Budgeted vs. Actual Report for the Spending Plan [edited] (1 Merged Vote)

chiefplt

Hello, 

Is it possible to view a budget vs actual report based on your spending plan? I can't seem to find that in the reports. It'd be nice to see it for different time periods -- current month, YTD, etc. Is that functionality available? If not, does anyone know if it is in the roadmap to be included later? 

Thanks.

Coach Natalie

Hello @chiefplt,

Thank you for posting this to the Community!

I'm not aware of any plans to add a budgeted vs. actual report in Simplifi, nor am I finding an existing Idea post requesting one, so I have gone ahead and turned this into an Idea post so that other Users can add their votes. Please be sure to add your vote as well!
 
-Coach Natalie

Julie Di Bari

I would love to have such a report so I can see how my spending compared to my planned budget and know if I'm about to go over budget or already blew it.

jmb1134209

YES- this should be very simple!

begoodman

This would be very useful for fine-tuning my budgeting process. It would also assist with identifying frivolous spending and other saving opportunities. The Projected Cash flow is interesting, but seeing an actual time-based (say, first of the month) snapshot will provide insight into how to make the appropriate adjustments to my budget or spending habits.

jsy42

I would like a report, similar to the income and spending reports, for the spending plan. I want to be able to look at my spending plan backward and forward with different frequencies (last/this year, month, next etc.), perspectives (income, bills, subscriptions, savings), and views (by category, tags, etc.) to get a holistic view of my past and current financial plans.

The current monthly spending plan feature is a nice start, but annual planning must still be done offline in spreadsheets. This is a critical capability to enable users to stay in Simplify for personal financial planning and management.

RichD

Now that you can put a spending plan out to the future, it would be good to have a report that shows you your spending plan at 1 month, 3 month, 6 month, etc so you can see what you are going to spend over that period.

ffurja

I would like to see this in a grid or spreadsheet type view for future months.  This is basic budget 101.

lmallen1129

For sure would be interested in this. I had it in the desktop version (and I know this isn't the same intention) but I used it monthly and annually with my financial planners to review and make adjustments. Strong request.

Heros K2

All these votes should be merged into the Annual Spending Plan request (and/or vice versa).  While there is definitely more development work required to add in functionality to see different time views, agree that after creating the standard annualized view, flexibility to see views for other time period would be a plus.

bbgirl

I'd like to run reports to view my spending plan for the full year and for 3-6 month time periods as well. 

drlegran

Hi Simplifi Team and Community —

I would like to request the ability to visualize projected Spending Plan income, bills, subscriptions, planned spending, and savings within the Reports tab. With the newly added capability of the 12-month outlook under Spending Plan, it would be helpful to see that projection summarized under Reporting. 

For example, it would be helpful to get a 12-month outlook on Spending, Income, Net Income, etc., for planning purposes and to view projected annual income, expenses, and cash flow.


Please let me know if I can provide additional information for this idea to be considered.

jtoth55

Almost three years later and still no progress on this… I'm late to the game, just considering switching over from Mint, which is dying soon. What's the point of having a Spending Plan (budget) view if you can't compare it to your actual spending? Only limiting it to show what you plan on spending lets you live in a dream world, but for those of us who actually want to know how we're doing in sticking to our plan, and make adjustments when we're consistently over or under in certain categories, this is a complete show stopper.

JagrFan

The ability to report on how one is performing against the Spending Plan for a specified period of time is really important. Currently, all we can see is if we did ok with the income/expenses spending plan in a one-month period of time. We have no ability to run a report that shows how we performed against our plan for the last 6 months or 12 months as an example. This would be a REALLY helpful feature.

Ed Rizzolo

A Spending Plan report tab in the Reports section with the following views:

• For past months, compare planned spending to actual spending based on a selected period. This would be very similar to the Net Income Report, but would be comparing planned income/spending to actual income/spending. Could select month ranges, custom dates, or even a year as can do with the Net Income report.
• Have a view for future months, showing planned income v. planned spending. Could see by month or in total for the year.

UrsulaA

It is better to start with more than one vote as it increases the chance of consideration. Here is the existing idea that matches yours, vote for it.

[removed link to merged thread]

ainchns

Definitely a needed feature, I am currently using the reports feature to look at actual spending and then trying to remember what I used to have as an annual budget number from Mint.

DavidB

I honestly can't think of a feature that would be more important to me than a Budget vs Actual report. The Spending Plan does nothing for me, I already know I have enough money to cover the items, I just want to know if I'm over budget or under budget and if so, by how much.

I am doing this in a spreadsheet now and it's a huge pain, I have to export out all of Simplifi's transactions, build a pivot table by Category & Subgategory, etc. I am surprised this is not built into Simplifi.

Wahoo

I understand that Simplify does not calculate year to date planned expenses/budget vs actual expenses, by category, only monthly. I previously used this feature in Quicken and Mint, and most people look at a yearly budget. Can you add this?

Thanks.

Read

i concur - a budget to actual report would be extremely helpful. I assumed this type of report would be included when i signed up.

How does Quicken keep track of these types of requests - do they survey their customers?

Geneojim

I do not understand why the app has a spending plan but no report of the plan vs. actual. This is much needed

Luisito277

This is very important in order to track your progress over time and learn your spending habits.

ericksonjb

I wholeheartedly agree. For those of us not fully immersed in Simplifi's approach to budgeting (the spending plan), it would be helpful to add a simple budget vs actual report to the Reports tab. Nothing wildly complex or visual. Just a list of top-level categories with the actual amount, the budgeted amount, and the difference. If you want to go really wild, add in percent over/under and a few graphs. Just like other reports, let us adjust the date range.

Really simple. Incredibly useful for more traditional budgeters. Basically, this is a nod to the many, many former Mint customers who are now in your user base.

dlineham

I am new to Simplifi. . . just installed it and finding out how it works. I have to say I am incredibly disappointed the above mentioned budget report is not included. I was a loyal Quicken user for many, many years, going back to the '80s. I am now retired and have no use for most of the features Quicken has, but I do want to keep track of my budget, and not having this feature makes it much more difficult. I was intending, at this point, to start using Mint, but as it is no longer available, Simplifi looked like it might offer a solution; however with the missing budget vs actual report, I may have to keep looking for a viable solution. I find it unbelievable that this has been going on for over 3 years, on this thread alone, with many customers looking for the same thing, and the problem still has not been addressed.

bmacd615

Simplifi needs to simplify. I am wildly in favor of any simplified budgeting/spending tool.

putty808s

I created a watchlist as a work around to view spending totals, but this is a hack and not a very good one since watchlists are not historic. Please allow history on watchlists AND create a view on the Spending Plan panel to show Planned Spending Total aka Current Spending Total. Should be pretty simple given these numbers are available when mousing over the (i)