Is there any way to attach a split to a recurring bill

DannyB

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this question but thought I'd though it out there for comment if anyone is interested.

I haven't used the Split option much since I've been using Simplifi. However, I am now enrolled in Medicare Part B and Part B has a monthly premium (I've been enrolled in Part A since I turned 65 but didn't need to enroll in Part B because of wife's health care benefits form her employer). I have the Part B premium deducted from my Social Security payment. As a reult I would like to create a split in the Social Security to account for this premium and I would like to create a recurring bill in my spending plan to account for this monthly payment. But, there doesn't seem to be a way to connect the split with a recurring bill though the actual Social Security payment connects to a recurring income entry.

1. Does anyone know of a way to attach the split to a recurring bill? My suspicion is that it can't be done as Simplifi is currently configured.
2. How do others handle the Part B premium in Simplfi if deducted from SSA payment? (My wife pays her's quarterly until she elects to start receiving her Social Security benefit.)

Since I'm not actually receiving a bill for this premium and the payment is "hidden" as a deduction from my Social Security income I could just ignore it I suppose, but I'd sure like to track it.

In a couple of days, if I don't hear of any current way to accomplish this, and if there isn't already such a feature request, I'll create feature request post to put recurring functionality into splits on the "to do" list for further development of Simplifi. I beleive there are already some feature requests for other types of split functionality.

ajbopp

I've never found a good solution to this issue. I would like to accomplish a similar thing with groceries, and track food items separately from non-food items so I can see how it changes over time. At the moment the best I can do is create a single Grocery recurring bill, and then as each transaction is registered manually go in and split the transaction the way I want to see it. Works well enough for looking at historical data, but doesn't allow me to look forward with the fine grained accuracy I'd like.

The alternative I can think of is to create two recurring bills, but then I'd end up having to do the same manual fiddling each week to merge them back together into one transaction, which seems more difficult and error-prone than the other way.

This idea post may be what you're looking for.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1542/link-part-of-a-split-transaction-to-a-recurring-bill-edited-1-merged-vote

DannyB

Thanks @ajbopp

What I have done:

1. Created a a new sub category under "Health & Wellness" that I named "Medicare Part B"
2. Set up a Planned Spending category that I named "Medicare Part B0 with an assigned monthly amount equal to the Part B premium
3. Reassigned the split to the new category.
4. The split amount moved from Other Spending to the new Planned Spending category.

This gets the premium into my Spending Plan monthly through the recurring Planned Spending category but as you point out I will need to add the split manually each month when I receive my Social Security income.

Another feature request would be to ability to memorize split transactions or have a "paycheck" feature as Quicken does.

P.S. Upvoted @ccrawford 's feature request 😎

ajbopp

A related feature request would be the ability to hide a split transaction from the spending plan and/or reports, which would be useful when Amazon lumps several different purchases into one invoice, but one of those purchases actually comes out of a savings goal.

ajbopp

Here's the idea post for the above comment.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2099/ability-to-ignore-part-of-a-split-transaction-edited-3-merged-votes