Planned Spending Categories not showing correctly. (edited)

shagazulu

The pic says it all.

Even if I delete the "Health" spending plan category, say, and start over and create a new category, and name it "Health" and then choose my overall "Health" category (which includes "Gym", "Medicine", etc.), the interface will display my "Health" spending plan category as having "0 transactions in Gym".

It shouldn't say "Gym", it should say "Health". That's the big umbrella category I had selected when I set this spending plan category up.

That said, it does seem to track everything in my overall "Health" category, and not just what's happening in Gym, so the numbers are correct, actually. It just is visually wrong.

The same thing is happening for me for 2 other spending plan categories: Food shows as tracking "Fast Food"… and Transportation shows as tracking "Gas & Fuel". And yet when I created these categories, I chose my top level big umbrella items of "Food" and "Transportation"…. not these sub-level items of "Fast Food" and "Gas & Fuel".

Coach Jon

Hello @shagazulu,

Thanks for reaching out! These Planned Spending boxes you attached in your screenshots are given a name based on what you input in the dialogue box when entering them for the first time. If not given a name, they will use the Category you selected as a name instead. For the example you gave for Health, you would have chosen Gym as your category for Health Planned Spending and that is what would be tracked. I hope this helps clear up any confusion!

Thanks,

Coach Jon

shagazulu

Thanks Jon.

No, I wrote in "Health" in the "Expense name (optional)" box… then in the category section, I selected "Health."

Now, if I delete the whole box… as well as any other planned spending boxes that have anything to do with health, and just start over, the very same thing happens. The box title will be Health, but it will show "Gym" at the bottom. It says precisely "0 transactions in Gym."

And, that said, the box is actually tracking correctly, yes… It tracks everything in my big umbrella "Health" category, which includes Gym, and Dentist, Doctor, Health Insurance, etc. It only says "Gym." It should say "Health."

shagazulu

I will add, that initially I might have selected Gym when I was first trying this spending plan stuff out. But then I realized my mistake, that I wanted to track ALL of health in one category… so I deleted and created a new spending box.

So it MAY be that the program is remembering a previous state and incorrectly applying it to my current setup… if that makes sense.

Coach Jon

Hello @shagazulu,

Thanks for your reply! If you click the 3 dot menu in the top right of your 'Health' Planned Spending box, and then click Edit expense series, what category does it say in the dialogue box there? If you could attach a screenshot that would help as well!

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

I have the same error, in my case only with the Food & Dining category.

Here is what it looks like in my account. As with you, my "Food & Dining" category is accurately tracking all my Food & Dining expenses, not just Bars.

Here's what it looks like when I open the Series settings - it shows that I am using the "Bars" category.

But when I try to change it from "Bars" to "Food & Dining" it provides this error, though I do not have any other Planned Spending associated with this category. If I delete the Series and make it again, I get the same error.

In my Categories view, Bars is clearly set up as a sub-category of Food & Dining, not the other way around.

Update: I deleted the "Bars" category to see what would happen, and Food & Dining now shows as a sub-category of "Coffee Shops." Seems to me that it is defaulting to the next alphabetical sub-category of "Food & Dining," though it is interesting that it skipped "Boba Tea." Perhaps because that was a custom category I created?

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu,

Thanks for the information! I suspect that what you may be seeing is a delay issue in the Spending Plan. I would have you delete the bad expenses, log out for a few minutes, log back in, make sure the expense is gone from all future months, and then try recreating it in the current month. Let us know how that goes!

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

I deleted the planned expense series, refreshed, logged out for ~30 minutes, logged back in, created a new "Food & Dining" series, and it is still showing as a subcategory of "Coffee Shops." Still gathering all the expenses correctly for the overall category, but weird that it is now defaulting to "Coffee Shops" instead of "Bars" or the correct "Food & Dining."

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu,

Thanks for the response! I would advise trying a different browser or incognito mode to see if the issue is browser-specific. Additionally, you may try the mobile application as well to see if shows up correctly there. Also, were you able to verify if the deleted expenses exists in the future months?

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

I just deleted the series, confirmed that it was gone on Mobile, checked that it was gone for May, logged into a new browser, re-created the series, and it still shows up as a sub-category of Coffee Shops on both browser and Mobile.

DannyB

@makapuu and @Coach Jon

I have noticed the same "issue" in my Planned Spending categories in which my target amount is for all subcategories under a parent category.

This Planned Spending category tracks all the subcategories of the parent category "Annual Fxd Expns WFS" which includes 4 subcategories one of which is "Auto Insurance."

Just like @makapuu this Planned Spending category is actually tracking all spending in all the subcategories, but for some reason Q-Simplifi has randomly selected one of the subcategories to show in the "# transactions in: " field.

I would expect this field to show the name of the top category or if tracking subcategories to be a dropdown list that shows the number of transactions in each subcategory.

As is, the "# transactions in: " isn't useful and can be confusing if it can't be ignored.

Here is another example:

This Planned Spending category tracks a parent category with four subcategories one of which is "Auto Service/Care" Another subcategory is "Home Maintenance/Repairs. You can see that the "# transactions in: " shows correctly that there are currently 2 transactions in assigned to the Planned Spending category. But notice that the transactions are categorized "Home Maintenance/Repairs" but the "# transactions in: " category is "Auto Service/Care."

Since the functionality is fine, I've been ignoring as a oddity the misidentified category in the "# transactions in: " field. But it would be nice to see this addressed at some point.

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu and @DannyB,

Thanks for the information! I am still unable to replicate this bug on our side. One thing I have noticed is that you are both using custom categories for the examples you gave. Does this same behavior happen with a stock category for you?

Thanks,

Coach Jon

DannyB

@Coach Jon

I have no idea what any of the stock categories are or if I used any stock categories when I first set up my expense categories.

I now have 11 Planned Spending categories. As far as I remember, they all use custom categories. Of the eleven, nine PS categories track expenses in a single expense category. All of these have same category listed in the "# transactions in: [cat name]" field.

It is only the PS categories that track a parent expense category with multiple subcategories that don't know what to show in the "# transactions in: [cat name]" field and appear to randomly pick on the subcategories to list regardless of whether that subcategory has any transactions.

Again, this is not an issue for me, just wanted to show that it's not unique to @makapuu

makapuu

@Coach Jon that's an interesting point - to clarify: is "Food & Dining" not a stock category? I don't remember creating it as a custom category, but maybe that's part of the issue?

In any case, I believe I have figured out and replicated the issue. I'll explain below:

I tried creating a new custom category named "Test category" and a subcategory within that of "Test subcategory" to see if I could replicate the issue, with no luck.

I wondered - if I created "Food & Dining" but nested default categories like "Bars," "Restaurants," etc underneath it, maybe the issue is that stock categories don't work well being sub-categories of a custom category, and that is the crux of the problem?

So, I moved "SDI," a default subcategory of "Taxes" from there and into my created "Test Category," and created a Planned Spending for that category. Lo and behold, "Test Category" now shows "0 transactions in SDI."

Conclusion: there is a bug where default categories show as the main category when nested under custom categories as subcategories, even though it does NOT impact the actual calculations on the Planned Spending page.

shagazulu

Great sleuthing on this, @makapuu

I forgot to tag this post so I haven't been getting any email updates. (I wish this forum just emailed me by default.)

The good news is that the money in these spending categories is being tracked correctly.

Thanks to all for your efforts and communication on this topic.

RobWilk

@shagazulu By following a particular message board you will optionally get all e-mails on that message board

shagazulu

I see the bookmark option. That's what I just did.

However, I created the post, yet I wasn't seeing emails about follow-up comments. Only emails from the moderators, I think. And only the first one he created.

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu,

Thanks for the informative reply. Have you tried deleting one of the expenses in your spending plan, and then trying to recreate it in a seperate browser/incognito mode?

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

@Coach Jon Yes, I attempted that on Friday

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/33832#Comment_33832

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu,

Thanks for the reply. To help us establish why this is occurring for only some individuals, could you please let us know when this started occuring for you, or if this has always worked this way for you, as far as you have noticed? Does recreating the expense in the mobile app produce the same behavior?

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

@Coach Jon Just tried it in the mobile app with the same results. I used the same steps as before, creating a "Test Category" and then moving "SDI" into it. Have you not been able to replicate this issue on your end?

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/33857#Comment_33857

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu,

Thanks for the information. We have unfortunately not been able to reproduce this bug on our end, correct. per my previous inquiry, has this always worked for you this way, or just something you noticed recently?

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

@Coach Jon I noticed it quite a while ago (not sure exactly when), but didn't think much of it until I saw this post by @shagazulu. It's obviously not a deal-breaker and not something I worry too much about, but it is strange. If my "Food & Dining" category is custom, I probably would have done that pretty quickly after I started using Simplifi, which I think was in November(?) or somewhere around there.

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu,

Thanks for the reply! We can do a dataset specific escalation if you would like, but we would need to gather some information from you first, so let us know if that is something you want to do.

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

Seems like it would be helpful to improving the product for users - what would that escalation look like on my end?

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu,

Thanks for the quick response. We would need to know what web browser you use, the OS you are using, and we would need you to send us logs. To send logs you would follow these instructions:

1. Log into the Quicken Simplifi Web App.
2. Select Profile from the left-hand navigation bar.
3. With the Profile menu open, hold down the Option key for Mac or the Alt key for Windows, and then click Send Feedback.
4. Leave all boxes checked, add a brief description of the issue, and then click Send.

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

OK I just sent in the feedback form.

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu,

Thank you for your response. Could we also please know what OS and web browser you are using?

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

I've confirmed the issue on the following platforms

macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

• Safari 17.4.1 (my primary web browser)
• Chrome 124.0.6367.62 (used to confirm the issue)

iOS 17.5 - confirmed in the mobile app

Coach Jon

Hello @makapuu,

Thank you so much for the information. The last thing we would need to know is what Version and Build your Quicken Simplifi is on. This can be found at the bottom of your Dashboard page in the web application:

Thanks,

Coach Jon

makapuu

Version 4.7.1