New to Simplifi

Prandrews1

I am struggling with Simplifi, I'm no spring chicken but my learning style is out of date. My background is aviation and when it comes to mechanical things there isn't much I can't do and while I've come a long way technology wise but Simiplifi is giving me fits. I'm trying find something or someone to help simplify Simplifi. I'm looking for steps, connecting the dots, … etc. I'm looking for is simple instruction in operation and the steps required to get this, or that, etc. If you want this result, these are the steps; A,B,C . To get that result these are the steps D,E,F.

I worked with Tech support and while I give everyone I've spoken with exceptionally high marks, there was a bit of a commination barrier, probably more on my part. If someone wants to help get me over this bump in the road, please respond.

Coach Kristina

Hello @Prandrews1,

Welcome to the Quicken Simplifi Community! To better assist with step by step directions, could you please provide specifics on what you need help with?

I look forward to your response!

Prandrews1

Hello Back! and thank you for the welcome!

I have the very basics of Simplifi, I set it up and connected my accounts, created tags and categories. With my car payment because I can't connect my account, Ford Motor Credit doesn't allow it, so I manually created a car loan which allows me to track the loan balance. On my wife's car I can connect the account but only track the balances.

In a nut shell I want to create a simple budget to track our spending. I want to be able open the spending plan and see how I'm doing, like I went over this month on entertainment or it looks like we're spending dining out, or …… When I noticed somethings, like car payments, electric bills weren't getting picked up in my spending plan I called tech support. To be honest, I have a hearing deficit and we had a communication issue, I apologized but the fact was, I had a difficult time understanding the person and let him know politely. He worked with me but I was having a difficult time explaining what I wanted. We finally were communicating and he helped me fix some issues but I couldn't remember how he did it and I'm lost. I don't pay bills with checks, everything set up on autopay. I still have figured out how fix the electric bill and a few other things. What it boils down to as I found out, it doesn't flow the way I thought it does and consequently, things don't get accounted for and I'm lost.

Sorry I'm so long winded but for a guy who is a licensed aircraft mechanic and spent 20 years flying as a Professional Flight Engineer (a systems guy like Scotty on Star Trek), I'm stumped and frustrated, I look at some of the help articles and I cringe. I was always good at trouble shooting and handing mechanical and electrical issue because I knew how to connect the dots, not so with Simplifi.

Again, sorry for being long winded, as I said, I'm frustrated. Thank you for your time.

Coach Kristina

Thank you for your reply @Prandrews1,

To help figure out why those bills/payments are not showing up in your Spending Plan, could you please provide information about how the transactions for those bills/payments are documented in your Quicken Simplifi? Do the transactions download into your Quicken Simplifi, or do you enter them manually? What category do you see assigned to the transactions?

For example, in the screenshot below, I have a bill that doesn't show up properly in my Spending Plan because it is Uncategorized.

To get it to show up correctly, click on the category dropdown.

Then, scroll to the appropriate category/subcategory.

Click on the category (and subcategory, if appropriate) to select it. That will update the transaction.

I look forward to your reply!

Prandrews1

I do not manually enter any of my bills, all my bills: electric, water & sewer, car payments, are set up to be paid with auto pay from my checking account. Additionally, all my accounts, except utilities (water, sewer, electric and cell phone) are linked to Quicken Simplifi so I can download all transactions so I can categorize and track my purchases.

So basically my checking account shows all my income and all my payments, while my credit cards show all transactions including payments.

But for some reason, some things aren't being tracked in my spending plan. Something is definitely not set up correctly and without a whole lot of digging, sorting through and comprehending ALL the stuff, I really am at a loss to know which "switches" have to be turned on or off and what "valves" need to be adjusted to make this work.

Coach Kristina

Thank you for your reply @Prandrews1,

To help track down what is going wrong, please provide additional information. Which section of your Spending Plan are these transactions failing to show up in? Should they be in Bills and you're not seeing them there? Are they supposed to be in Planned Spending? When you click on Other spending, are you able to find the transactions there?

It may be helpful if you can include screenshots (with any personal information redacted).

Thank you!

Prandrews1

I have no bills, subscriptions, transfers and credit card payments, but I have all those things in my register. I'm scratching my head on this. I did find errors on my categorizing. I'm going to have to go in and organize and tag better.

I clearly don't have this set up properly.

Coach Jon

Hello @Prandrews1,

Thanks for the follow-up! It sounds like you have not yet set up any recurring bills and subscriptions in Quicken Simplifi. When they are set up, they will appear in your Spending Plan under the sections @Coach Kristina mentioned. Bills and Subscriptions are recurring transactions in Quicken Simplifi that you have marked as such in your register. Here is a great article explaining how to manage your recurring transactions: https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/3625912-managing-recurring-transactions

As for transfer and credit card payments not showing up in the Spending plan, you will definitely want to make sure those transactions are categorized correctly in your register. Credit card payment transactions should be categorized as 'Credit Card Payment', and transfers should be categorized as 'Transfer' or as the account you are transferring to. https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/3352152-how-do-transfers-work

Hopefully, this clears up any confusion!

-Coach Jon

Prandrews1

Thanks, I will set some time aside to straighten this out. Now, in my check register I have been categorizing transactions, like my water bill, will there be a conflict as far as tracking is concerned?

Coach Jon

Hello @Prandrews1,

No there should not be any conflicts when it comes to marking recurring transactions as bills or subscriptions. In the case of your water bill, you would just mark it as a recurring bill and you could keep the category the same.

Thanks,

Coach Jon

Prandrews1

Jon,

I appreciate your assistance. I'm still having problems getting everything in sync. I'm looking at my liabilities and I have a manually entered car loan because I can't connect to Ford Motor Credit. I also have another loan for my wife's Jeep, Simplifi is connected to that account but it will only provide the loan balance. All car loans are paid from my checking account automatically so I have a record but one car payment doesn't show up a s liability. I'm going to have to dissect "getting started with Simplifi" I know what I'm looking for, I just don't know how to configure it correctly. My background is mechanical, not bookkeeping or accounting so I may not be proficient in the proper setup and organization to sync everything.

Coach Jon

Hello @Prandrews1,

Thanks for the reply! When you connect your liability accounts in Quicken Simplifi, you will not see transactions downloaded into the connected liability account, but Quicken Simplifi will update the liability balance as changes are made to the balance on the bank's website.

If you cannot connect your online liability accounts or you just want to manually track your loan accounts, you certainly can! Hopefully, this information helps answer your liability account question.

Thanks,

Coach Jon

Prandrews1

Liability I have down pat it's Bills and Payments that are not in sync. The only thing Bills and Payments is tracking is income everything else is empty. I have fixed recurring car payments, electric bills and water bills. While my credit card payments are recurring, the payment amounts fluctuate. I'm going to have to dig to make sure I'm accounting things correctly.

Coach Jon

Hello @Prandrews1,

Thanks for the reply! I'm glad you have your Liability accounts accounted for and working. If you ever need more advanced support, where you would be able to screen share with an agent, you can always contact our support directly via chat or phone: https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/5077917-how-to-contact-support

Thanks,

Coach Jon

Prandrews1

It's Bills and Payments that are not making sense.

Coach Jon

Hello @Prandrews1,

Thanks for the reply. We do have an article explaining how to use Bills & Payments in Quicken Simplifi here: https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4109588-using-the-bills-payments-section

Please let us know if you have a specific question regarding Bills & Payments. Additionally, like I stated prior, if you need more advanced help that requires screen sharing you can contact our chat or phone support directly.

Thanks,

Coach Jon

Prandrews1

Thank You!