Splitting up recurring income?

dustinniles
dustinniles Member
edited January 2023 in Bills and Income
Say I get $700 every two weeks from a freelance gig I do. Since that income does not have taxes taken out, I transfer about 1/3 of it to a savings account for tax time. I don't consider that "money I can spend" so I'd like to hide that part of my paycheck from my spending plan and reports. I know you can split transactions into different categories, but as far as I know you can't hide one part of the split from SP/reports, only the whole thing.  Is there a way to divide that income so that part of it is hidden from my spending plan and reports? Or a workaround that would essentially do the same thing? Thanks for any and all suggestions. 

(Also I've contacted my employer and they will not split my direct deposit into two bank accounts, so I have to do it myself.)

Best Answers

  • DannyB
    DannyB Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Answer ✓
    Hi @dustinniles,

    Here is the idea that comes to mind for me regarding your question.
    • First here is a help article about entering a paycheck in Simplif if you want to track your deductions.
    • Based on this article I set up a Test income transaction in my checking account.
    • My test income deposit will be $1,000.
    • 1/3 of $1000 is about $333 that I want to transfer to savings and leaving $667 to go into checking.
    • I entered $667 into the amount field and created a split for the categoriey.
    • For the sake of this test I selected "Paycheck" as my first category.  If you have an income account for your freelance gig you can choose that for your first category.  I entered the full amount of the paycheck in this category - $1000
    • The second category I selected is Transfer>[Savings Account] where [Savings Account] is the savings account you want to transfer the "deducted" money to.
    • By choosing to transfer the tax money to your savings account Simplifi will automatically ignore this part of your transaction from your spending plan and reports.
    • You will have to "move" that money into a Savings Goal for your taxes if you want to hold it aside in Simplifi.
    Here is a screenshot of the test transaction I set up.
    • When you first set this up the two Visibility choices will remain unchecked. 
    • Once you save it the transfer portion of your deposit will be ignored from both the Spending plan and reports.
    • I do not know how Simplifi will handle the actual bank transactions once you make the transfer at your bank of the tax portion of your deposit and they are downloaded into Simplifi.
    • If that savings part of the transaction does not exist when you set up this split you will be notified by Simplifi that the transfer to your savings account does not exist and you will have the option to have the deposit created by Simplifi.
    • If you have already made the transfer to savings I don't know if Simplifi will make the connection, but you should be able to match it together somehow.

     

    Hope this helps. :smile:
    Danny
    Simplifi user since 01/22
    Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer
  • Coach Natalie
    Coach Natalie Administrator, Moderator admin
    edited December 2022 Answer ✓
    Hello @dustinniles,

    Thanks for posting your inquiry to the Community!

    It looks like @DannyB provided some steps for you to try to see if you can accurately reflect these items in the Spending Plan. I did want to clarify that although this is a great route to take, Simplifi will not ignore just the split part of the transaction that's a Transfer. Simplifi cannot ignore part of a split transaction, so it will either include or ignore the entire transaction in the Spending Plan (when included, you'll see the gross amount calculated in the Income section, and both sides of the Transfer in Other Spending). 

    To resolve this, I was able to ignore the income side of the Transfer (the portion that is being transferred into the savings account), and this seemed to accurately reflect the transaction and amounts in the Spending Plan. It looks like ignoring just one side of a Transfer from the Spending Plan only works if the transaction in the "from" account is split, so this route should work for you if you're splitting the transaction (please see here otherwise). 

    I'd also suggest adding your vote and feedback here for the ability to ignore part of a split transaction from Reports and the Spending Plan. :smile:

    -Coach Natalie

Answers

  • DannyB
    DannyB Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 2022
    Forgot about the not being able to ignore part of a split issue.  I went back to my bank registers and saw that the part of the split that went into my checking account was ignored.  I edited it to be seen and then went to my savings register which was now being seen and clicked the 3 dot menu and marked it ignore.  Went back to the checking register and it remained seen.  So yeah, there is a bit of editing that needs to happen.  I've already added my vote to the feature request referenced by @Coach Natalie
    Danny
    Simplifi user since 01/22
    Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer
  • @DannyB @Coach Natalie Thank you so much for your help!! This has been a great resource. I forgot that transfers are a category. I will try this as soon as my transfer transaction comes through, as it looks like Simplifi wants to link the transfer to a transaction and I don't want to manually create one and then have a duplicate. But from what I can tell, this should work! I suppose I'll be back in case it doesn't  :D

    And thanks for letting me know about the feedback vote, I will certainly be voting for it as it seems like it would simplify this process a bit and add a little more flexibility. Once again thank you thank you thank you!
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