Why aren't bills/subscriptions in the same category reconciled during the same month?

LynnDee

Not sure if I'm asking this question correctly. I have two different expenses in one category, New York Times , one is an expense and one is a credit. To reconcile my budget, I have to manually calculate the amounts for a monthly total. Unlike my spending plan, where it lists all category transactions in one place and gives me a total amount spent.

I also experience this with Apple - I have three recurring charges, two in subscriptions and one in bills, and although they are all in the same category, the transactions are listed separately so I don't see a total spend.

Below, I want to see a total expense for NYT = $26 for the month, how can I set this up? Thanks!

ajbopp

I'm not sure why you are getting a credit from NYT, but I would assume it's a refund, in which case you can track it with the Refund Tracker, though I don't think there will ever be any single line item for "Total Spent/Credited: $26." These are separate transactions and Q-Simplifi is set up to treat them that way, rather than provide a total that you have to drill down into in order to see the details of.

The more interesting (to me) scenario is when you don't treat a credit as a refund. Suppose I win a contest or something and get a $50 check or gift card from Amazon. I'd be tempted to add that as a credit from Amazon. But after doing a test of that scenario, I went to the Spending Report and filtered on Payee for Amazon, and the credit does not display there, only the bills. I haven't thought this through enough to decide if it's a bug or not.

As for you Apple case, I have a similar situation with Amazon. Several subscriptions and several things that are bills. I can't see a grand total even in the spending plan because there's no common thing to filter on. I've had to rename all my Amazon subscriptions to something like "Amazon - Cat Treats" in order to get transactions to be attached to the Spending Plan correctly when they are downloaded, so I have like a dozen different Amazon Payees and there's no good way that I've found to sum them all up.

UrsulaA

I wanted to see the total of my planned spending and bills to see how I did versus what I estimated. I created a watchlist and added a target.

If you want to see a total by payee per month, the web app provides a breakdown by payee. Select By Payee next to the breakdown category.

If you click on any of the payee boxes, you will see a total by payee on the transaction list below. With your settings, you will see a total for New York Times on one of the boxes.

DannyB

Here’s something you can try. Instead of setting the transactions you want a total for as recurring bills/subscriptions, set up a Planned Spending category for them. You will need some way to i’d them for that category and create a rule to automate the process.

LynnDee

Thank you for the thoughtful responses! I might try the watchlist but will probably move those categories to my monthly spending plan which is how it worked in Mint (RIP). Don’t really see the value in marking recurring charges as bills or subscriptions.

NYT credit is a perk through AmEx 😃