need to transfer some money into it. Although frankly, I just do it when I start to get close to $500.

The Cash Flow thingy in Bills & Income is totally useless to me. All those lines make me dizzy. I once mentioned on here somewhere that it might be kinda useful if I could just set it for my Spending accounts: Checking & Cash. But the I would want just one line (Please!).

And when I set up recurring and planned spending, I don't know what account I will use. Depends. I set up my automatic mobile phone payment on one account but often pay it on the other. Makes no difference, when it comes in, Simplifi matches it. The same thing is true of groceries. Sometimes I pay cash; sometimes my main checking account; sometimes my small account. I like that flexibility, so for me again, one cash flow line for spending accounts would work better.

Ideally in Bills & Income, they would allow users to select the accounts for which they want to see the cash flow, one overall line or several and if they want to include Planned Spending. But again I don't quite see the need.