Ability to add a Tag to just one side of a Transfer (edited)

wphenry

If I transfer funds between two accounts being managed thru Simplifi, I see the transaction in account A as a withdrawal and the transaction in account B as a deposit. If I tag the deposit-side of the transaction because I want to track something within account B, the linked end of the transaction on account A also gets the same tag. If I remove the tag from the transaction in account A, the tag on the other end of the transaction in account B is removed.

This is problematic when it comes to watch lists looking at tags because both ends of the transfer show up in the watch list, basically cancelling each other out.

When it comes to linked transactions across different accounts, it would be nice to either allow tags to be set individually at each end of the transaction, or to be given an option when applying a tag to one end, to also have it applied to the other end.

UrsulaA

Will filtering by category (Transfer: Needed Account - can be source or destination account) and needed tag solve this need? I can see the incoming transfers to an account with a tag with this setup.

My source account is Checking, hence I used Transfer: Checking as category and Car as tag.

wphenry

Hi UrsulaA, sorry I just saw you replied.

Unfortunately, your solution won't, at least at this time. Here's the scenario I am trying to work through:

I make purchases from Account A (checking). Sometimes, purchases from Account A will ultimately be reimbursed from a transfer from Account B (savings). Those transactions are tagged, and a running total is accumulated which can be tracked through a watch list.

Midway through the month and at the end of the month, that running total is used to make a transfer from Account B (savings) to Account A to reimburse Account A. The transfer would also be tagged to tie that transfer back to the running total of tagged expenses.

In theory, we want to see the watch list return to zero so it can start over. And then over time, you can see month-over-month the transactions which ultimately were paid out by savings via the checking account.

The issue currently is with both sides of the transfer transaction being tagged automatically, that positive addition to Account A is wiped out by the negative removal from Account B because the watch list only looks at the tag. It creates a wash and all you're left with is the tagged withdrawls in Account A leading to the value showing in the watch list.

And because I can't do a complex watch list (combination of account, category, tag), I can't build a watch list to only look at Account A and the specific tag.

So maybe that's the better option is the ability to build complex watch lists based on multiple criteria. Thoughts?

wphenry

Hi UrsulaA. Sorry for the delayed response. I just saw you posted.

Thank you for throwing out a possible solution. Unfortunately, I don't think it will work for my use case. Let me explain the use case and see if it helps to better understand the ask and/or find a better solution.

I make purchases from Account A (checking). Throughout the month, there will be instances where I want the ultimate cost of an expense to come from my savings account (Account B). There is no rhyme or reason from one month to another on when or how many of those transactions will happen.

There is also the legal limit on the number of withdrawals you can make from a savings account per month before it gets converted into a checking account. Because of this, I limit my transfers from Account B to Account A to just twice a month (midway and end of month). This means I need a mechanism for tracking the total accumulation of transactions spent from Account A that will need to be reimbursed by a transfer from Account B.

Rather than doing this through another tool/place outside of Simplifi, I turned to tagging the transactions in Account A and using a watch list to report on those accumulations. The idea being as a deposit (transfer) is made into Account A, that watch list should balance out to zero, thus confirming I transferred in enough to cover the tagged transactions. This can also show a month-over-month view to keep a history of these transactions and the offsetting transfers.

The problem that is happening is since both sides of the transfer are auto tagged, they both show up in the watch list, thus cancelling each other out which means the watch list always shows a negative spend, which is inherently wrong for what I am trying to do. Yes, I can manually do the math and show the transfer truly offset the spend, but if I am having to do that, then I should just do this completely outside of Simplifi.

If I create a special category to track these expenditures from Account A and then categorize the deposit in Account A too, then I lose the ability to see where those transactions actually fit into from a category perspective. For instance, if the category of the expense is truly Auto Repair and I instead gave it this custom category to track it, then when I am looking at my total Auto Repair over time, I would get a flawed answer. The watch list looking at that custom category would show accurately as it sees the expenditures and the deposit(s) balancing out, but my auto repair spend would be wrong.

I also can't look at just the account because of all the other "noise" that has nothing to do with this watch list.

The limitation is with the watch list only allowing singular filter types (account, category, tags). If I could create a complex watch list (account = Account A, and tag = "xyz"), then I could get the same end result and the auto-tagging of both ends wouldn't matter a bit.

Anyways, I hope this adds more clarity and helps identify if this ask is the right one, or if there is a better solution we should/could be driving towards.

Thank you for the help.

UrsulaA

Thanks @wphenry - I am glad you can get transfers to display on a watchlist. Other than what I proposed, I do not know how to fit your use case. Maybe the rollover budget, which is coming out in the next few weeks will help.