Treat recurring transfers from a checking account to a credit card as a bill in the Spending Plan

Klaxwave

Currently, Simplifi counts recurring transfers from a checking account to a credit account (that is, autopaying a balance) as zero in the Spending Plan: the amount subtracted from the checking account is equal to the amount added in the credit account. I understand that, technically, available credit can be spent the same as regular money, so paying a credit card balance is functionally equivalent to moving money from one account to another and thus not really a “bill” in the sense of paying, for example, a utility company and losing that money forever.

However, I don't see credit in the same way as actual money that I have: I use credit for the purpose of building my credit score, which I will someday perhaps rely on when I need to borrow more money than I actually have. My credit card balances are essentially tithes that I am paying from my actual money in my checking account to satisfy the ritual necessary to sate the slavering hunger of the dark actuarial gods that are credit companies, such that they will lend me their mystical and horrible aid in time of need and alchemize money for me to temporarily use.

As such, it would be nice if those credit card payments are recognized as the bills that they are and subtracted accordingly from my monthly income in the Spending Plan. What's odd is that this is basically already the case in the Cash Flow chart: my autopays that I've set as recurring payments show up on the line and dent them accordingly. The same should be recognized on the Spending Plan so I can know how much money I actually will have available and not how much money and "mystical horrible aid that looks like money" I will have available.

ajbopp

Hi @Klaxwave

I believe that functionally the you're asking for would have serious negative effects on you spending plan. It would be tracking everything you've paid for with the CC twice, once in the CC account and once in the checking account. That is, that $103.65 spent on groceries would end up being counted as $207.20 in your overall spending plan.

I believe you could track it the way you want by selecting a Category of “Credit Card Payment” for your recurring payment, rather than the CC account itself. If you do this, you will want to stop tracking the CC entirely in Simplifi or the effect on your broad spending plan will again be doubled.

DannyB

Wow, @Klaxwave that is quite the riff on CRAs! Like @ajbopp says including CC payments in the spending plan would do what he points out if you pay off your balance each billing cycle. If you are paying off a CC balance over time I think you would need to set that CC as a debt account and then it would be part of your spending plan.

Klaxwave

I appreciate the help, @ajbopp and @DannyB. The trouble is that I do want to track the CCs as they are, but I have different relationships to each CC, and those relationships can change over time as needed, largely because I'm trying to build credit. I do already have a large purchase on one card that I'm deliberately paying off in installments over the course of a 0% APR promo period, which I've represented in Simplifi as a bill, and any other everyday debit I do with it I pay off immediately and represent in the budget as a checking account transaction. But I also have other transactions that are debit-like in that they will be paid from my checking via autopay each billing cycle, but aren't instantly paid in the way that my main credit card is. I'd like to be able to recognize that these debits are coming, but also acknowledge the literal current state of my credit accounts, which is that they currently have a balance.

ajbopp

Hmmm @Klaxwave

What you're describing sounds like something Simplifi was never intended to be architected for. Let me think out loud for a minute and see if I can find something that might work for you.

If I understand correctly, you have one CC that is giving you the headaches - It carries a large debt that you are paying down each month, but also smaller charges that are paid off immediately. Correct me if I've misunderstood.

I think what I'm hearing is that you want the large debt portion of your balance kind of like a mortgage (or at least how I have my mortgage set up). That is, only one half of the transfer is visible in the spending plan (from Checking to Mortgage) and it's displayed as a bill rather than a transfer.

I wonder if you could solve this by setting up two recurring bills in your spending plan - one for smaller charges to be paid off immediately, which would be set up exactly the way you have it now. Then a second recurring bill just to handle the large debt, which would be set up something like this:

By unchecking the Ignore checkboxes at the bottom, your debt-paydown payments will be reflected in your Savings Plan, but with everything else handled by a separate recurring series, you won't be counting all those transactions twice.

Like I said, I'm just thinking out loud here. Anyone see a problem with this approach?

Coach Natalie

Hello @Klaxwave,

Thanks for posting to the Community!

I went ahead and moved this out of Feature Requests, as I think your request may potentially be covered in a couple of other locations. First, we have an existing Idea post available here requesting the ability to ignore just one side of a Transfer from the Spending Plan. When using a Recurring Linked Transfer like you are (where the Category of the Series is the receiving account), having the ability to ignore just the positive side from the Spending Plan so the expense side counts towards your spending funds should resolve what you're looking for, as they would no longer offset each other.

However, as others have pointed out, if you're tracking the individual charges to the credit card in Simplifi as expenses as they take place, counting the payment would essentially be doubling up on all of those expenses. So, definitely something to consider. We also have an Idea post here requesting the ability to ignore just part of a split transaction that may help with being able to split the credit card payment transaction and ignore the part that's already been tracked in Simplifi as individual expenses, while tracking the remaining “debt paydown” amount as an extra expense. We also have an Idea post here requesting the ability to use splits in Recurring Series'.

Another thing you can try is to track the Recurring Series in question using the Category of “Credit Card Payment” instead of using a Linked Transfer, as @ajbopp mentioned. This will only show the payment side of the Transfer in the Spending Plan instead of having both sides offset each other. For more details on how Credit Card Payments are handled in the Spending Plan, please see our Support Article here. We also have a Support Article available here that goes over using Transfers in Simplifi.

We also have a new “Transfers” bucket coming to the Spending Plan that may cover the flexibility you're looking for, and improve Transfers in the Spending Plan in general. We have an Idea post here that can be followed for updates on that. We also have an Idea post here requesting a debt paydown tool that you may be interested in checking out.

I hope this helps!

-Coach Natalie