Spending plan does not reflect the used amount in a category correctly

Palavis

Hello,

The spending plan does not display the used amount in the category for the month. Its happening for the Education category and sometimes with the custom category I created as Kids. The spending for other category Grocery is reflecting the correct amount. Note. The categories are not not excluded in the spending and reports.

Thanks.

RobWilk

I notice the recurring icon above, if it's a recurring expense it's tracked under "Income after bills and savings" and ONLY there. You won't see recurring bills show up under planned expenses.

Palavis

Thanks. I was able to see the expense in the spending plan once I removed it from recurring.

Also wanted to know if there was any specific reason, a recurring expense cannot be part of spending plan. Assumption was all the expenses should be part of the budget(spending plan).

DannyB

Hi @Palavis

Just for clarification. Simplifi's Spending Plan consists of several sections.

• Income after bills & savings
• Planned spending
• Other spending

All your expenses will show in one of these three sections corrosponding more-or-less to the types of expenses. The two main types of expenses are fixed and flexible.

• Fixed expenses are those monthly recurring expenses that are pretty much the same every month and you are billed for. Simplifi gives you the option to sort these recurring fixed expenses into bills and subscriptions (This is strictly a sorting function and both bills and subscriptions are treated the same in Simplifi. Typically, if you must pay the amount due monthly to avoid penalties and/or cancelation of service.
• Flexible expenses are those monthly or recurring expenses that are not billed for. These include such monthly expenses as groceries, clothing, gas, dining out, entertainment (theater, sporting events, etc.), etc. You know you will spend money on these and you probably know how much you will typically spend on these expesnes, but you are not billed for these expense, in stead paying at time of service or purchase "randomly" through the month.
• Any expenses that don't fall into either of the above sections will land in "Other Spending." This is typically spending on something not planned for and comes out of your "Available" funds - money left over after you have accounted for all your bills, subscriptions and savings contributions and money set aside for your flexible Planned Spending categories.

Fixed expenses are accounted for in Simplifi in the "Income after bills & savings" section. Flexible expenses are accounted for in the "Planned spending" section. Typically your fixed expenses are set up as recurring expenses and your flexible expenses are set up as categories with established set amounts you expect or plan to spend. As @RobWilk points out, if an expense is listed in the Income after Bills & savings" section it will not be counted in any of your "Planned spending" section categories.

Instead, if you want to track how much you spend on a given budget category that may include both recurring fixed expenses and flexible expenses you can set up a Watchlist to capture and track all spending in a particular budget category. For example, I have a top level budget category I call "Housing". I have a certain amount I budget for my housing expenses which includes my houshing sub-categories for "Utilities," "Insurance," "Property Tax," "Maintenance & Repairs." All my utilities expenses are tracked in my spending plan in the "Income after bills & savings" section under "Bills". My Insurance and Property tax are tracked through contributions to Savings Goals also in the "Income after bills & savings" section. But my maintenance and repairs expenses are tracked in my Planned Spending section becuase these expenses are not set and paid for when needed.

To monitor all housing expenses with an eye toward my total Housing budget I have a "Housing" Watchlist that includes all subcategories for Housing. This is where Simplifi can pull all my housing spending for the month and give me a report on how I am doing as the month progress.

OK, that is a lot (I tend to do that). I hope this helps with sorting out how Simplifi works. Keep the questions coming and the community will do our bests to answer.

Palavis

Thanks, Danny for the detailed explanation.

That was a lot of information to absorb but I got it. Will create a category watchlist to track both recurring and flexible expenses :)