What's the point of the Savings account type and Savings report?

pkp

New user here with a somewhat newbie question. Under account types for Banking, you can choose Savings or Checking (amongst others). However, it seems like in the Savings report, anything that falls under Checking does not get included. What's the point of separating out Checking and Savings and NOT including Checking accounts in the Savings report?

I get that maybe some people like to put "savings" money in a savings account and "spending" money in a checking account. But my sense is that it's almost never that clean cut. People move money from savings to checking all the time for spending. And also move money from checking to savings when they don't spend it all. Almost nobody will ever move exactly the amount needed for spending into their checking accounts.

So what's the point of delineating the two and then not including Checking amounts in the Savings report? Why not just include all cash in all banking accounts in the Savings report as a report of how much liquid money you have? IMO that better reflects how much money you're saving rather than the arbitrary division of accounts.

SRC54

Hi @pkp and welcome to the community.

I think the main reason for cash accounts versus savings is most people use their cash and checking accounts for everyday spending and make periodic transfers to savings either right after they get paid or at the end of the month from what is left over. The Savings Report lets you see how Savings is growing.

It's also easier to have savings goals in the Spending Plan if you have separate checking and savings account, but I admit that I haven't figured out a good way to make savings goals work for me. I aim to have money left over at the end of the month, which I do.

OTOH, I understand what you mean about money in your accounts being money, but that will still show up in your Net Worth report, which is the bottom line. You might prefer using that report to check on your progress.

I actually keep extra money in one of my checking accounts because I get extra interest, so I did change that account's designation from checking to savings in Simplifi, so the balance shows up in savings, and it is grouped with savings. That works for me.

Of course, you could always do that too with your cash accounts. I don't think we are meant to do that, but it hasn't caused me any problems. I still keep my Cash/Wallet account, other checking, Apple Cash in the Checking/Cash slot though.