Negative balances

Wings909

I got Simplifi because it was cheaper than You Need A Budget, and I had read great reviews about it. I'm new and I've watched a lot of videos but do not see what I want to do.

I do not like how it gives me my net worth—which is absolutely useless for me, and it makes my bank balance always look like its in the negative, when it's surprisingly not.

I just want to use this to keep track of my money throughout the month, making sure I just have enough to survive the month on. How do I make this happen?

RobWilk

When you say net worth, are you referring to the number on top of accounts, or are you referring to the net worth over time (net worth by month over time)?

Net worth is and should be a sum of your assets and debts. If, for example, a mortgage is bringing down your net worth, a way to counter that would be creating a property account for your house which factors in the value of your house and will bring you more positive. I believe you may also be able to exclude an account from reports (in account settings) which should remove it from net worth.

If you want to make sure you have enough money to survive the month on, what I do is set up recurring bills (and income) for known expenses, and use the cash flow chart on the account page to look ahead (you can look ahead up to 6 months). The spending plan feature can also be helpful but it does not reflect account balances.

DannyB

Hi @Wings909

Like @RobWilk I'm a fellow user and it looks like Rob has you covered and I just wanted to add my own thoughts for what they may be worth.

I have found that the Spending Plan is a great way to keep track of income and spending through each month. The extras like net worth, investment tracking, etc are nice to have in order to get a wholistic picture of one's overall financial health but if you are looking to simply keep track of income and spending for the month, Simplifi can be a great tool with nothing more than the Spending Plan feature.

For me this works best by having all my bank and credit card accounts connected so that all my transactions can downloaded for me. This saves a lot of time doing these entries manually.

Once I have all my recurring income set up along with all my recurring bills/subscriptions I can see just how much I have available for my other necessary living expenses, such as groceries and household supplies, transportation, general spending, etc. I can set aside goal amounts for these items in the Planned Spending section and once these are accounted for I can see how much a still have available for the month.

Then as the month progress and income is received, bills are paid, groceries are purchased, gas tank filled, I can keep track of my actual spending and monitor how I am doing all while continuing to see what remains available through the end of the month.

If your bank accounts are connected Simplifi will also help you with setting up recurring income and expenses, categorizing transactions and even gives you a way to set up savings goals which can be handy to preparing for those annual or semi-annual expenses not tracked in the monthly Spending Plan.

One more comment about net worth. You can think of the net worth number kind of like a thermometer. It's a way to monitor your overall financial health the goal being to keep it positive. For the net worth number to be "accurate" or have any value you need to do as @RobWilk mentions and include all your assets (bank accounts, savings accounts, investment accounts, home value (if you own or are buying) and all liabilities (any loans, mortgage, credit card accounts, etc.).

Wings909

I honestly have no idea what net worth means, but when I set up the account, it looks like it's got my car/vehicle and my credit cards account getting taken out of my bank balance.

I'm just confused and flustered with the way Simplifi is set up.

RobWilk

@Wings909 Your net worth is a sum of all your assets minus all your debts.

If your car/vehicle loan is negative, try adding a car property asset with the value of the car to counter it.

Wings909

Thank you for your quick reply. I think this is a lot to do for an app when I am just trying to keep track of my monthly expenses. I'm just going to cancel my subscription and go back to keeping track of my finances manually. It's less stressful that way.

RobWilk

Sure thing, I'm not sure of the process of canceling (I imagine a coach here or chat support could help, but i understand if you bought it from an app store, you cancel there), I don't work for Quicken/Simplifi, but I will say if the net worth bothers you, you can just ignore it. It's not critical, it's just a data point.