For the manual users

Scotty Mac

I'd like to start out by a quick explanation.  I've used Quicken Desktop for years and we've gotten along pretty well.  I do everything manually.  I choose not to have Quicken (and now Simplify) "automatically" do anything for me including tying to bank accounts or bills to pay.  I enjoy using Simplify simply as a "check register" so that my spouse can also see the daily balance moving forward without having to log on to the Quicken program.  I like Simplify enough to actually drop Quicken.

With that being said, there are a few features (again noting that I (and I'm sure others) like to enter everything manually) that would be worth considering:

1. Ability in Settings (or elsewhere) to set the default of "Status" of a transaction to Pending instead of Cleared.  In order to keep everything straight, once you set the transaction to cleared (again already done by default), you must delete the transaction and re-add it as a Pending as you cannot change the status from Cleared.  It's not clear why you would want to set a transaction to Cleared immediately if the bank hasn't even cleared it yet.

2.  It would be nice to be able to balance the account meaning, as in Quicken, you can go through and grab your cleared balance from your bank and mark pending transactions as cleared.  Granted, it's possible to do this by taking your cleared balance, marking transactions and then adding up the Pending to make sure everything jives.  The problem is some of us are paid only once per month.  This means that most bills get paid at one time which leads to A LOT of pending transactions that even the bank doesn't see yet as posting times for different bills/utilities, etc. take different times.  Adding up all of those Pending transactions on a calculator takes time that could be calculated through the software.

3.  Upcoming / Reminders - While I appreciate the ability to link a Reminder to an existing transaction, it would be very helpful to simply enter the Upcoming/Reminder as a transaction.  We are having to double the work by first entering the transaction and then going back to Upcoming and then linking it to that transaction.

Thanks for hearing the customer,
Scott

RobWilk

I'm another user, and I agree with this.  However, I think you'll have to submit each idea as an idea  (voting) post (if they don't already exist).  Otherwise, typically, only 'bugs' get addressed without voting it seems.

I also manually enter pretty much every transaction, but i do link to banks (when available) so that pending transactions automatically switch to cleared.

Scotty Mac

Thank you, Robert.  If they want me to list them separately, I'll be glad to.

Scotty Mac

I will post these separate in the Feature Requests as individual items

Coach Natalie

Hello @Scotty Mac,

Thanks for sharing your suggestions with the Community!

I saw your new Idea posts and have merged a couple of them with existing requests for the same ability. Additionally, you may be interested in adding your vote to another Idea post requesting the ability to mark a 'Cleared' transaction as 'Pending'.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2772/ability-to-mark-a-cleared-transaction-as-pending-edited/p1?new=1

-Coach Natalie

DannyB

Hi @Scotty Mac have you looked into any of the checkbook apps that are available?  Something that is designed for manual entry checkbook style with a register you can enter your data into and that allows you to do your own reconciliation?  

Scotty Mac

@DannyB Yes sir and I considered them.  I've been with Quicken for years now, however, and hoped to stick with them.  I like the idea of Simplify, but have no interest in connecting my finances with the server.  I'm not paranoid but I just like to do things manually, I guess.  I have no issues "making it work" in the way I want but certainly, there's a better way if it improves the software.

It's my contention that Quicken brings products to market that we can all use and, to me, it just makes sense to combine these requests into one product instead of having x number products based on what you're doing.  If you don't use it, turn it off in Settings.  If you do, it's there for you.  Have multiple products that, essentially, do the same thing is like going to a restaurant that has a 5 page menu of entries.  Too many choices is not a good thing. 

DannyB

@Scotty Mac, got it.  Never been a fan of multi-tools.  They have a use, but not something I want to use often.