Goal "Saved So Far" Not Updating

aolafsson

I created two savings goals, each has their own savings account, and I tied them to their respective savings accounts. The "saved so far" balance is not updating for either of them. Is there anything I'm missing (like how I tied the goal to the account), anything expected in this behavior, or some bug going on for me?

ajbopp

I'm not sure of your process here, but so far as I know Savings Goals contributions and withdrawals have to be manually entered, rather than downloaded from the institution.

aolafsson

Oh, that's a bummer. Re: process, I just set-up the goal and connected it to the account, and was waiting and watching and nothing was happening to the Goal as transactions happened.

I feel like point of connecting a goal to an account is to have it auto-track it, I don't want to have to go in and have to take action each time the account has a transfer in or out or earns it's monthly interest. Sounds like super unnecessary manual reconciliation / makes goals somewhat useless if one doesn't want to manually add transactions.

RobWilk

You can contribute from an account, not connect it so far as i know.

Coach Kristina

Hello @aolafsson,

Savings Goals are somewhat similar to a digital version of envelope budgeting. Creating a savings goal does not affect anything in the real world. Creating Savings Goals in Quicken Simplifi is a bit like creating digital envelopes. When you want to put money in those digital envelopes, you contribute to the appropriate Savings Goal. Please note that this does not move any funds in the real world. It moves the funds only in Quicken Simplifi. For more information about using Savings Goals, you can click here.

I hope this helps!

DannyB

Hi @aolafsson

thought I’d throw in a thought or two on this. As @Coach Kristina points out, Savings Goals are internal to Simplifi. In actuality you don’t connect your real world savings accounts to the savings goal. What you are doing is telling Simplifi where you are holding the funds designated for a given savings goal in your real world accounts. You will have to manually make your contributions in Simplifi. If you set up your SG to include your contribution in the Spending Plan you will find the SG contribution reminder in your Income after bills & savings. Also, Simplifi will remind you to make contributions later in the month if you haven’t already done so.

I have several auto transfers out of my checking account to various savings accounts that like you are set up for different goals. When those transfer ar completed in the real world I go into my Spending Plan and make the contribution. One thing to pay attention to: Simplifi doesn’t currently “remember” the accounts for SG contributions so make sure you designate the correct real world account the funds reside in when you make a contribution.

There are a number of feature request to make SGs more flexible and integrated (at least in the eyes of us users😎) that you can search for and add your vote and thoughts on. Here is an example with links to other such ideas in the comments.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/6453/savings-goals-make-it-track-real-savings-accounts-edited

aolafsson

@Coach Kristina , I totally understand it doesn't move funds in the real world, nor should it ever. I have no interest in it moving funds in the real world. But, when I move funds in the real world, or the account earns interest, I'd like Simplifi to see that and update my goal balance/progress accordingly. i.e. the account earns $10 interest, or I transfer in $500 (from my bank account interface) I don't think I should need to manually enter those transactions on the Goal screen when both the transactions and the overall account balance (goal progress) are right there.

aolafsson

Thanks for sharing the idea to vote for! I've just deleted all my Savings Goals from Simplifi and manually inputted the amount in my Savings Plan to hold for savings; continuing to explore some other platform options. Between this, and not being able to tag more than one account to a single goal, the way Goals are designed here just doesn't work for me. Per that idea, I have a REAL savings account for each goal, 5 of them. Each earn monthly interest, some auto-transfers, and others get manual transfers as I'm checking my cash flow. That's just a lot of reconciliation to add transactions manually when I can just look at the account balance in my account list.

UrsulaA

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/25762#Comment_25762

I agree 100%. I have two accounts that I use for my emergency fund and one brokerage account I am using for a medium term goal. I voted for the various feature requests that will allow using real transactions to track goal progress and including brokerage accounts as options for savings goals. I do not need more work in entering transactions manually for savings goals.

Coach Natalie

@aolafsson, we also have an existing request for a way to automatically contribute to Savings Goals that you may want to check out:

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/947/ability-to-automatically-contribute-to-savings-goals-edited-5-merged-votes

-Coach Natalie