Software should make life easier!

Pmrussell892

Software should make life easier. Not more difficult. When I am having to constantly chase and report bugs, and chase aftrr my bills and account balance daily to make sure everything is correct, then said software becomes a burden and has failed its objective. 

Coach Natalie

Hello @Pmrussell892,

Thank you for sharing your feedback with the Community, although I'm sorry to hear of the troubles you've experienced with Simplifi. 

We definitely want Simplifi to make life easier for you, and we'd be happy to help in any way we can. If you'd like to post each issue you're experiencing to the appropriate areas of the Community, we'll do our absolute best to assist.

Otherwise, we hope things start working better for you, and we are always here to help!

-Coach Natalie

Pmrussell892

That is the thing though. The issues I am seeing I should not be paying you to beta test for. This should be worked out by your internal testers. I am tired of having to explain the bugs to you. 

Flopbot

@Pmrussell892,

Sorry to hear about you're experience with Simplifi.  I looked over your four prior posts - one was merged - and it looks like you're problems so far are with 'Bills & Cash Flow Missing' and 'Stuff Not Syncing between the Mobile App and the Web App'.  I'm not sure I'd be much help with either of these since they're more bug-ish.  However, what is your next biggest frustration; one that's more of a set-up type issue or a  how-to-use Simplifi type thing and not a bug or coding thing.  Maybe I could help with that?

I understand that everyone's approach toward financial software is different just like everyone's financial situation.  However, I've gotta say that - as a former Quicken Desktop user - my time spent simply keeping a database happy has dropped precipitously after making the switch to Simplifi...literally by 3-6 hours per week!  While Simplifi certainly isn't perfect, as I've learned more about it, I've gotten it to a point where stuff just generally seems to work - except for the various bugs that Simplifi typically works through decently quickly, most of the time.

After trying multiple personal financial software solutions (~10) and business accounting software solutions (~12), I'm somewhat convinced that with any financial software/app, you have to approach it from the perspective of a Database Administrator looking for problems.  For me, Simplifi is no different, just maybe less so.

For a backstory about my thoughts on Simplifi (click here).  It's important to mention, I'm still firmly planted in the still learning Simplifi camp.

Pmrussell892

1. Sometimes when editing the amount of a "Planned Spending" item, and clicking update the change does not take place. 

2. Sometimes when trying to change the date of a planned spending item, and clicking update, the change fails to take place. 

3. Trying to "mark account as closed" from within the Settings > Accounts menu gives an error. But at-least for that one an error messages pops-up allowing me to send a screenshot and report the issue as it happened. seems accounts cannot be closed. 

4. Various other items that I do not remember off top of my head. But something caused me to lose transactions yesterday, but I finally got all my numbers matching again.

papermuffins

Pmrussell892 said:

1. Sometimes when editing the amount of a "Planned Spending" item, and clicking update the change does not take place. 

2. Sometimes when trying to change the date of a planned spending item, and clicking update, the change fails to take place. 

I've noticed with Simplifi, ESPECIALLY if I'm doing a significant amount of changes quickly and/or with multiple tabs open there can be a slow GET/POST period in which my changes take a few seconds to sync to what the browser expects. Sometimes I can actually make a change, sit and wait, and watch the line item update appropriately. 

So if you're using multiple tabs with Simplifi (like I do) or are rapidly doing some actions (again like I do) you may want to give it a bit.

I also suspect that some API calls aren't as performant as others, for example updating Series' and changing the account the transactions should come from. There's likely a multitude of changes that simple UI action has to take, but the UI result is a bit slow. Simplifi could make the assumption in the UI that the change was made rather than waiting for a state change by the API, but if it fails it needs to route you back to that modal and explain the problem, or attempt a retry; not always the friendliest - especially if the user closes tab.

At any rate, I've also ran into my share of quirks with Simplifi but overall after using if for ~year it's been a game changer in my life. I'd happily take the quirks over the alternative (financial chaos!)

Hope things get easier for you amigo.

Coach Natalie

Hello @Pmrussell892,

Thanks for providing some examples!

@papermuffins provided some great feedback as far as changes not being saved right away, however, if you're still experiencing an issue with Planned Spending items, I'd suggest creating a Bug Report post here in the Community to outline the exact issue that's occurring with specific examples and the steps to reproduce the behavior so we can take a closer look. 

https://community.simplifimoney.com/categories/bug-reports

In regards to being unable to close an account in Simplifi, is the issue occurring with a manual account(s)? If so, sadly this is a known issue that our Product Team is working hard to resolve. In the meantime, we have a Community Alert that can be followed for updates. 

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/3839/ongoing-9-21-22-unable-to-close-a-manual-investment-account#latest

-Coach Natalie