Payee consistently changed to something incorrect

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txbuckeye
txbuckeye Member

I have noticed many instances where the payee is incorrect. For instance, if I select an individual transaction, I see this at the top of the transaction page:
Appears on your Checking Account statement as PAYPAL INST XFER ***********COLL

However, the payee listed below on the transaction page is something completely unrelated.

I have gone to Settings→Payees and rules - there are zero rename rules. Further, there are no rules that list either payee (the one from the statement or the payee Simplifi changed it to). I have confirmed this is the case for all of the errors I've found - there are no rules that reference the payee listed in the statement. There are also no rules that reference the payee that Simplifi changed the payee to.

Why does Simplifi change the payee at random? I am having a hard time trusting what Simplifi is telling me with such a high error rate.

How do I stop this behavior?

Comments

  • UrsulaA
    UrsulaA Superuser ✭✭✭✭
    edited February 9
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    Below is a link to a related discussion. One of the experienced users and a coach suggested creating rename rules to override Simplifi's renaming.

    Go to Settings→Payees and rules and create some rename rules for the problematic payees. You can also create rules when modifying a transaction from the transactions list.

    Finally, there is a feature request open to display the full statement name in Simplifi

    Simplifi User Since Nov 2023

    Minter 2014-2023

    Questionable Excel before 2014 to present

  • txbuckeye
    txbuckeye Member
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    Hi, UrsulaA!

    Thanks for the reply! I can definitely appreciate the concerns expressed in the "Full Payee descriptions are needed (edited)" post.

    There, it appears that user has payees like this:

    Zelle payment - tenant 1

    Zelle payment - tenant 2

    Zelle payment - tenant 3

    and Simplifi is recording them as:

    Zelle payment

    Zelle payment

    Zelle payment

    To summarize, the payees are identical in source provider, but have different users of the Zelle platform, but all of payee titles are truncated to remove the unique information at the end.

    My situation is not like this.

    My situation is more like this:
    Actual payee: Simplifi changed payee to:
    Billy Bob's Bait Shop and Cardboard Origami Emporium Mad Max's Flaming Chainsaw Juggling Studio
    Tic Tac Toe Training Camp Crazy Louie's Stunt Copter School
    Auntie Em's Ruby Slipper Repair Shop Sharks with Lasers Mega Warehouse

    Clearly, there is no correlation between the actual payee and the payee Simplifi changed this to. Additionally, there are no similarities between the periodicity of the charges or the amounts. Example: Simplifi changed an actual payee of a 3rd party life insurance provider that is paid monthly and is less than $50 to my bank which also provides auto insurance, but is billed every 6 months for hundreds of dollars.

    I checked 4 transactions yesterday and 3 of them were incorrect. I don't know that this is a recoverable situation - I feel like I will not be able to trust Simplifi's payee designations and it seems like a full time job to check every transaction to ensure the payee is correct and adding rules to force the payee for virtually all transactions.

  • UrsulaA
    UrsulaA Superuser ✭✭✭✭
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    I get your frustration. Have you contacted support via the chat in the app? They can engage in more advanced troubleshooting and may be able to help.

    Do you have a lot of unique payees? If you have payees that are used often, the rules help.

    Simplifi User Since Nov 2023

    Minter 2014-2023

    Questionable Excel before 2014 to present

  • ajbopp
    ajbopp Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @txbuckeye it would be more helpful if you provided real examples instead of made up examples.

    Anthony Bopp
    Simplifi User Since July 2022
    Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye

  • txbuckeye
    txbuckeye Member
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    @ajbopp

    I'll group these like this:
    payee from statement (ie actual payee)
    payee Simplifi changed the actual payee to (ie incorrect payee)


    Paypal INST XFER (correct)
    Crossway Bible C Crossway B (incorrect)




    USAA P&C Autopay (correct)
    KoC Life Insurance (incorrect)



    I guess consistency is overrated, so… same payee is changed to something different:
    USAA P&C Autopay (correct)
    Usa auto (incorrect - also, not a typo - correct payee was "USAA" incorrect dropped one of the "A"s, but I guess it's at least closer than KoC Life Insurance…)




    Paypal INST XFER (correct)
    C-6 Disposal Services (incorrect)





    SA Water System Pep Debits (correct)
    Crossway Bible C Crossway B (incorrect)



    Paypal INST XFER (correct)
    City Public Srv Cps Bill (incorrect)


  • txbuckeye
    txbuckeye Member
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    @ursulaA

    I guess I don't know - I mean… I have 3 kids in college and we spend money as fast as I can make it, but I don't know that I have any more payees than anyone else. I have the usual suspects, car payment, Amazon, mortgage, Amazon, school loans, Amazon, shopping, Amazon, apparently a lot of PayPal transfers that I don't really know anything about… then the usual services, trash, water, power, phones, insurance…. I guess I never really thought about it in those terms. I guess I have a lot more payees than a college student, but less than a lot of folks do.

    I'll try pinging support via the app.

  • ajbopp
    ajbopp Member ✭✭✭✭
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    I'venever experienced this sort of inconsistency, so I would agree with @UrsulaA recommendation to contact support directly.

    Anthony Bopp
    Simplifi User Since July 2022
    Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye

  • txbuckeye
    txbuckeye Member
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    @UrsulaA - thanks for the assistance - reaching out to support shortly
    @ajbopp - thanks for the assistance as well. Also, glad to hear that you've experienced greater consistency - that gives me hope.

  • txbuckeye
    txbuckeye Member
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    quick update - it looks like the support option has been removed from the web app:
    https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/5077917-how-to-contact-support

    That help center link is not there.

  • UrsulaA
    UrsulaA Superuser ✭✭✭✭
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    Go to profile and the help option appears.

    Can you try cleaning the cookies and cache and then sign in to Simplifi? I see the help link.

    Simplifi User Since Nov 2023

    Minter 2014-2023

    Questionable Excel before 2014 to present

  • Digital Science
    Options

    I'd just like to chime in and say that I am having the same problem, so this is not an isolated incident.

    Correct: CIRCLE C HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION

    Incorrectly Renamed: Circle K (Fuel)

    It seems like the devs are trying too hard to automatically rename things that don't need to be renamed. I think this might need to be a feature request that instead of doing this kind of thing silently behind the scenes, the detected and renamed transactions either ask for user confirmation prior to committing the change, or at least put something in the rules section about automatically detected and applied renaming so that we can easily override it.

  • Coach Natalie
    Coach Natalie Administrator, Moderator admin
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    @Digital Science, thanks for posting!

    It sounds like the feature request you're looking for is one of the following:

    In the meantime, I'd suggest some manual intervention, as Quicken Simplifi is designed to learn over time. If you edit the incorrect Payee name to the correct Payee name, it should teach the program. However, please let us know if the issue continues to persist for the same Payee(s).

    -Coach Natalie

This discussion has been closed.