Welcome Mint Users!
Comments
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I get what you are saying on the watchlists. If you have a lot of them then the scrolling to look at each and then remember all the figures as you scroll isn't ideal. I agree that having that all on one page like the Mint budgets was good. If Simplifi could figure out how to do that and include the YTD and Avg Annual that would be cool IMO.
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Hello!
Like many others, I'm am trying out other budgeting apps after learning Mint is shutting down. I am trying several, and so far Simplifi is my favorite, but I'm not yet committed to one.
A few things that would be helpful to have in Simplifi that I and other Mint users loved are:
- The ability to add multiple accounts and investment accounts to savings goals. For example, I use three accounts to save for my son's college, including a 529 plan, a CD, and a savings account.
- Spending plan balances transferring from one month to the next. For example, if I was under my goal in one category for the month, it would add automatically add that amount to that same category the next month, or conversely subtract it from the next month if I overspent. For real life budgeting, where every month won't be exactly identical, this was extremely helpful.
- Notifications about upcoming bills based on information from the billing institution, instead of just based on the recurring events a user has set up.
Thank you!
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As a former Mint user, Simplifi is very lacking for analyzing spending trends. I can't believe that one can't see "averages" per category for the Spending reports. The totals are not useful.
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I've transitioned from Mint. For monthly budgeting, Simplifi is better. It's very easy to see how much I have left to spend this month, based on the budget I've created. I'd like to see quarterly or yearly budgeting as a view option. I have several large bills (water, phone, insurance, and registration) that are only paid semi-annually or annually, but I'm not seeing a way to set that money aside as part of the monthly spending plan. I am new, so maybe I've missed something.
However I'm having some serious issues. I was unable to import any accounts or transactions. I had info in Mint going back to 2008. I'm okay with starting over, but was disappointed that the import did not work. I've also had some issues with categorizing transactions in Simplifi the way I want. For example, I have two credit cards with an existing balance. I want those payments to be seen as bills coming from the current month's spending and not transfers. I've been fighting Simplifi about this for hours. I finally created a custom category and somewhat solved the problem. However, when I deleted the recurring series so that I could recreate it as something other than a transfer, all payment records were deleted and I have no way to recover them. Imagine cleaning up this unexpected deletion in 15 years of imported history on three accounts. That's 540 manual transactions I'd have to create to correct my history. Uncouple deleting recurring series from the individual transactions and give us a trash bin where we can recover deleted transactions for up to 30 days.
These pain points have been significant for a new user. I don't understand why I can't just categorize something as "not a transfer". I understand why it's the default, I also have a credit card I use for daily spending on and don't want to double count those transactions. But that's not what I need for setting up a budget as a new user with existing balances. It seems this common perspective (my credit card with a long term existing balance created years ago should be treated as a recurring bill) was not accounted for in the design.
I will continue using Simplifi, but it has been anything but a smooth transition.2 -
You can see averages if you create a watchlist
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I've used Mint (free) for over a decade and it is significantly better than Simplifi (paid). I had to disable second factor authentication to connect to Citibank WHAT?! and it took me many attempts to link to Lending Club. After a ridiculous # of attempts, I gave up on linking to my 401k. Today I tried one last time to link my 401k and logged in to see a litany of error warning for accounts that couldn't update. The system is SLOW and I expect that it will only get worse as more Mint users onboard. There are millions of Mint users looking for a new personal finance tool. Listen to user feedback and invest in improving your tool. This isn't the one for me. I just cancelled. Good luck to my fellow Minters!
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Hello everyone,
Below is my take on how I selected Simplifi as my preferred personal finance app.
I posted this on Reddit:
I tested Monarch and Simplifi, and went briefly into PocketGuard and Lunch Money. PocketGuard did not have net worth tracking that I could find and Lunch Money did not have a robust category tree to start. Also, Lunch Money does not have a mobile app and the net worth history export requires use of APIs or other solutions as it is not a one click button in the app.
I ended up picking Simplifi over Monarch as it connects to all my accounts and has a nice global transaction list layout. I also got Black Friday pricing despite starting the trial on the produce before that. A support rep quickly hooked me up. I only imported 2022 and 2023 Mint data into Simplifi. The import including Mint categories now made the process much easier. In early November, the Mint categories did not come in and I spent hours recategorizing.
Monarch was great in doing the import from Mint and I migrated the data easily. The transaction list search tools and the rules are more robust than Simplifi's and the balance history import where I could see my true net worth was slick. Also, the export features in Monarch are neat, I exported my transactions and balances easily. I saved the data in Excel.
I am tracking my historical net worth in Excel now as Simplifi only displays 5 years of data on the web version. Other users had said that historical reports run for longer periods in IOS.
However, Monarch could not keep my credit cards negative consistently and the connections to Marcus by Goldman Sachs and Treasury Direct kept breaking. I even got a duplicate transaction for the Marcus account that I just opened. Also, the mobile app in Android is laggy and the transaction list does not sort by amount in ascending or descending order properly. The amount sort goes by absolute value, which makes a $15,000 deposit and a $15,000 withdrawal the same size.
Simplifi provides good value for the price, at $23.94 per year, it is hard to beat.
Update: I like Simplifi's linking of both sides of transfers, investment transaction synch (wish the transactions were downloadable like the rest of transactions), and the link that appears on the original bank statement. I have voted on the applicable feature requests as I saw the items listed here being worked on.
I enjoy this community as well, has helpful info on it.
Simplifi User Since Nov 2023
Minter 2014-2023
Questionable Excel before 2014 to present
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I like this overview. I spent a lot of time testing Monarch and Simplifi before going with Simplifi, too. One thing about the downloads, though. I noticed that Simplifi downloads Category AND Subcategory. They are (if I remember right) delimited by semi colon in the same field but I appreciate having both data points in my download and I can easily separate them into their own fields in Excel. In Monarch I was only able to download the top level Category. This made a difference to me in my decision to choose Simplifi. I wish I had known about the Black Friday pricing, though!!
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Hi - If you are a new subscriber, you can send a message to support and they can work with you. I called support to ask for the discount as I was still in my 3 month trial.
Simplifi User Since Nov 2023
Minter 2014-2023
Questionable Excel before 2014 to present
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Long time Mint user here. Probably 13 or 14 years I think. Simplifi so far seems to be a decent alternative.
Things I like about Simplifi:- I'm spending less time manually categorizing transactions because your rules feature has more option than Mint.
- Ability to link bills/subscriptions with actual transactions and it does it automatically. Although Mint allowed you to create bills it doesn't link to the transactions as they come in.
- I like that Simplifi forecasts income/spending trend based on recurring bills/subscriptions, planned spending, etc.
This is what Mint does that I wish Simplifi did.
- Credit cards - Show Current balance, Available Credit and APR/APY% when you go into a card. Simplify only shows current balance.
- Carry over/under spending plans to the next month (I heard this is being worked on).
- Create a 'one-time' bill or subscription. Simplifi forces me to choose a recurring option i.e., monthly, weekly, etc. Sometimes I'm hit with one-timers that I only want reflected in one month and not show in future months.
- A slider or arrow buttons on each Planned Spending box to adjust the amount w/out having to go in and manually type a new amount. Makes it quicker and I can see the available amount change as I do it.
- Show credit score
Quality of life items:
- Web version: I don’t like that the menu on the left auto-hides and I don’t have the option to pin it so the titles remain visible at all times.
- In the Dashboard, keep the list of account categories collapsed like "Banking" and "Credit". It always reverts to expand all. That would help to cut down on the "noise" and distractions. If I want to see a set of accounts, I can expand.
- Dashboard Account/Category list: Bold or shade the category titles such as “Banking” “Credit” to quickly identify what is an account and what is a category. Plus it'll just look better.
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I've switched from Mint and here are a couple of things that could use improvement.
- Editing individual transactions from the transaction view is painfully slow. Using the View Transaction screen or Bulk Edit is quite quick and easy. Being able to edit a Tag from the transaction screen should be just as quick.
- There is no Android App. I don't know if there is an iOS app or not, but there isn't one on Android.
- HUGE: Data doesn't sync automatically! I have to log-in to have my financial data updated. This makes all email notification pretty pointless and detrimental (it spams me uselessly now) and it makes the first few minutes of logging in a waste of time because the data is not up-to-date.
To me getting #3 done is by far the most important feature that is lacking. I can get by without an App, but it would be good to have that. I can work around #1, but again, there is a method that works well, I'm not sure why this other method doesn't.
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@AkiAki007 There are both Android and iOS apps available. The Android one is pretty good (though I prefer the web app personally).
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye3 -
I just cannot get myself into the following mindset:
- Budget $75 a month for Entertainment
- Spend $50 this month for Entertainment
- Spend $100 next month for Entertainment
To me, the budget is the budget and doesn't fluctuate based on my spending patterns. If I have such a situation, first thing I do is consider how accurate my budget actually is, and adjust accordingly.
If the budget is good, then I take that $25 and put it in a Savings Goal (something like "Over Budget Fund" or whatever), so that I have money available for any over budget situation, such as an unplanned vet bill for one of my cats or something that blows my budget for the month for Pets (I certainly can't compensate for the overage next month by reducing what I spend on Pets, which is mostly food).
I realize I'm in the minority on this view, but that's where I'm at.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye2 -
Allow for the easy import of all the Mint.com net worth history ASAP before it's all gone January 1st 2024!
Give MORE than 5 years worth of reports
Trends: More by month, week, years (just like Mint but better)
Android widgets in the app.
Why is FREE mint.com better than this paid program?
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I may get no further than loading my credit cards. My credit union is not available on the list like it was on Mint. I’ve requested it be added- how long does that take?
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No Android app? I'm using it as we speak. If you search "Simplifi" or "Quicken" it comes right up.
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I am in the minority with your view on the budget. Adjust the budget if it does not reflect spending patterns. Some variation is OK. I do not use budget rollovers either, which is what you are describing in points 1 to 3.
Simplifi User Since Nov 2023
Minter 2014-2023
Questionable Excel before 2014 to present
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"Create a 'one-time' bill or subscription. Simplifi forces me to choose a recurring option i.e., monthly, weekly, etc. Sometimes I'm hit with one-timers that I only want reflected in one month and not show in future months."
This is already available. For the transaction in question, click on the 3-dot menu and select "Mark as one-time bill" and that should take care of it.
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer1 -
Simplifi advantages to mint:
- Spending plan is great (though would be INSANELY better if we could set an annual budget! Month by month is great, but better to have a higher-level plan and view)
- Importing transactions (LOVE THIS!)
- Tags are WAY cleaner. Deliminated when downloaded. Why on earth Mint never did this is a wonder.
- Account, tags, and notes visibility in the transaction ledger is AWESOME!
- Splitting transactions is WAY cleaner than mint.
Simplifi Improvement suggestions:
- Allow for future dated transactions
- trying to match future expenses to the month that they occur in (usually vacations) is very cumbersome. Can't we just have a transaction in the ledger that is future dated?!
- Include Investment transactions in the Transactions tab…we need a central source of truth, with everything!
- Allow for importing and exporting investment transactions
- Sometimes dates import incorrectly from the bank into Simplifi (perhaps because it takes a pending date and then never updates to the final posted date?)
- trying to close monthly books is challenged by this when reconciling to credit card and bank statements. Transactions at the end of a month can post to the next month and then need to be adjusted. Bit of a hassle tracking those down.
- Be able to FILTER TRANSACTIONS BY DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Reports is not sufficient because it splits income, expense and does not include investment transactions.
- Be able to expand all or collapse all grouped time periods in the transactions tab.
- Have some sort of bank/credit card reconciliation feature. Mint did not have this but would beat doing it in excel.
Those are the items off the top of my head. Just did a first month close in Simplifi without Mint. Will post additional items that come up.
Thank you for having such a strong alternative! Simplifi is clearly the leader.
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My thoughts...
- Allow for future dated transactions - In the Transactions tab, you can add a transaction and give it any date you want. I wouldn't want transactions that haven't happened (and may never happen) showing up in the ledger. That's what the Spending Plan is for.
- Include investment transactions in the Transactions tab - Ugh. I get dozens of these things every week. The last thing I need is for them included in my spending transaction list. Leave those in the Investments - Transactions tab where they belong.
- Sometimes dates import incorrectly from the bank into Simplifi - To be clear, what bank is this happening with? And what is happening is that the posted and cleared dates on the bank's website do not match those in Simplifi?
- Be able to filter transactions by date - I personally would find this only marginally useful, but I can see where it might be moreso to others. I'd suggest creating an idea post for this, if one does not already exist. (But keep the investment transactions separate - we don't want cats and dogs living together 😉)
- Have some sort of bank/credit card reconcilliation feature - How would you imagine this would be implemented? What would the user flow be?
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye2 -
Simplifi looks like a good program - it is actually pretty similar to Mint. Unfortunately, it doesn't offer a link to Midfirst Bank Business - only Midfirst personal. The log in for business requires 3 pieces of information rather than the standard 2. I tried calling multiple times and left messages. Also tried to schedule a coach but both times I tried that, no appointments were available. And, of course, I clicked the button requesting a call back. The price for Simplifi is very good but I would rather pay more and have access to tech support. I don't mind getting a more complete Quicken product if I can find out if it will link with Midfirst. Thank you..
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MINT Showed spending averages and rollover amounts both would be great additions to Simplifi
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You get spending averages if you create watchlists. Whatever categories are included in the watchlist will calculate an average per month over the last 12 months.
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Ok. So I was on Mint, I converted to Credit Karma. I hate Karma. Does not have the reports I want. I want to check out your simplifi offer for 1 year free but here are my issues!
- I add an account and it just clocks and clocks. Says Securing connection and never comes back, I tried Chase, Etrade, Fidelity and all did the same.
- I tried to talk to support which is supposedly 7 days, but got a message saying closed.
- I tried chat, which says 3min response, never came back,
- I go to Mint, but I can't download trasactions by account bc my mint account was moved to karma. Download just gives me a full list and Simplifi wants it account by account.
- I am at a loss what to do next. Can you please give me the 1 year to evaluate it and explain to me why its not working for me!
Appreciate it if I can get some help. I used mint for like over 10 years and would love to have some of the features it had!
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Another Mint refugee here; overall, the experience has been good! I used Mint primarily for transaction verification (helped me find fraudulent subscription activity before), spending/net worth over time comparisons, and investments.
- I used the import from Mint by account and most every transaction came over correctly, I loved that it kept the Mint categories it didn't recognize so I could decide where to put them in Simplifi!
- Simplifi account sync was easy to set up and picked up transactions Mint didn't have and wouldn't let me manually enter because it had been over 90 days since I'd run account sync - that was a wonderful surprise!
- UX interface intuitive and fairly similar to Mint, and it has dark mode!The not so good:
- All balances and net worth start from the time I imported so I don't have any historical yearly/monthly spending/net worth comparisons. With all the transaction dates available, balances should not be that hard to calculate.
- Split transactions don't have separate notes for each split item, just one for the whole transaction. This makes it hard for Amazon orders to keep track of how much certain items in the same categories cost over time.
- Reports don't show the transaction notes even though I have plenty of screen space for them. I have to download the csv to see the notes
- Spending report transaction activity for individual categories/tags shows split transaction TOTAL instead of the amount for the category/tag. The pie chart total is correct, but I have to download the csv files and remove the other categories/tags in the split to get the details list with the correct numbers.
- It would be nice if I could remove/reorder the Transactions screen like we can the Dashboard; I am not using Bills & Payments, but it always starts at the top and opened, no option to hide/remove, just collapse.After ~3 weeks of using, I'm happy with the change. And a big thanks to the teams for the fast Mint transition implementations!!
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Please add the functionality to import account balance history (not just transactions) so that we can keep years of Net Worth history from Mint!
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Please add functionality to import account balance history (not just transactions) that shows in the Reports net worth history. Bringing over a decade of net worth history from Mint that will be lost if this is not added. Monarch has already solved this. Simplifi needs to catch up!
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I had used mint for several years. I really do like simplify, particularly since I use both tools as a cash flow and budgeting tool. I did not get terribly involved in sophisticated investment activity because I have a financial advisor for that. It did seem that access to my accounts my bank, and my credit card companies were much more seamless. I did not use any kind of biller function in mint to any great extent and I do find that function and Simplifi to be much better. The other thing that I found to be confusing is I had to go back and correct a lot of uncategorized transactions that were imported as a part of the MINT conversion.
I like the spending plan very much. Although I had to jump through some hoops to figure out how to get my transfers from a trust account into my checking account to appear as income. I am retired and so I'm drawing down on my accounts. And for budgeting purposes, I want that transfer to look like income
The other thing that I think would be good is better integration with the various financial institutions. Since I understand that you use into it on the back end, I'm surprised that you're not using some of the same features to access these different institutions. For example, I don't need for multifactor authentication for my bank to enter in an SMS code that is sent to me each time I log into simplify.
lastly, the Apple card and Apple savings account are a big deal for me and integration like I had with MINT is sorely missed. Please expedite that.
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I just moved over from Mint after 10-ish years with them. Honestly, I wasn't sure I was sticking with Simplifi (Rocket Money was the other contender), but the 1-year trial swayed me. And now that I'm here, I really like what I see so I'll be sticking around after the trial. I did NOT port all my data from Mint because I wanted to start with a fresh slate. I always felt like Mint categorized my spending incorrectly even though I took tedious amounts of time making it right and I didn't want those quirks coming over from Mint. So far so good though with the 3 months of data pulled from my institutions.
Feedback:
1.) Please add Apple Card and Savings support. I know this requires a deal to be struck with Apple, but it's crucial as people are using Apple Pay more and more. I have put in a request with Apple and Goldman Sachs (although they are splitting up soonish).
2.) Add an "amount" match when new rules are made. I find my Venmo transactions getting shuffled into "Transfers" instead of categories associated with naming Rules. For example, we pay our tutor $XXX per week and our sitter $YYY per week. But both transactions are just "Venmo" and I like to put those transactions in their respective "Education" & "Childcare" buckets. It would be nice if the naming rules did that based on name AND amount.
3.) I'd like to see more granular charts. Mint always excelled at showing breakdowns of EVERYTHING, including subcategories. How much money did I spend on "Coffee" vs "Bars" in a week. Correlation graphs really helped me see where I needed to alter my spending behavior week to week and month to month.
4.) Small thing, but I'd like to be able to color code transactions. I use flags for this currently, but it might be useful to some to visually see line items based on colors.
Other than those things, keep up the great work! You've won me over so far.
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As a former Minter, I am pleased with Simplifi's spending plan. I like seeing my subscriptions and bills in one area and the other expenses separate. It is a change from Mint, where everything was listed together. Also, having both sides of the transfers validated helps keep data quality. Mint will categorize transactions incorrectly as transfers and I had to clean it up. I am doing less cleanup with Simplifi.
I see features requested here being worked on. Vote for them below.
Apple Card
Balance History
Rules by amount
Simplifi User Since Nov 2023
Minter 2014-2023
Questionable Excel before 2014 to present
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