Has anyone noticed Past Spending Plans Weirdness in Web App?

SRC54

Starting yesterday with the fix for the calendar, I guess, my past Spending Plans have gone kablooey in the Web App on my Mac. This weirdness is manifested in two ways:

1. I have a transfer in my wife's monthly paycheck and instead of just counting that transfer amount (as it was doing), it treats the whole paycheck as a transfer and so paycheck is counted twice as income.
2. Even though the amounts are actually right, the Planned Spending Bars show unused money (erroneously) and asks me to release the money for spending.

I haven't made any changes as all of this is computed correctly (so far) on the Phone App (I use iOS). Has there been a change in how the Spending Plan treats transfers? I don't think so. I tried to notify support just to see if this was a known issue but they apparently were close yesterday. Said they will reply later to me today. That seems weird too as today is Sunday. I would have expected them to be open more likely on Saturday. And I will be in church when they reply if they do reply.

I didn't post this yesterday because whenever I post a bug, I inevitably find someone else has already so done. I couldn't find something on this so figure no one has looked back over old Spending Plans yet. So please let me know if you see this so I will know it's not just me. Thanks.

UrsulaA

Hi Steve - I just checked my web app past spending plans and they look fine.

However, when my bank account briefly disconnected from Simplifi a few days ago, I got a duplicate deposit, which I deleted and unlinked from the recurring series.

SRC54

Thanks. It is definitely a bug but it may only be affecting me or only affects people who have paychecks with a transfer within it. Also, no one would see it if they don't look back. I think it would affect the current month except this paycheck doesn't arrive until the 31st.

I don't understand why the spending bars for past months are telling me to release funds as they are already released and balanced, which I can see in the iPhone app as well.

I've uploaded screen shots to Quicken support but they've gone AWOL again.

ajbopp

@SRC54 I don't have paychecks with a transfer within it, but I am not seeing any issues with past months.

I suspect Support is in India, so certain allowances need to be made.

UrsulaA

I gotten support from Guatemala. Maybe try again now, the app says support works 7 days a week from 5 am - 5 pm PST.

SRC54

Thanks; it has turned into a nightmare. I had to change my password but my computer and my phone won't recognize it. I did get Quicken Classic to sign in and I can sign into the phone apps, but I cannot sign into Simplifi or to the Community unless I go to my wife's Mac. My Mac (any browser) and Safari on my iPhone tells me my credentials are not any good.

I've rebooted, tried to clear cookies and history but to no avail yet. Even with Chromium.

By the way, I can sign into Simplifi on my wife's computer and though it seemed correct at first, it is now erroneous too. So the problem is definitely with Simplifi. I will have to call Support in the morning and start again.

This is Web App 3.94.1

Weird.

Update: I had to create a new user on my Mac, and that fixed the log in problem and I am back on my Mac. But the bug in the Web App 3.94.1 is real. I will tell you that when troubleshooting for Support, the MFA sign in is a pain especially when it won't let you sign in anyhow. I so wish we could turn off MFA.

Update 2: José from Support texted me back today and has escalated the bug report. I sent him screenshots from my Mac, my iPad etc. I also sent screenshots from the Mobile app, which doesn't have the bug.

SRC54

OK, another update. The Spending Plan for the current month is also wrong. I have already 11-14 transactions in one category having spent over $600 but it only shows $200 spent. In another one I have spent over $145 but the Bar shows just $9.92! This is in the Web App 3.94.1, but it's absolutely correct on the mobile app.

Also, the bars display correctly on the Dashboard. They are only wrong when you go to the Spending Plan module.

UrsulaA

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/25481#Comment_25481

Do any of the categories that have incorrect spending totals contain split transactions? I found such issue this morning. Here is the related thread.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/7134/issue-with-split-transactions-in-the-planned-spending-progress-bar-edited

SRC54

@UrsulaA Yes, I read it and was going to comment. I think it just takes a while to manifest itself. The strange thing is that the Spending Bars in the Dashboard seem to be right. I noticed it right away in the past spending plans but not at first in the current spending plan as I guess I hadn't spent enough to make it obvious until now.

So the bug affects Transfers totals in the Spending Plan and category spending calculations in the Planned Spending. I am sure now they will get a fix later this week.

Thanks for confirming it!

UrsulaA

Yes, Simplifi was quick in fixing recent bugs involving calendar week day displays and selected transactions not displaying a total.

Coach Natalie

@SRC54, thanks for reaching out to the Community regarding this issue!

It looks like your interaction with Chat Support is awaiting an escalation, so the original agent you worked with will be back in touch as soon as there's an update. I saw the screenshots you sent via DM and it definitely looks funky.

I hope they get things fixed quickly for you!

-Coach Natalie

SRC54

@Coach Natalie Thanks! Everything looked great on January 1-2 when I finalized my December Spending Plans and I went back and looked at others as well. That Friday they released the hot fix for the calendar issue in 3.94.1, and I think they inadvertently messed it up then.

SRC54

@Coach Natalie

I am still working with Support on this issue. They did fix in 3.95.1 the problem with the Planned Spending Bars not showing correctly, but the Transfers are still not working correctly.

I have 2 workarounds I am employing. I can make the Retirement Contribution an expense (as long as it is a planned category!) or I can set a custom amount for transfers.

I did find another bug in Set Custom Amount for transfers. It won't let you set it to 0.00. It says it will but it won't change the calculations any. It has to be 0.01 or higher. I haven't reported this latest find yet.

Of course, as I have now figured out, the problem is with all Spending Plans, not just past ones. I just didn't have a paycheck yet in January when I discovered the problem.

SRC54

@Luis Diego Luis, this is my discussion over the problem that you have found with a split transaction with transfers. Up until a few weeks ago, Simplifi did this right in the Spending Plan. Now it is still wrong in 3.97.0 and now wrong in the mobile app as well. As I said that's progress I guess. They can now claim with a straighter face that it is this way by Design. Some design!

This irritates me because when they fixed it last year, I went back and split all my paychecks (the way I do in Quicken Classic) and I got rid of the dummy account where I used to pay the gross amount and then pay out to the different accounts. A total kludge that only bad programming requires. Now, I have had to go back over 28 months and enter Custom Transfer amounts. This workaround is great until Simplifi decides to do away with Custom Transfer amounts.

I cannot tell you how many times I have redone my spending plans. It is a good thing that I am retired and have time to do it.

FYI @Coach Natalie

Luis Diego

@SRC54 @Coach Natalie

Thanks Steve for redirecting me to this post. I did a search before posting mine but I couldn't find the specific issue.
I hope that the level of detail of my example in the other post can help to reproduce the issue.

Simply speaking, for now, and until this is fixed, a transaction that is included in the Spending Plan shouldn't allow for after the fact splitting into accounts or categories that are tracked in different sections of the Spending Plan.

That results in the duplication of the full amount of the transaction, and the average user may not even notice it unless you audit the Spending Plan report (you shouldn't need to). I suppose the way it is coded, it can't separate splits correctly. In my case, the full amount of the mortgage payment appears both as a bill and as a transfer, when it should be divided according to the split assignment.

UrsulaA

@Luis Diego and @SRC54 - you are correct. I posted a link to this thread as well as to @Luis Diego 's discussion for QuickenLee, one moderator of the Simplifi Money sub Reddit to see. Hopefully, that will place urgency to the split re-design that is in the pipeline for this year. Hope your troubles with the spending plan vanish soon.

SRC54

Thanks @Luis Diego for reporting this to Support. Also thanks @UrsulaA for the info she got from Reddit. Support also told me some of that more vaguely that there would be changes in the Spending Plan. These changes always worry me a bit as I fear they will change something I use and I will have to redo all the Spending Plans for the umpteenth time. 😁

UrsulaA

@SRC54 - changes to the spending plan worry me a bit too. I rather not have more bugs on the spending plan. Hope the transfer issue gets resolved, let's get the basics working.