Is there a way to have starting cash on your spending plan

patwil0818

Just starting with Simplifi - moving from Mint. My biggest desire with managing my accounts is to pay off debts. So I have been paying extra towards one at a time in order to get rid of them all. My spending plan for December (first one I did) shows me with about $400 left after everything is paid. However, when I manually plug into a calculator what I have in my account now, what I will get during the month of December, and what my estimated bills and planned spending are, it shows I should have about $3000 left - which would drastically change how much extra I put towards my bills.

So is there a way to have like a starting balance and a rollover each month?

RobWilk

The spending plan has -nothing- to do with your bank balance in any particular account on any given day. The spending plan is just a guide to whether you're spending more/less than the money you received that month. Credit card payments generally don't count towards the numbers there because they're not spending. If you have recurring transactions set up, you can use the cash flow forecast in any account to see what that balance will be in the future (on a particular date, presuming you have no unplanned expenses).

DannyB

Hi @patwil0818

You can create a "Custom income" entry in the amount of your account balance on the day you set up Simplifi.

As @RobWilk points out the Spending Plan operates on it's own using data from your banks to track your monthly income, outflow and transfers. By the same token, the cash flow predictions are based on the recurring transactions you have set up.

Here are a couple of articles to help you with understanding the cash flow predictions.

https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/3357429-using-projected-cash-flow

https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/3625912-managing-recurring-transactions

https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/3352152-how-do-transfers-work

Coach Kristina

Hello @patwil0818,

It looks like Rob and Danny have already answered your questions, but here are a couple additional links you may find interesting:

https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4212702-using-the-quicken-simplifi-spending-plan

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1114/rollover-checking-account-balance-to-spending-plan-3-merged-votes

Thank you!

patwil0818

Thank you for the reply - so I am looking at my cash flow forecast on my bills account and it is showing me as -2000 after my bills came out despite the fact that it is showing me as over 4000 in my actual account (both on my banking app and in simplifi). Why would it be showing a negative forecast?

I tried to enter an opening balance as I saw that was an option but it doesn't appear to show anywhere other than as a transaction.

RobWilk

@patwil0818 If you follow the cash flow chart, you'll see what makes it go up and down (they're marked with big dots), if you hover over the dots, you can see the balance that day and what transactions happen that day that affect it. You can go up to 6 months ahead. I cannot see your data, so i can't tell you what's there on yours.

DannyB

Is all your recurring income showing up on your projected cash flow graph? Also, each of your bank accounts will have a projected cash flow graph and these are unique to each account and not combined. Income to one account will not show up in your other account graphs.