Releasing unspent funds after the end of the month

dandy13

We used Mvelopes for years and now we're trying to make the transition to Simplifi. One thing I'm struggling with — if I don't login on the last day of the month to see how our Spending Plan is shaking out, it seems like there's no way to use unspent funds. I was hoping to put them toward a savings goal, for example…but releasing them just adds to the Available Funds for that month. I guess I'm used to Mvelopes, where I could move that money around after the fact.

This month we've spent more than normal, e.g. birthdays, eating out. I can see that we didn't spend everything from last month, but I guess there's no way to allocate those funds now, is there? With Mvelopes, that's how we knew we had enough money for our expenses and savings goals. So right now it's hard to get past the big red negative available for March. My wife is ready to jump ship for another budgeting program, but I'm hoping we can make this work for our money.

I did go through the Spending Plan for March and release available funds that we hadn't spent. I don't think anything will change in the next few days…so that helps a little. Still negative.

What can we do differently? Thanks!

Coach Natalie

Hello @dandy13,

Thank you for posting your inquiry to the Community, and welcome to Simplifi!

Since Simplifi doesn't currently offer rollover abilities, there's really not much that can be done with leftover money from a prior month. If you log in to Simplifi at the end of the month, you can allocate leftover funds to Savings Goals to have those amounts counted for that month, however, attempting to contribute to a Savings Goal to use those leftover funds in the following month will ultimately count those expenses against you in the wrong month and you'd still have a leftover amount in the prior month.

There is a discussion on this topic here that you may find helpful. We also have a feedback post available here where you can leave your feedback for our Product Team regarding rollover abilities in the Spending Plan and how they would benefit you, as well as an Idea post available here where you can vote on this ability.

As far as being in the negative for March goes, one suggestion I have would be to set a custom Income amount in the Spending Plan that includes your calculated income in addition to the leftover amount from last month that you'd like to allocate toward this month. Though not as efficient, it is definitely a viable solution for what you're looking to do. You may find the steps to set a custom Income amount in the Spending Plan outlined here.

You may also be interested in checking out our Support Article on using the Spending Plan here. Other users may come along with additional feedback for you as well, but I hope this helps in the meantime!

-Coach Natalie

altChristopher

@dandy13 - I have used YNAB and Mvelopes. My thoughts…

I loved Mvelopes and I think if Simplifi can nail the Roll Over feature, life will be perfect. I would read the links @Coach Natalie provided there is good information there. I converted a musing in one area into an actual feature request so you can vote on it and posted at the bottom of this.

Right now my workaround is to create Savings Goals for anything I want to treat like a Mvelope (Non-recurring). For Example Phone Bill, Mortgage, etc are all the same amount. I would offer some workarounds but they are a bit tedious…

Topic of always pay off credit cards:
I have a CC Payment Savings Goal that I true up with my CC balances every week so I have enough on hand to pay it.

Topic of uneven spending:
I redid categories to have a Level 1 Category and then a subcategory.
I can create a Savings Goal for Groceries & Eating Outand any money I have left at the end of the month I shove in there to cover overages the next month.

Theory of put every dollar to work:
I make sure I have virtually no available balance, it always allocated to a Saving Goal.

I will tell you if you go to YNAB, the account import functionality is nowhere near as fluid as Simplifi. I always had import errors.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/4693/credit-card-reserves-gap-with-ynab

DannyB

Hi @dandy13 , welcome to Simplifi!

I've been using Simplifi for going on 15 months and your issue is one of the first things that comes up for new users. @Coach Natalie has pointed you to some great resources and conversations.

I will throw one thing into the conversation for now: It will be important to understand, come to terms with, accept and, at some point, embrace the one unique idea that is foundational to the Simplifi Spending Plan - IT IS COMPLETLY AND SOLELY FOCUSED ON THE CURRENT MONTH. Simplifi sees and works with the income and expenses of the current month - period, full stop, end of line.

Some might see this focus as a weakness but I see it is ingenious and I think ignoring or not accepting or not understanding this foundational asspect of the Spending Plan is the source of some confusion, no little frustration and certainly a lot of discussion in this forum.

But in order to begin to effectively use Simplifi this is a necessary adjustment to one's thinking when transitionaing to Simplifi from another budgeting or financial management app.

The support articles and forum links @Coach Natalie included are great places to start and you can keep coming back here with questions and insghts you gleen as you work with what I think is a great money app - for what it is designed for.

dandy13

Thanks all — looks like a lot of great info and I'll try to dig in. The ending of Mvelopes kind of caught me off guard, and I think I've been just treading water using Simplifi, unfortunately. Hopefully some of these articles will help me understand why Simplifi focuses on the current month. I do not get it…yet.

I was going to try @Coach Natalie's hack of making a custom income amount, but now I realize our Savings Goals are still wackadoodle (waiting semi-patiently on escalation), so I don't want to mess around until I'm clear on available funds. In the meantime, I have some reading to do.