How much does Checking Need vs Savings?

RiversideKid

Newbie here and trying to figure out the basics. My banks are all connected and I see the savings goals tied to any account, but I also see that my Spending Plan shows "Bills" and "Subscriptions" are account agnostic, meaning that these expenses come out of the running balance but no specific account.

How does Simplifi by Quicken make it simple to tell how much money I should have in checking and how much I can move to savings?

For example, I am saving for several annual expenses (some are large) and I want the funds in the savings account for 11 months before moving to checking, but if I were to add an annual bill it seems that this is always in checking. If I create a savings goal I can't figure out how Simplifi by Quicken will alert me when I need to move funds to checking. (I am still in my free trial so maybe I just haven't seen this???). Is the "move to checking" really as cumbersome as it looks where I must "Withdrawl from goal" to make the money available for transfer, then transfer the funds from account to account and then set the funds aside again in my checking account with another transaction to represent this same expense?

I must be missing something, I was trying to simplify, not make my accounts more cumbersome.

DannyB

Hi @RiversideKid welcome to Simplifi!

I'm sure you'll hear back from several members of this forum in response to your question(s). You have, like many of us, identified one of the most widely and energetically disccued issues in this forum.

To begin with I like your phrase "'Bills' and 'Subscriptions' are account agnostic…" Indeed, Simplifi pulls from all your connected accounts to keep track of your Bills and Subscriptions. But, you have to tell Simplifi where the funds are for your Savings Goals each time you contribute since Saving Goal contributions are "voluntary" and Simplifi needs to know where the cash is. Here is a Feature Request to automate Savings Goals contributions which would problably answer you quesiton when put into place.

You can add your annual bills to your spending plan and in the month a given bill is due Simplifi will add a reminder just as it does for you monthly recurring bills. BUT! and it's a significant "but," if you pay that bill through the spending plan you will go "over budget" for that month because the money you have set aside for that bill cannot be moved back into you spending plan for that month even if you did leave it in your checking account. Once you tell Simplifi where the cash is when you make your monthly contribution, Simplifi will keep track of how much you have and where it is, but you will have to keep track of when it needs to be moved back into checking when needed. Personally, I pay right out of my savings account if I can set up an online payment with the biller.

There is significant discussion in this forum concerning this issues and a few pieces of that conversation can be found here (for an idea on how to use Savings Goals to handle non-monthly expenses), here (this is a feature request you can add your vote to) and here (which is my own current practice). There is an extensive conversation that includes comments and discussion of your concerns here.

The only way to handle non-monthly recurring expenses in Simplifi right now is to use the Savings Goals hack/workaround. We are all looking forward to how the solution that the development team comes up with when they address this issue.

RiversideKid

Danny, Thank you for the thoughtful explanation. Your current idea using Savings Goals is where my thoughts have been leaning. I see several types of expenses:

1. Monthly (fairly) set expenses like Mortgate, Rent, HOA that come from CHECKING
2. Monthly set expenses that come from CHECKING (auto draft, etc.)
3. Monthly set expenses that come from Credit Cards (subscriptions, etc.)
4. NON-MONTHLY set (quarterly, simi-annual, annual or even variable) expenses where most of your suggestions originate from with the creative use of Savings Goals or similar to accomodate
5. Variable expenses, like gifts where I could budget on prior years but do not spend from a specific account and not on specified dates. This needs a way to set aside a budget amount each month, build up to a dollar value that can easily pull from on occation and continue to replinish each month.

In any case, I love the fact that Quicken is able to identify and categorize expenses from multiple accounts, but when it comes to a spending plan, I need to know how much is targeting my checking account and how much is targeting my credit cards. Further, the "variable expenses" and non-monthly expenses need to be in savings until I need to spend from those "buckets" and at that point there needs to be a "simple" way to specify the move from savings to checking to cover that expense, even if the actual move is from savings to checking to cover a credit card purchase.

Right now Simplifi by Quicken looks more like a college project for a progamming class rather than a paid service. (Sorry if that is harsh but due to the name and looking at several competitors I was expecting something "simple.")

DannyB

@RiversideKid

Well, I'd say it's a bit more sophisticated then a college project, but my area of study was philosphy and theology, so I wouldn't really know 😃