Double Count Bills/Planned Spending?
I have a monthly cell phone bill, say $35, and Netflix $16. I have both in the Spending Plan under Phone and Entertainment, respectively. If I add the cell phone as a bill and the netflix as a subscription, are they both being counted twice as far as the spending plan summary where it shows Income after Bills and Spending and then subtracts Planned Spending? I don't want that, so if this is the case how would I handle it, just do one or the other?
Best Answers
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Planned Spending only includes expenses in the defined category that are not in the Bills or Subscriptions list. So I have a subscription to Hulu under Entertainment, and an Entertainment bucket in Planned Spending. My Hulu bill is only counted in the Subscriptions, not in Planned Spending, so you have nothing to worry about in this case.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye2 -
Hello @Diver4242,
Thanks for posting your inquiry to the Community!
The Spending Plan is designed to not double-count transactions, so you won't see transactions that have been linked to a Recurring Series in a Planned Spending expense using the same Category. Our Support Article here goes over this in more detail, and I'd also suggest checking out our Support Article on the Spending Plan here.
If you want to track spending in a particular Category and are unable to use Planned Spending to do so because you have transactions in that Category that are Recurring, I'd suggest using a Watchlist. You can even set targets for Watchlists and receive notifications when you're nearing your target.
I hope this helps!
-Coach Natalie
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Answers
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Thank you. Does that include sub categories, i.e. if one is Entertainment and the other is Entertainment→Television?
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I just did the math, making sure the categories matched up exactly. Simplifi is definitely double-counting. I have two life insurance payments in my bills, and that category in my planned spending, among other examples. It should not count twice.
Now I seem to have a bad choice. If I remove the bills, my cash flow timeline is ruined. I need to that to plan purchases and avoid overdrawing. If I remove the planned spending, I can't track how I'm doing against the category as the month goes on, or in looking back on how I did in prior months. If I keep them both, the summary numbers are wrong on the spending plan page.
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If it's in bills, it should not be in planned spending. You're using the software wrong. Keep asking questions and people here in the community (or the pros) will step in to assist you.
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Rob Wilkens0 -
So how do I get an accurate cash flow timeline so I can make sure I know my account won't withdraw, and at the same time see how I'm doing in planned spending in a category this month if they aren't in both? I didn't see anything saying you could only use one feature or the other. Otherwise, I'm not "using the software wrong".
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What I think you're missing is bills&subscriptions get subtracted from income (the income section) so they don't need to be accounted for under planned spending or other spending.
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Rob Wilkens0 -
As per "cash flow" i would use the cash flow chart, not spending plan — they are different things. Bills and subscriptions are on the cash flow chart.
Editing to add: You can overdraw if you follow the 'spending plan' perfectly — If your income is late in month, it's possible at beginning of month you can spend more than you had in prior months. Also the spending plan doesn't track a particular account.
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Rob Wilkens0 -
Thanks for all your help. Right, I'm always using the cash flow line chart, as far as how the cash flow progresses through the month. That's important to see. And yes, it's as "all goes as expected, course correct for late pay, etc". That's why it's so important to have that cash flow timeline graph, so I can see what to move around if necessary.
But I do have to make a tradeoff. A few "bills" are regular monthly automatic payments to charities I like. If I put them in the spending plan, i.e plan to give $500 to charities this month and need to know how much I have left in that category at any point, I have this problem of double counting. Sometimes I'll do a one-time donation, so it's important to know what's left to spend out of the $500.
So I have to make a decision on which thing to forego. I think Simplifi should fix this somehow. For now, I take them out of the spending plan, since the cash flow timeline graph is more important.
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In my opinion, in the case of these charities, which are neither bills nor subscriptions, I wouldn't create a recurring transaction for them. I would simply leave them in planned spending. Just be aware they won't be accounted for in cash flow chart until you make or schedule the payments for those.
edit: "in my opinion" means there may be better answers
edit: oops automatic payments to charities are bills, ignore me here
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Rob Wilkens0 -
"The Spending Plan is designed to not double-count transactions, so you won't see transactions that have been linked to a Recurring Series in a Planned Spending expense using the same Category. "
It's not double counting as far as the category tile how much spent/how much left. But it's definitely double-counting in terms of the high-level math on the spending plan as far as how much is left to spend for the month overall, and that's important.
I think it's a bug to do it in one place and not the other?
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"Just be aware they won't be accounted for in cash flow chart until you make or schedule the payments for those."
Exactly the problem. I need the cash flow line chart to be usable!
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As far as the spending plan goes, the boxes show:
- TOTAL INCOME MINUS BILLS (on the cash flow chart)
- PLANNED SPENDING (this is not accounted for on the cash flow chart, there are requests for this, but "it's complicated" because "Planned Spending" is for the month where the cash flow chart would need a day to deduct these).
- OTHER SPENDING (factored into cash flow chart)
- REMAINING, which takes #1 subtracts #2 subtracts #3 giving the value (and divides it out per day to give you an idea of what you can live on).
It's not much more complicated than that.
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Rob Wilkens0 -
Hello @Diver4242,
I'm not sure that I'm following the issue. If a transaction is linked to a Recurring Reminder, it will show in the Bills & Income section of the Spending Plan. You won't see the transaction in a Planned Spending expense using the same Category. If you see the transaction in both locations, it would be double-counted and therefore throw off your Spending Plan amounts.
With that said, if you do see a transaction in both locations, go ahead and create a separate post to report the bug. Please be sure to thoroughly outline the issue and provide documentation, such as screenshots, so the Community can get a clear idea of what's going on.
Otherwise, if you want to see Recurring Transactions also be counted toward Planned Spending, I'd suggest adding your vote and feedback here:
However, as mentioned in the Idea post, I don't think something like this would gain any traction, as it would cause issues with the Spending Plan totals.
-Coach Natalie
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