Budgeting

tragicview

Is there a simple way to follow income and expenses on a month-to-month and YTD basis? I used to be a Mint user and that budgeting utility was quite useful. I like to see line items, not pie charts or line graphs that have no detail in them but only aggregate #s.

DannyB

Hi @tragicview

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to get at or how granular do you want to get? At some point you will be basically looking at your unfiltered transition list if you dig deep enough.

Reports can filter by category, payee, tag and none. Next you can select any date range you want (there are some preset ranges, but this field is completely user modifiable). Next, you can go deeper by clicking on Filters and selecting from among the options available: categories, payee, tag, account, flag. Each of these options presents you with all the possible options for further filtering those filters. If you select Advanced, you will be given even more sorting options.

In the actual report that is generated you may see "Everything else" if your selections surpass the available screen space. If you click on "Everything else" you will be presented with what all is included in "Everything else". If necessary you can keep clicking "Everything else" until you get to the end. In addition, you can click on any line in the actual report to see all the transactions that make up that line.

Reports can get pretty granular but keep in mind that data mining is not, in my understanding, the main reason for using Simplifi though it is handy to have for certain uses.

brokenchord

Hi @DannyB

For me, the reports should not just produce a detailed list of transactions based on a date filter. (I should be able to do that on the Transactions page, but unfortunately that's missing in the web version.)

In Mint, you could display pie and bar charts, but it also showed each monthly value in a list along with the average over the time period, and there was an option to compare those values side by side with monthly values in the previous time period. I could then export the list to use in a spreadsheets for other purposes. This would be useful to help me estimate my spending when I retire, or at least for the next year. Simplifi seems to emphasize comparing the current month to the previous month, which is not useful to me because I have a lot of "lumpy" quarterly, semiannual, and annual expenses/ income. (Maybe this is what @tragicview was asking?)

Simplify shows the pie and bar charts but I have to hover over them to see the values, and I can't do anything to save them. The bar charts are also difficult to read with no horizontal reference lines. They just give you a general idea of the trend.

Coach Natalie

@tragicview, I'd suggest taking a look over our Spending Plan support article to learn how Quicken Simplifi's budget works: https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4212702-using-the-quicken-simplifi-spending-plan

We also have an existing Idea post here that you may be interested in checking out:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/1813/enter-spending-plan-budget-in-table-view

@brokenchord, we also have some existing requests you may be interested in checking out:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/5862/add-a-dashboard-widget-that-shows-last-months-vs-current-months-expenses-for-trends-edited

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/6035/add-a-trends-chart-edited

I hope this helps!

-Coach Natalie

tragicview

Thanks DannyB. Not exactly what I was asking, but helpful.

tragicview

Thank you Natalie; these articles oughta keep me occupied for a while!

tragicview

Here's what I'm looking for folks:

Income;
line items

Total

Spending:

line items

Total

Thanks for your comments brokenchord.