Net Worth Report: Start tracking balances on the date of opening transaction (edited)

RobWilk

Okay, so I tried listing my vehicle on Simplifi. It's really not worth much, private party value under $4000.

Anyhow, I created the property today, and I tried editing the "Opening Balance" date to be different dates… First I tried late 2010 when I acquired the car, then I tried late 2021 when I started this simplifi dataset…. And as far as the net worth report was concerned,, no matter what, the entire credit for the property value was april 2023.

Is there a way to create a property held in the past?

p.s. There needs to be "Tags" in forum for "Property" maybe and "Net Worth (Report)" EDIT: I was corrected, thanks to @ajbopp - I can make my own tags

edit: "Feedback" may have been the wrong category - "Feedback" presumes something is not right with the software, it's just not clear to me if i'm doing something wrong or it is the software, feel free to move it.

ajbopp

@RobWilk I believe you can create any tag you want to. Just type it in and hit ENTER, then type in another one and hit ENTER. You're not limited to the ones in the list. Those are just commonly-used ones.

RobWilk

@ajbopp I adjusted the tags. Learned something new that I will be using, thanks,

Coach Natalie

Hello @RobWilk,

Thanks for reporting this to the Community!

Since the Net Worth Report seems to start tracking balances from the day the account was added instead of the date of the opening balance transaction for all account types as far as I can tell, or at least for all manual accounts, I'm thinking this is by design. I did reach out to see if I can find an answer, but until that time, I went ahead and turned this into an Idea post requesting that the Net Worth Report start tracking balances on the date of the opening transaction so other users can vote on it.

I hope this helps!

-Coach Natalie

Minter

I’m coming over from Mint and the lack of being to see my history for Net Worth and savings is a deal breaker for me. I will need to spread the word about this missing feature. Strange that it works differently for other reports.

RobWilk

Please click the up arrow in the yellow section to vote for this. I agree that this is an important feature to have. Btw, about a year ago, there was no net worth chart/report, so this is relatively new.

jdhenshall

I am also coming from Mint and looking for alternatives. Currently comparing Monarch and Simplifi. I really like the UI and features of Simplifi, but this is also a deal-breaker for me. Monarch incorporates historical data into trends, and allows you to track net worth and trend (as does Mint). Naturally, sometimes it requires manual edits, but I'm willing to do this. Please allow these more advanced features for power users.

Bernardo

Net Worth over time is currently "working as designed" but it certainly isn't working as it should.

Please fix Net Worth Over Time to account for the transaction dates of the assets, instead of only counting forward from the day they were entered.

Bernardo

The Net Worth Over Time value is "working as designed" but not working as it should.

Please fix this behavior so that asset transaction dates are taken into account in net worth over time report.

RobWilk

@Coach Natalie You wrote "I'm thinking this is by design. I did reach out to see if I can find an answer, but until that time…,"

Have you "found an answer" as you were hoping to, yet? I think with the influx of mint users this weekend (importing old data) this is suddenly more important,, and the number of votes roughly doubled over the weekend.

Coach Natalie

@RobWilk, it is by design — sorry for not following up on that sooner. 🙂

-Coach Natalie

Bernardo

@Coach Natalie how do we go about elevating this Net Worth Over Time issue to work as it should? Calculate and store in a nightly database job is not the correct behavior here. Net worth over time should be calculated dynamically. I've been in the meeting on these software decisions and I can assure you that on this one, the team got the decision wrong.

DannyB

I’m not sure what is being asked here. Looking at my Net Worth report I can see my net worth over time dating back to when this report was restored to Simplifi in February 2020. The report appears to takes into account all my asset accounts and all debt accounts and shows my over time NW over any period of time I choose back to when the report became available. Of course I had all my asset and debt accounts that were active at that time connected or created if manual so that data was available for aggregation.

Is this request to add the ability to add historical data for aggregation prior to when the feature was reintroduced in February 2022?

Bernardo

@DannyB Currently the behavior is that if you add an asset account type, set an opening date to a past date like 2023-01-01 and an opening balance of $10,000 the net worth report over time will not show the $10k appearing on Jan 1st, but instead the $10k will only show up starting today (the day you entered it).

DannyB

OK. I believe Simplifi's net worth report is based on account balances as reported by connected accounts.and the current balance of any manual accounts as of the latest

Bernardo

For what it's worth, I'm in the evaluation phase right now of several different accounting software and all the other ones calculate net worth over time the way you would expect. Simplifi is the only software that isn't handling net worth over time correctly. Quicken does it correctly. [removed] does it correctly. [removed] does it correctly. A spreadsheet does it correctly. Only Simplifi is doing it wrong.

RobWilk

@DannyB As I stated in the original post, I had a MANUAL account (a property account) and it was affecting the net worth from account opening forward —- so it's not just connected accounts. The concern is for data entered prior to the date the account was created in Simplifi. As of now If I open an account in simplify today, Nov 7, 2023, and then go back and enter transactions from October thru now (or import old transactions, as mint users are experiencing) there will be no October data on the net worth chart. I have a feeling this is a very easy fix, it will likely take the developers less than a day or so to fix it.

Minter

I was able to work around this by using a custom google sheet to store and chart my net worth using my old balance history data exported from mint. The benefit is I was able to correct errors in mint's balance history that they did not let you fix. I can manually copy over the net worth data from Simplifi to my spreadsheet every few months going forward.

The solution for Simplifi is to let us backload balance history into the net worth graph using a CSV file (like what I exported from Mint's net worth graph per account). Not only would it let us view our history, but it would let us correct any mistakes from adding an account to the system after it was created or previous errors or omissions in manually tracked accounts. It would also be useful if Simplifi let us export this balance history data as a CSV as well.

ngfroerer

I will jump on the bandwagon to say I would strongly support introducing the ability to (1) import past investment transactions so that we can view performance after migrating from another app and (2) support past balances and displaying historical net worth based on all data we have imported.

FutureEye

I also vote of having a functionality to import net worth data. Simplifi cannot create the history from just importing transaction as 10 years ago accounts could be closed, transaction history might be lost etc.

A simple csv data file by month, asset, debt etc.

squillful

I believe the original request here is distinct to being able to import net worth history, so I created a separate entry to track that:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/5886/support-for-importing-net-worth-history

Emacken

Adding a vote to this! Not only is it convenient for the flood of importers, it lets me add manual accounts without having it look like my net worth randomly jumped an enormous amount in a given month (a problem I had repeatedly with the herbally named app I'm joining from…)

Matt Anfang

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/18937#Comment_18937

@Coach Natalie where do we vote for new features? Definitely needing to bring over/transfer ALL of Mint's net worth should be #1 on Simplifi's list of things to do before everyone no longer has access in January. From there, reports/trends for MORE than 5 years + accounts not working correctly + a better app experience + goals improved and so much more. Mint was FREE so this paid program should by better than free, right? Thanks

Coach Natalie

@Matt Anfang, please see our FAQ for more details on voting for Idea posts in the Community:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/998/creating-and-voting-for-ideas-in-the-community

-Coach Natalie

ztt

Can we merge this feature request with the thread labeled "Ability to import net worth data from other personal finance apps, such as Mint (edited)" ?

They seem like the same to me

UrsulaA

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/19021#Comment_19021

I agree with this: Allow us to import balance history to create net worth and let us export balance history to CSV. I use a similar workaround in Excel to track my Net Worth now and I also corrected data from Mint regarding balances.

RobWilk

I agree with @ztt, if this was working, then just by pulling in transaction history net worth would come in from mint or wherever else.

BenF

Simplifi's approach to net worth tracking makes no sense — especially coming from Mint and looking for continuity of tracking. Not having this is a deal-breaker. Spent a few hours with Simplifi and now will be requesting a refund. Disappointing.

UrsulaA

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/21954#Comment_21954

If the accounts are not reconciled with the banks' balances monthly, there could be mismatches with the balances inferred from the transaction history and the true account history. Also, what happens if a user opened the account on a date prior to what Simplifi has as a start date? Will the balances be accurate?

Hence, a better approach, in my mind is let the user import balance history from whatever source to the account. Then, Simplifi can keep records of the balance history as the account synchs from the institution.

jgold1996

Any update on adding this feature? I would love to be able to add older accounts that impact my net worth report rather than just capturing the value the day it is added to Simplifi.