Add a comparison view to Watchlists (edited)

Max1223

It's great that a watchlist shows the last 12 months of expenses. I'm coming from another product and used the compare to last year feature a lot to see month over month from this year to last year. Each column would show this years expenses next to last year's along with totals from the year and monthly averages from this to last year.

It's helpful if you are attempting in cases where you are trying to reduce or maintain spending in a given category.

Thanks

UrsulaA

Hi, while this feature sounds nice, I prefer to have this option in the report area. I believe the comparison option will be more flexible versus a watchlist for me. Thoughts?

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/2736/reports-add-all-time-range-and-by-year-display-option-for-annual-comparison-in-all-reports

Max1223

@UrsulaA Here’s what I like about Watchlists:

1. Saved lists: You can instantly see specific lists with one click, vs having to set up a category and filters each time in a report
2. 12 month view in one click default: to get a 12 month view in reports, you need to go through several clicks. For example create a list of your groceries in a 12 month window, viewed over time. In watchlists, once saved, it’s one click. I believe there is a request to add a single click last 12 month view in Reports, but you still have several clicks to get to a bar graph, over time and with specific categories. Because these Reports aren’t saved, you have to do this everytime to view a different Tag or Filter.
3. Goal line: Watchlist gives you a goal line, Reports do not
4. Average Monthly: Watchlist calculates a monthly averages and reports currently months spent so far.

Upon opening the Reports tab, the design of Reports seems to emphasize looking at multiple categories this month by presenting this month, in a pie chart. I think this is important view to have. But then digging deeper requires many clicks. This is where Watchlists seem to come into play, I’d love to see added flexibility of adjusting the dates in the watchlist.

In some ways, if you could “save” a report, in any specific view I’ve created, then I would get what I’m asking for (outside of point 3 and 4), but it seems that Reports and Watchlists aren’t integrated like some other products do.

Thanks for the question, thoughts?

Max1223

@UrsulaA hello, so the link to the other post got me confused and I thought you were asking about adding time to watchlists. I’ve coped my response to my other thread.

UrsulaA

You make good points. We should keep this request going. I like the goal line, which the reports do not have.

Max1223

@UrsulaA for the same reasons above regarding the request to add custom dates, this is why I’d want comparisons built into Watchlist. I’ll use the grocery example again:

1. I want to view monthly grocery expenses over the last 12 months. Reports forces me to go through several clicks, each time I want this view.
2. In watchlist, once the view is saved, it’s one click.
3. From there, I would like to add a comparison view month to month
4. And be able to change dates.

I requested to see this in Watchlists because of point 1, needing to reset this view everytime in Reports. It seems like Reports and Watchlists (call them Saved Reports) could be combined for simplicity but for whatever reasons, they are two separate sections and don’t share features like custom dates, goal lines, etc.