How do I get a transfer to go in the right direction?

DannyB

I take a monthly distribution from one of my retirement accounts monthly. When this first started I had it set up as a recurring income transaction and then the "Transfers & Credit Card Payments" section went live and this transaction was moved by Simplifi into this new section and the transfer stopped showing as income with the result that my Spending Plan showed a deficit. I changed the receiving account side of this transfer (my checking account) so that it was included in my spending plan while leaving the from account as excluded. This seemed to work that first month but the succeeding months have been confusing.

As of now this is what I see:

… and here is the "offending" transfer transaction…

I may be completely missing the point, especially since I haven't seen any discussion about transfers since Simplifi started including them in the Spending Plan, but it seems to me that this should be reversed - the "Sent" side should be "DAB IRA" and the received side should be "TnD Checking 1623." I have spent time each month since the Transfers & Credit Card Payments" section went live trying to figure out how to make this transfer come into my Spending Plan so that these funds become a positive income event but just can't figure it out.

@Coach Natalie tried to help me when this first started and I've read and reread the support articles for transfers but I still just don't seem to get it. 🤨🙄😏

If anyone has any insights, explanations or a step-by-step troubleshooting procedures I could follow, I'd be thankful for your help.

P.S. I found this transaction further down in the list of the "Transfers & Credit Card Payments" section.

So it seems like this transaction is being recorded twice - at least one side or is this the hidden side and the first entry is showing both sides… or what?

RobWilk

The transfers account labelling is confusing. The account named on the line is the opposite account from what you expect. On a deposit side, it shows the account money came from, not the account receiving the money.

I would write more but I'm driving cross country, we're around d.c. now.

Pchamb1998

@DannyB it’s confusing…whenever coding a transfer, always think “where is it coming from?”

A transfer from checking to savings would look like this:

Acct: checking

Payee: ABC savings bank

Amount: $100

category: savings

Remember…. When creating a transaction always ask where it’s coming from and then work down.

@Coach Natalie I’m a series 7 & 66 licensed financial advisor. I also have a Master degree in Financial Planning. It took me 6 hours to grasp the transfer section. The average consumer will not understand and continue to complain. Please ask the dev team to reconsider the layout. I understand why bc it matches the bill & payment section. However, maybe once a transfer is selected the fields should change to “to” and “from” instead of using the standard “payee” field and category to match the corresponding institution.

I know it’s not simple. I love the active community and responsiveness from the dev team. The Simplifi team is doing a great job. Keep listening to the community and the community will continue using the product. Simplifi has an incredible fan base!

ajbopp

@DannyB check out my comment in this thread

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/15749#Comment_15749

The transfer display is consistent with all other transactions listed throughout the spending plan.

ajbopp

I also found that my spending plan would be all messed up if I didn't include one half of the transfer as "unignored."

This is as close as I can come to retirement fund disbursments being counted as inc ome. At least the spending plan comes out looking balanced, even though the income section only includes my SSA check.

DannyB

Thanks everyone for your feedback… I'll keep working on this. I uploaded the wrong screenshot for the second transfer entry from my retirement account. In my fiddling around I somehow inadvertently created a duplicate of the transfer. Once I deleted that duplicate my SP returned to what is expected. Right now all seems to be correct and this is what my Spending Plan for November now looks like:

Also, now that I'm looking at this page with a little more intentionality I can see how this all adds. I was focusing on the Income line and not the literal bottom for this page.

Flopbot

@DannyB

Full disclosure, I didn’t take the time to read all the posts in this chain. If this isn’t helpful - or even on topic - ignore it.

For whatever reason, I’ve found myself pretty much ignoring the Spending Plan > Transfer section. Buy and large, I spend most of my effort in Settings > Recurring and everything just seems to work out in that transfers area, as best I can tell. Early on, I was constantly confused as to which way transfers were going and then I stumbled across this.

For the majority of my transfers, I use a Payee like this…

The “(Deposits Into Account)” is actually part of the Payee name and is my reminder when working in individual Transactions and Recurring Series, about whether to make them a + or a -.

DannyB

@Flopbot

Thanks. I've tried addressing this from every angle and I think I've got it figured out… we'll see. 😏🤞