Editing a Savings Goal to add a Target Goal Date is miscalculating Monthly amount (edited)

ajbopp

OS: Android 13
Browser: Chrome

I created a new SG of $2000, stating I had already saved $150. On the next screen, it asked me for a target date and I said Jan 2024. It changed my target monthly contribution to $185. I saved the goal and went to edit it. I again set the target date to Jan 2024, but as soon as I selected January (not even the year), the target monthly contribution changed to $200, and the total left to save ultimately changed from $1850 to $2000.

As this is the end of April, I would expect a calculation of 1850 / 8 (months), which is 231.25, so both calculations were incorrect. On the chance that January should be included in the calculation, making 9 months, the correct answer is 205.56, so both of Simplifi's answers were still wrong.

I was able to reproduce this several times. I was also able to reproduce editing an existing savings goal and having the target change value when I selected a target month.

https://youtu.be/byIrV3bJpJs

Coach Natalie

Hello @ajbopp,

Thanks for reporting this issue to the Community, although I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing this behavior when editing a Savings Goal in Simplifi.

Although I believe this is most likely related to the issue of the 'Target goal date' not being filled in when editing a Savings Goal (this was previously reported, but I'm not finding the post; a fix is expected with the 3.75.0 Web Release), I am personally only seeing an issue when selecting a 'Target goal date' while editing a Goal that was created with a "saved so far" amount.

I'm not seeing any miscalculations when creating the Goal; the only time an issue/miscalculation pops up is when editing the Goal and selecting the same 'Target goal date' that I had originally set. And from my testing, the issue is not occurring when editing a Savings Goal that was not set up with a "Saved so far" amount.

I tested the behavior multiple times and saw the same thing every time, so I think I've got it narrowed down. I went ahead and reported what I'm seeing and will be sure to post back as soon as an update is received.

If you're seeing something outside of the behavior I described here, such as a miscalculation when creating a Savings Goal, I'd suggest deleting and recreating the Goal to see if doing so helps to clear things up. If the issue persists, please provide the steps to reproduce it in a numbered format.

I hope this helps!

-Coach Natalie

SIMPL-16319

ajbopp

Hi @Coach Natalie

The video I attached shows that of a $2000 goal to be completed by Jan 2024, I have saved $150 towards that goal. It initally calculated that I needed to set aside $185 a month to reach the goal. This would seem to indicate that it's calculating 10 months to goal completion ($1850), when January is only 8 months away. After editing, it told me I needed to set aside $200 a month, indicating that it was using the orginal goal of $2000, instead of $1850, and still incorrectly calculating the end date as 10 months out instead of 8.

I have reproduced this many times.

Coach Natalie

Hello @ajbopp,

Thanks for posting back!

Since the issue with editing a Savings Goal that was set up with a "saved so far" amount to add a 'Target goal date' is reproducible and has already been reported, we'll want to redirect our focus from that particular issue. As mentioned above, if you are seeing a different calculation issue, such as when creating a Savings Goal, or when editing a Goal in a different way that does not pertain to the 'Target goal date', or even when editing a Goal that was not set up with a "saved so far" amount, I'd suggest deleting and recreating the Goal to see if doing so helps to clear things up.

If the issue persists after doing so, since it is not reproducible (I didn't see any calculation issues when testing earlier outside of the bug I already reported), and may be dataset-specific, we'll need to gather all of the data from you. Therefore, you will want to provide the following information:

1. The steps to reproduce the issue in a numbered format.
2. Any additional details of the problematic Savings Goal that were not included in the steps to reproduce, such as the Name of the Goal, Target Amount, Monthly Contribution Amount, etc.
3. If you'd like, you can also provide a fresh video that only outlines the issue at hand and does not highlight other issues. If you'd prefer, you can provide screenshots that outline the issue/show the calculation error instead of a video.
4. The Make and Model of your Android device.
5. The version of Chrome you're running.
6. If you use the Mobile App, confirm whether the same issue is also occurring there or not.
7. If you use the Web App on a PC instead of on a mobile device at all, please also test there to see if the issue is still occurring so we can potentially narrow it down to being mobile browser-specific.

You will also want to provide your logs via the 'Send Feedback' option:

1. Log into the Simplifi Web App.
2. Select Profile from the left-hand navigation bar.
3. With the Profile menu open, hold down the Option key for Mac or the Alt key for Windows, and then click Send Feedback. 
4. Leave all boxes checked, add a brief description of the issue, and then click Send. 

Thanks in advance!

-Coach Natalie

ajbopp

1. In the Web app using Chrome, go to the Savings Goals page and create a brand new Savings Goal with the following information:
   1. Goal amount: $2000
   2. Saved so far amount: $150
   3. Account: Any valid account (I use my checking account)
2. At this point the Left To Save field correctly says $1850.
3. Click Continue
4. On the next dialog, ensure the Target Goal Date is selected to "Set." In the Month and Year fields, it should automatically be set to the current month and next year (May 2024 in this case.
5. Notice that the "Montly Contribution" is set to $142.31
   1. $1850 divided by 12 is actually $154.17. It appears that the calculation used is $1850 divided by 13, which would make the reported monthly contribution correct, but I wouldn't have enough accumulated in the Savings Goal until potentially the last day of May 2024. Maybe it's just me, but I want to have the money available on the first of the month.
6. Change the date to Jan 2024.
   1. The app now gives me the option to change the monthly contribution to $205.56.
      1. January is 8 months from now. $1850 divided by 8 is $231.25.
   2. Now, things get a little messed up. The video above clearly shows that as soon as I changed the date in step 6, the monthly contribution immediately changed to $185. This afternoon, it's not doing that anymore. It's consistently showing the $205.56 value (which in my mind is still incorrect).
   3. However, this morning I repeated the test in various ways at least a dozen times, which is why I was confident about doing a screen recordiing of the procedure.
7. Click Save. The Savings Goal is created with the value that was selected in the Monthly Contribution field in the dialog. This morning that value was $185. This afternoon that value is $205.56. Neither value is correct.

Takeaway: For me, it appears there is something funky going on with rolling over to a new month. Between this issue changing behavior from this morning, and the Savings Goals not updating to the new month until 10 AM this morning, there's a strong suspicion that the system is in a bad state for the first 10-15 hours after the change of month.

This leads also to a suspicion that there may be other, less noticeable, issues around rolling over a day and/or rolling over a year. A day might be hard to detect because there's so little change going on in the Savings Plan and other areas from day to day. A year because…well, it only happens once a year.

At any rate, with these two issues combined on this particular day, I think, based on 25 years of enterprise software testing experience, that there is something going on here that needs investigation by the development team. This kind of software simply must not make these kinds of mistakes (and that's assuming we let the extra month in the calculations slide) even for a few hours.

RobWilk

Where you write

"

1. The app now gives me the option to change the monthly contribution to $205.56.
   1. January is 8 months from now. $1850 divided by 8 is $231.25."

1850 divided by 9 is 205.56 —- May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January is 9 months…. The goal month includes making a deposit that month.

ajbopp

Yes, that would be the flaw in the calculation. It's using one more month than it should be. When I set a savings goal for my annual car insurance fee in January, that's my target date. I have to make that payment on Jan 1. But it's assuming I'll have until the very last day of January to save the final amount.

Also, the default target date in the current month 1 year from now. I find it challenging to believe the default length of a savings goal was meant to be 13 months. It certainly isn't intuitive.

ajbopp

This morning I decided to try again at 6:00 AM just to see if there was any daily merit to my suspicions.

Following the same procedure I outlined above. It gave me a different result in Step 6. Yesterday morning it calculated the Monthly Contribution at $185. Yesterday afternoon the monthly total was calculated at $205.67. On May 2 at 6:00 AM it calculates the total at $201.67. Then at 1:30 PM it was still giving a monthly total of $201.65

https://youtu.be/Nkjoc6fJXDw

Something is clearly up with time roll overs. I've had to create my own spreadsheet to track savings goals, because I can't trust what Simplifi is showing me. It has yet to give me the expected answer. Even when it's right, it assumes the calculation should go through the target month, rather than to the target month.

ajbopp

Also, at 6:00 AM after my first refresh of the morning, My Savings Plan Available figure was -$359. At 6:43 AM it changed to -$579, and I had made no change or edits to anything in the plan, no new transactions came in. It just changed the number.

RobWilk

I had already reported some of this .. i had also noticed the suggested per month amount was not aligning with the target date.. what i reported, which may or may not be the same, was expected to be fixed in web 3.75.0 and mobile 4.4.0

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/4636/savings-goals-ahead-behind-dates-may-be-miscalculated

Coach Natalie

Hello @ajbopp,

Thank you for providing additional details!

If the issue is that Simplifi is counting the Target Goal month when calculating the Monthly Contribution amount, this is actually by design and is not a bug. Knowing that this is how Simplifi works, I'd suggest setting the Target Goal Date to the prior month so you know you have all of the money saved up by the 1st of the target month.

Additionally, you can create an Idea post requesting that Simplifi not count the Target Goal month when calculating the Monthly Contribution amount of Savings Goals so other users can vote on it. This will allow our Product Team to get an idea of how many users would like to see this change made in Simplifi and why.

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

If you are seeing any additional issues that are actively occurring, or are reoccurring frequently enough to nail down a pattern and/or some steps to reproduce, please go ahead and create a separate post to outline the issue to avoid convoluting this discussion with additional topics.

Otherwise, I will continue to keep this post updated with any news on the bug I reported with editing a Savings Goal that was set up with a "saved so far" amount to add a 'Target goal date' miscalculating the Monthly Contribution amount. 🙂

-Coach Natalie

ajbopp

@Coach Natalie

I apologize in advance if what I'm about to say sounds snarky or negative or even rude. It is not my intention, because I really love Simplifi and want it to be the best it can be, and my intention is to be positive and supportive.

"If the issue is that Simplifi is counting the Target Goal month when calculating the Monthly Contribution amount, this is actually by design and is not a bug."

A bug in the design is still a bug. Hand-waving away the implementation by saying it's by design only indicates that bug was not identified and corrected at the least expensive point in the development process - the design phase. Admitting that it's by design only diminishes confidence in the product rather than elevating it.

Seriously, who in their right mind thinks they are going to set up a one year goal that is 13 months long? This is currently the default setting when creating a new goal, and it leads to the user, if they haven't done the calculations themselves (and why should they have to?), coming to the wrong conclusion about how savings goals target dates work.

I can't turn this into an Idea post because bug reports don't allow idea posts (which I think is a good thing) - and this is not a feature request. It's a correction request.

I appreciate that you changed the title of this thread to encapsulate the issue that you think this is about, but it is about something much larger than what the changed title is implying. In the two weeks that I've seriously paid attention, the Savings Goals calculation has not, even one time, given me the correct answer. Sometimes it's been closer than others, but even today the answer is wrong.

And frankly, after providing a screen recording and detailed, numbered steps on how to reproduce, I'm not sure what your comment about "If you are seeing any additional issues that are actively occurring, or are reoccurring frequently enough to nail down a pattern and/or some steps to reproduce" is asking me to do that I haven't already done?

It has nothing to do with editing (though that can make it wrong in a different way - but sometimes it just keeps the same wrong answer). Creating a new Savings Goal will never, in my experience, give the correct answer.

Coach Natalie

Hello @ajbopp,

Thanks for the additional feedback!

To clarify, if something is considered by design, we won't be able to report it as a bug. Instead, we recommend that users create an Idea post suggesting a change in the design so other users can vote on it. Since there aren't any existing Idea posts requesting the change you'd like to see, and we haven't received any additional feedback on this that I'm aware of, I'm not sure that many users have an issue with the current design. However, creating an Idea post will allow us to get a better idea.

Additionally, since we want to keep Community threads on topic to a single subject, and since I reported a specific bug here, I changed the title of this post to reflect the reported bug. That way, if other users experience the same issue, they'll be able to easily find the existing topic and follow it. As mentioned above, any additional issues should be reported via a separate Community post; in this case, you'll want to report your separate issue as a feature request by creating a separate Idea post for it.

Please be sure to check out our FAQ here for more tips on posting to the Community. I hope this helps point you in the right direction! 🙂

-Coach Natalie

Coach Natalie

Hello @ajbopp,

Thanks for your patience as this is being worked on!

A fix for the Monthly Contribution miscalculation issue when editing a Savings Goal is expected with the 3.76.0 Web Release.

-Coach Natalie