I May Be A Step Closer To Making Savings Goals Work As I Want
We'll have to wait a month to see how this all works out in practice, but I think in theory I've made a couple of changes that will insure Savings Goals contributions show up in the Cash Flow Report, and that I can get a Savings Goals Report on demand.
I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, and I haven't noticed until now that SG transactions show up in the "Other Spending" page as "Unsynced Accounts." Realizing that they were there, I hit on a new idea.
In the Other Spending page, I …
- Picked a SG transfer, opened up the Transaction Detail window, and selected "MARK AS BILL OR RECURRING"
- Selected "Create a new recurring transfer."
- Edited the name, next due date, transfer amount and frequency to what made sense for that transfer.
- Selected "Savings Goals" as the Category.
- Checked Ignore from Spending Plan and Ignore from Reports so nothing will get double counted when I record the transfer in the Savings Goals themselves.
Now, I can look at the Cash Flow report and the transfers are reflected on the appropriate dates (thankfully, the Cash Flow Report ignores the Ignore from Reports setting).
Plus, it's a snap to filter on the Savings Goals category in Reports to see a list of all transactions to and from my Savings Goals. I could furtheer refine this by adding tags that specifically identify which SG a transfer relates to.
The only downside to this is that, because they are transfers, the total expenses will always be $0. Plus, report filtering does not include the option to filter on credits vs debits, which would be useful for most reports.
Anyway, we'll see how it goes, but I'm hopeful this will work out as planned.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye
Comments
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Hello @ajbopp,
Thanks for sharing!
I like where you're going with this, and I hate to break it to you, but seeing Savings Goal contributions and withdraws as transactions in the Spending Plan is a bug.
I'm not sure how much of your process relies on these specific transactions, but they will no longer be available and this bug will be fixed as of the 3.75.2 patch release. However, here are some Idea posts surrounding your description above:
Sorry for not having better news, but I hope this helps!
-Coach Natalie
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I noticed a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff showing up in Other Spending that's not usually nor expected to be there. That there is a bug that is being addressed makes me happy! Looking forward to the fix… ya'll know how much I dislike seeing expenses in Other spending 😁
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer0 -
Hmm. I don't think it will mess me up. Seeing the transfers there just inspired the idea to try this. Also made it convenient to create these items for the spending plan since I could select and edit them directly, but it's all stuff you should be able to do without this bug in the system.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye2 -
@Coach Natalie On a somewhat related and interesting note, one of the reasons I assumed this was always there but I hadn't noticed it before was that a support rep told it had always been there.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye0 -
Hello @ajbopp,
I'm glad to hear that your idea isn't dependent on Savings Goal transactions showing in Other Spending. 🙂
As for the misinformation provided to you by Chat Support, I apologize for this! I have passed the interaction along as a coaching opportunity.
-Coach Natalie
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Disccovered some unexpected advantages to this approach after my first efforts to put this excercise into implementation.
If I set up a recurring transfer to a Savings Goal, it does get automatically added to the Savings Goal balance, making the totals on the Dashboard and the SG card still accurate, and I don't have to go to the SG page at all anymore to manage deposits. I still need to do withdrawals from the SG page.
After some trial and error, I discovered that I did not have to choose "Ignore from Reports" on these transfers, allowing me to report on these just like any other expense (though I do have to remember to filter out "Savings Goals" categories when I do a more comprehensive spending report).
All in all, this seems to be working really well for me.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye0
