Goals keep adding up contribution amounts with no way to subtract or undo

GCA

I accidentally contributed to a goal from the wrong account, but there was no apparent way to undo this contribution… the only option was to withdraw, and so I withdrew that contribution, and now Simplifi falsely believes that I spent that money. This is bad from a reporting perspective.

That's just one problem though. The second issue is, the contribution amount is still deducted on my spending plan. When I go to re-contribute from the current account, now Simplifi thinks I have made two contributions, and both count towards my contribution goal for the month, and it cuts into my available funds.

I searched and scanned through transactions and since it's all virtually managed, I see no way to delete these contributions or unwind, and it seems like to correct the data I have to recreate the goal completely and lose my data … all because I contributed from the wrong account.

This does not feel like a feature, it feels like a bug? Am I missing something here, or is it that if you have a situation where you contribute from the wrong account, you're in a pickle to get things straightened out?

Coach Natalie

@GCA, thanks for reaching out!

The only withdrawal option that will deduct the contributed funds from the Spending Plan is the "Withdraw for another purpose" — is this the option that you used? Does the account that you accidentally contributed from still show a Savings Goal balance in the Accounts List after you made the withdrawal just like the Spending Plan does? If so, it sounds like the incorrect withdrawal option may have been used. Here's what our support article on using Savings Goals says (see here):

How Goal Contributions and Withdraws are Handled in the Spending Plan

When electing to include your Savings Goals contributions in the Spending Plan, the 'monthly contribution' amount will automatically be used, however, if you end up contributing more in a given month, the extra amount will also be included in the Spending Plan.

When it comes to withdrawing from a Savings Goal, withdrawing to spend for the Goal will not impact the Spending Plan. However, withdrawing for another purpose will remove the funds that have been withdrawn from the Spending Plan up to the standard 'monthly contribution' amount.

Please note that this only applies to Savings Goals that are being included in the Spending Plan, as ignored Goals will show as grayed out in the Spending Plan, and their contributions and withdraws do not impact the Spending Plan in any way.

With the trouble that you're having, I don't see where it would hurt to completely delete and recreate the Goal. If you know how much you've saved already, and if those savings are all from a single account, you can easily plug that number and account into the 'Saved so far' option when recreating the Goal. You can even use the amount saved as of last month for 'Saved so far' so you can still make your contribution this month and see that reflected in the Spending Plan.

Please let us know how it goes!

-Coach Natalie

Flopbot

@GCA

Maybe you’ll find this helpful, maybe not. This post has some of my musings about how I have chosen to use Simplifi’s Savings Goals. For me, 100% of the time, I use the “Withdraw for another purpose” option - because I dislike the colored status bar.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/4567/my-savings-goals-simply-work

GCA

As you can see, my international trips fund is claiming it is fully contributed to this month, but this is what I have done:

• Contributed from Checking account (accidentally) - 50% of goal
  • Needed a way to undo this, but couldn't, so went to this next step…
• Withdrew from Checking account through Goal feature
• Re-contributed correct amount from Savings account - 50% of goal
• Simplifi now thinks I have done 100% contributions