Ability to auto-backup and restore data (edited)

asubbaiyanprof

@Coach Natalie  opening an idea post to create an auto-backup feature and option to restore it as well; today, the payee rule overwrote multiple years worth of payee information for reasons unknown to me, and this would be helpful to restore to the previous state

DannyB

I am going to do some "remodeling" of my Savings Goals that will entail deleting some exiting SGs and creating some new SGs. This "remodel" is due to some rethinking and rearranging of my budget as a result of working with Simplifi this since January 2022. 

I was just on my Savings Goal page and hovering over "delete" for one of my SGs and thought to myself how it would be best to backup my existing Simplifi data base first but I doubted that that was possible in the current version.  Sure enough I did a search of the Support page... nothing about backups there.  Signed into Chat to ask on of support staff.  Chatted with Coach Aura and she confirmed there is not backup feature currently for Simplifi. Searched this forum and found this Feature Request and added my vote.

The ability to maintain an automatic and routinely updated backup of our dB would be nice.  I'm guessing Simplifi maintains a backup of the whole data base that is kept up to date, or at least I hope Simplifi does! 

@Coach Natalie I don't see a "promote" button for the above initial post.  If I click on the promote button in my post how will that affect this original feature request post?

Coach Natalie

Great question, @DannyB!

Using the "Promote" option on a comment doesn't impact the post; this option is for the comment specifically and will give the person who made the comment 5 points. More details on this can be found here. Just adding a comment to this Idea post, however, will bump it to the top of Recent Discussions, which should give it more visibility.

-Coach Natalie

TommyMac

I agree, there should be a way to do a local backup of our data. 

jeffbobpdx

Please make this available ASAP.  It's a pain in the butt to go through the entire system, update the Payee rules, Bill rules, Calendar rules, etc., etc. and then lose it all because of something stupid.

jeffbobpdx

There needs to be a way to backup your data on a regular basis and manually.  I'm not talking about doing just an export of the transactions; we need to be able to backup the entire configuration like the Renaming Rules, Reminders, Calendar, Spending Plan, etc.  This is a huge thing that's missing.

RobWilk

I presume that as a cloud service, they are running regular backups.

Flopbot

Maybe an assurance from @Coach Natalie would be helpful here.  Even if they do, I’d still appreciate a way to back it up locally.

Coach Natalie

Hello All,

Great question!

It is my understanding that Simplifi does not back up data to the point of being able to restore it. Even our Product Team is unable to restore data for users from our end. Once a change is made, that change gets synced to the cloud, and that is the data that is now stored on the cloud; there is no backup point for prior data. 

I hope this helps!

-Coach Natalie

Flopbot

Make my vote +2 then. 

meoge

We just accidently changed all categories for a certain payee to "gifts" by accident. I had to manually go through and fix all the entries. Thankfully we are somewhat new to Simplify (June 2022) so our data only goes back to March. I now realize this is a major shortcoming. With Quicken, it backed up our database and kept the last 10 copies. We then kept those around for 2 months. It saved me so much work on more than one occasion. If we made this same mistake 1 year from now I would have to leave the bad data. There really should be some way to restore to a snapshot or backup of some kind.

ajbopp

I'd like to request the ability to create a snapshot of my Simplfi configuration that I can use to undo some changes that didn't have the expected result. For instance, I did something that caused a dozen savings goals to get propagated into the future, even though I thought I had deleted them all several months ago. Still not sure what I did, but it would have been nice to have some sort of undo function. I still cuddle with how I have this set up quite often, and unexpected results would be nice be able to erase.

Coach Natalie

Hello @ajbopp,

Thanks for posting your request to the Community!

We have a couple of existing requests surrounding the ability you're requesting for you to take a look at:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2289/undo-option

[removed link to merged thread]

Does either of these requests meet your needs? If so, I can merge your request and vote count with the most applicable existing request. 🙂

-Coach Natalie

ajbopp

@Coach Natalie Yes, this is exactly what I had in mind.

ps56k

yeah - I think a checkpoint backup and user restore would be a helpful safeguard -

Safeguard against Quicken Simplifi really messing up our data files … and also the classic user error of modifying something and messing up all their data

AwesomeSalamander

+1 I agree.

Mach1Pony

You can spend many weeks getting all your info just right and lose it with one small mistake. We don't need to create backups, but snapshots. We need the ability to revert a snapshot to a point in time. How hard can that be?

IKnowURider

100% agree… I've been there with one slip up changing hundreds of transactions with no way to revert. If there is an existing "Undo" function that pops up after a rule change (albeit briefly in a less than prominent location), seems at a minimum it seems a short programming hop to ensure the undo functionality be altered to last longer and appear front and center. This thread started almost 3 years ago… is anyone listening?

But the bigger point of being able to create a backup file/restore point would be a massive help. Years ago I had Quicken for the desktop, and I could create a daily backup file automatically. I don't need or want the full version. I like the simplicity and cleanliness of Simplifi. But, I'd like to make a substantial change to the categories, and any single change I make has permanent and irrevocable consequences and next to no margin for error.