Monthly Summary and Transfers

DannyB

Back in May this year (or somewhere thereabouts) the "Transfers & Credit Card Payments" was added to the "Income after bills& savings" section of the Spending Plan. The ability to include transfers and credit card payments in the Spending Plan had been a feature request among a number of users. However, since this feature was added one source of monthly recurring income was moved from the Income area and into the Transfers… area since the income is a transfer from one of my retirement accounts. As a result my monthly reported income has dropped by the amount of this transfer causing great distress for the emoji that signifies how the month turned out. Here is an example from my November summary:

See what I mean, that star emoji is in SHOCK! as well it should be based on the numbers. This example from November is what each monthly summary has looked like since May (or whenever the new Transfers… feature went live.

I am wondering if there is a way to reflect in the monthly summary the income that is now showing up in Transfers. Otherwise, my poor emoji is going to continue to experience distress every month going forward which just can't be good for it's health!

😯😁

Coach Natalie

@DannyB, have you considered setting the Recurring Series up as Income instead of a Transfer? You can then manually categorize the other side of the Transfer (the side coming from your retirement account) using just "Transfer" and then ignore it from the Spending Plan. I think this will definitely give you better results for the Monthly Summary Report. 🙂

-Coach Natalie

DannyB

Thanks @Coach Natalie

I tried doing that the first few months and kept having strange results that I'm still working to straighten out. Those strange results may be because I left the retirement account side as a transfer to my checking account. I'll try setting this up as a recurring income transaction again and make the change you suggest for the sending side.

Flopbot

@DannyB , reminds me of another “Idea Post” that Simplifi implemented - because they really do listen to user feedback. In hindsight, a shocked face is probably a better reaction than an all out frowny face.

@Coach Natalie , that other old Idea - not Danny’s question - can be closed.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2924/make-the-star-a-frowny-face-if-the-net-income-is-negative-on-monthly-summary-report-edited

DannyB

@Flopbot

I remember your request and it's implementation every time I see my poor star with the shocked face.

DannyB

OK, so once again the transfers between my IRA and checking account didn't behave properly.

@Coach Natalie I tried the recurring income series and ignore but Simplifi wants to revert to the default transfer action for both sides and gets confused with my various attempts to override the default.

Soooooo, what I have done is this: I have disconnected from the institution where my retirement accounts are held. This eliminated the whole transfer thing. I was then able to create a recurring income series and then associate all transactions for these deposits in my checking account into incidents of this recurring income series. As a result, my April - December Spending Plans have come into balance.

Disconnecting my retirement accounts from Simplifi is actually something I've thought about doing for a while now since I really haven't and simply don't want to take the time to edit all the investment account transactions for our various accounts… I'm too lazy - no, wait, that's not right - WORK ADVERSE, yeah that's it, I'm too work adverse.

Anyway, I do want to track the total value in these accounts and have them included in my net worth, but I don't need to see all the transactions to do this. To do this I think I can re-add the accounts as manual accounts, add my holdings and then do a monthly or, more likely, quarterly update of number of shares in each account.

Duwain

the monthly summary is good, but it is just one snapshot of time. I would like to see the ability to have a month over month comparison where are you select the portion of your month and then the same for the preceding month. Say you could show from one date from one month to the next date and do the same for the previous month. Just a thought. It would give you a heads up if you are off track.

DannyB

I guess my poor Star emoji is in a permanent state of shock no matter how my month turns out! Or the little critter is amazed that I wasn't as far out of wack as the numbers indicated the past 6 months once my total income got reported properly. 🤣

Coach Natalie

@DannyB, how strange!

Unless the face is reacting to the "1% lower than November" factor, you should see a smiley face. One would think it's based on the Net Income number, though, so yours should definitely be smiling at you! Let us know if you see this again next month; hopefully it's just a one-time thing that corrects itself.

Thanks!

-Coach Natalie

UrsulaA

My star frowned today as my net income dropped in January versus December. Net income was positive, but not as high as it was in December. Looks like the star gets surprised if one does not trend up for a month.

ajbopp

My star is a happy camper as long as I'm doing less poorly than I was a month ago 😂

Coach Natalie

Hmm, it makes me wonder what causes the frowny face, but I'm assuming it's the lower percentage of net income from the prior month based on what I'm seeing.

January was a rough month for us so I'm not surprised to see the frowny face:

-Coach Natalie

UrsulaA

December is the best month I get (bonus), so my star will always frown in January as it returns to the lower net income reality.

DannyB

My Star is appropriately shocked at the negative Net income for January coming in at 116% lower than December!

It wasn't really that off actually… we did some traveling in January that was covered by our Travel Savings Goal funds, and it appears I didn't missed excluding some of those expenses from reports.

DannyB

Looks like my Star has recovered and is once again a happy star brightly shinning in the sky!

UrsulaA

My star is happy in February too. The net income total was higher relative to January.