Excess spending in "planned spending" categories not reflected on Spending Plan summary screen

tdpmd

I find it very helpful to use the Spending Plan to see how much I've spent this month and how much money I have remaining in this month's budget. However, today I encountered what I believe to be a bug.

It appears that exceeds spending in a planned spending category is not reflected in the Spending Plan.

Example:

Suppose income after bills is $5000

Planned Spending: $500 on restaurants

Other Spending: $0

Spending Plan will reflect $4500 available to spend this month.

However, if you spend $1000 at restaurants, the spending plan screen will still reflect $4500 available. The extra $500 does not affect your available balance unless you manually increase the planned spending amount for restaurants this month. I'd like to be able to take a quick glance at the spending plan when contemplating a new purchase. However, in the case above, the user may erroneously believe they have more money to spend than they actually do.

Recommendation:

Excess spending in a "planned" category is, by definition "unplanned," and should be reflected in Other spending. Failing that, it should at least increase the "planned spending" amount to accurately represent to the user how much money they have left to spend.

Coach Jon

Hello @tdpmd,

Thanks for reaching out! The available to spend amount should reflect excess spending in your Spending Plan. I was unable to replicate the bug on our side. Are you able to try a different browser/incognito mode to see if it calculates correctly there?

Thanks,

Coach Jon

tdpmd

I did this in the app. I made a video demonstrating. Is there a way I can share it?

tdpmd

Here are relevant screenshots. In the first picture, note $3983.37 available to spend, with $3215 in planned spending.

In the second picture, note that I had allocated $200 for clothing, but had spent $1703. After I took the second picture, I deleted the clothing category from planned spending.

In the third picture, note that planned spending has decreased by $200 (the amount allocated for clothing). Other spending has increased by $1703 (the amount actually spent on clothing). Most importantly, note that my available to spend has decreased by $1503. This reflects the extra $1503 spent on clothing that was not being properly reflected before.

Coach Jon

Hello @tdpmd,

Thanks for the response. What shows when you click on the Other Spending tab? Is there a transaction for $1703? Does this show the same in the web application?

Thanks,

Coach Jon

tdpmd

No, there is no transaction for $1703. The $1703 spent on clothing was from multiple transactions, all of which appear in Other Spending since I deleted Clothing from Planned Spending. Appears this way on the web now, as well.

Coach Jon

Hello @tdpmd,

Thanks for the reply. What category are the transactions that are in Other Spending under? A screenshot showing those transactions may be helpful here.

Thanks,

Coach Jon

tdpmd

See the 3 clothing transactions.

Coach Jon

Hello @tdpmd,

Thanks for the reply. Deleting the Planned Spending Expense will cause the transactions under that category to go into Other spending. This is as designed for Quicken Simplifi.

Thanks,

Coach Jon