Update next reminder amount for credit cards automatically using the account balance (edited)

y11
y11 Member ✭✭✭✭
edited November 2023 in Feature Requests

Please consider for users to be aware of credit card payment due, adding feature to set recurring series with balance as of specified X date after specified Y days.

For example, I want this series to evaluate on 12/05 the balance then create payment reminder on 12/30 with the balance.

160
172 votes

In Progress · Last Updated

We are working on implementing a solution for this!

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Comments

  • Coach Natalie
    Coach Natalie Administrator, Moderator admin

    @y11, thanks for posting your suggestion to the Community!

    I'm not sure that I understand your request; can you provide some additional details, please? For example, what would Quicken Simplifi evaluate to get the balance? If the credit card is unable to be connected via Bill Connect, how would Quicken Simplifi obtain this data (I'm assuming this is what you mean by "without biller dependency")? If this is something you'd set up yourself, would it be an option under the Recurring Series, or how exactly would that look?

    The more details you can provide when requesting a new feature or enhancement, the better! Since you want your idea to gain traction, you'll want to give a clear picture for both users and our product team.

    -Coach Natalie

    -Coach Natalie

  • RobWilk
    RobWilk Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭

    I'm going to vote for this, but I can imagine it can get kind of complicated deciding how and when to set up this functionality - where and how would you prompt for it and explain it (you might not want this on all accounts. You need to prompt for the approximate day of the month the statement ends and then decide what day of the month you want to schedule that payment for each month. Even then, the actual dates can change month to month — things like weekends can affect them; also, with some banks, it's every 30 days other banks are a day of the month).


    Rob Wilkens

  • y11
    y11 Member ✭✭✭✭

    On second thought... I have total of 20 to 30 credit cards I use including ones I occasionally use (keeping them for benefits) so this would add noise that I need to be aware of and take away attention. Ideally this "smart" series should know NOT to create reminder instance for given month if balance is zero (or positive).

  • DannyB
    DannyB Superuser ✭✭✭✭✭

    Sometimes it feels like this whole thing is being way over thought and being made way more complicated than it really is or needs to be.

    If one is managing their finances appropriately (i.e. expenses are less than income for whatever period of time one chooses to set (In Q-Simplifi the time horizon is monthly). I have a highly predictable amount of monthly income. This has been the case all my working life going back to 1968 and even before if I count my paper route. By the same token I have had fairly stable monthly expenses. Both income and expenses have certainly changed through the years and for most years income exceeded expenses.

    Q-Simplifi is set up to give you a way to capture all your routine, recurring income and expenses on a month-to-month basis. These are broken down into fixed expensed and flexible expenses. Monthly bills and subscriptions (however you want to distinguish the two) along with the ability to set up contributions to any type of savings you want to do monthly. You can now even include transfers and credit card payments if these actually impact your monthly inflow or outflow. Flexible, but predictable monthly expenses such as transportation costs, groceries, find a home in the Planned Spending section where you can set the limits you want or need.

    When it's all added up and adjusted you are given a bottom line for the upcoming month and the opportunity to make adjustment as needed to make you monthly financial life balance out.

    If you are using CCs to pay for some or all of your spending plan, the credit card account that is expressly used to pay for routine monthly expenses and is fully paid off each month is not a separate expense - it is simply an extension of your cash accounts. @y11 , for example, uses credit cards - and lots of them it appears - for the rewards and benefits the credit card companies offer to incentivize us to use them. These incentives are meaningless if you don't pay off the balance monthly thus avoiding the exorbitant interest charges. They give us a little bit of what the merchant pays them to make a credit card service available to the consumer, but hey, whatever it takes, right? Now I'm overthinking this!

    OK, I also pay a number of bills through my credit cards for much the same reason as @y11 . But using the CC means I didn't take that cash out of my cash account and send it to my biller. Nevertheless, Simplif notes that a bill was paid and doesn't care how I paid it. The cash I need to cover that expense sits in my cash account until I decided to bring my CC account current. Then I send the cash I would have sent to the merchant to the CC company instead because they have already sent money on my behalf to the original biller. Thus a payment to my CC is not and expense. It's just a shuffling of money from a Pay-before-you-play account (cahs account like checking) to a play-now-pay-latter account (i.e. credit card).

    Therefore, I pretty much know what my cc balance is going to be every month since that balance reflects my normal everyday spending that I track in my Spending Plan and, as stated earlier, is and has been very stable for many years (taking into account of course increases in income, expenses due to inflation and rising level of lifestyle related to the income increases and other factors that for the most part are predictable enough to be able to use something like Q-Simplifi's Spending Plan.

    The feature @y11 is requesting may be useful but not sure how necessary it would be for someone who uses CCs responsibly.

    Danny
    Simplifi user since 01/22
    Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer
  • MtnCreed
    MtnCreed Member ✭✭✭

    Not all credit card providers, such as Chase Bank, support bill connections to automatically set the bill reminder based on the amount due. This makes it challenging to see your checking projected balance, when major credit card bill payments are missing.

    To solve the issue of not being able to connect providers via bill pay, it would be great to have a type of calculated bill reminder that would have the set amount based on what the credit card balance was on a certain day of the month.

  • DannyBoy
    DannyBoy Member ✭✭

    Even accounts that are supposedly supported—available through the "Connect Biller"—do not manage to actually connect; I already tried three different accounts, all hanging on "Trying…" and then ending with the red "We're working on…"

    I really wanted to like Simplifi but this is frustrating and dissapointing.

  • Josh_Currier
    Josh_Currier Member ✭✭✭

    So to add something to this and hopefully bring some clarification, from what I am understanding is the following.

    People would like to see their credit card payment reminder amount linked based on the balance that is being show on their cc account at any given time. This allows for accurate cash flow planning as not everyone has a ton of money sitting in their checking account.

    Example: I pay my credit card off every week, so if I have a reminder setup to pay the credit card. That reminder amount would be at zero until the credit card starts showing transactions then the payment amount would update based on the current credit card balance.

    AS A SIDE NOTE: THERE IS A PRODUCT THAT ALREADY DOES THIS AND DOES IT VERY VERY WELL THAT YOU CAN STEAL THE CODE FROM 😀 QUICKEN FOR DESKTOP HAS HAD THIS FOR YEARS. It was one of the biggest features i missed when switching from quicken desktop to quicken simplifi. Look at the "estimated amount" section on that software. there is an option for estimate amount based on current balance.

  • DannyBoy
    DannyBoy Member ✭✭

    Not quite, @Josh_Currier

    Your scenario notwithstanding (kudos for paying every week!), I personally am looking for the simple aggregation of CC bills into the platform, just like any other bill, and like I had on Mint. In detail: whenever a CC account sends the monthly statement that bill is captured with (1) due date, (2) due amount per the statement, (3) minimum amount per the statement, in addition to (already existing on the platform) the running current balance.

    This way I know by which date I have to pay the latest statement, and choose how much to pay as long as it's at least the minimum. It's beyond me how this has been a simple and powerful functionality of Mint since its inception and doesn't exist here; this "Quicken Desktop" you're mentioning, is that Quicken Classic? I would gladly upgrade if that is in fact the case.

  • Josh_Currier
    Josh_Currier Member ✭✭✭

    @DannyBoy

    Yeah "quicken classic" is another tool owned by them. In some cases, i wouldn't say it's an upgrade. It is a more robust tool in some ways because it has been around for decades. (it's what i used before simplifi). downside is it really is desktop based with not the best web app. You have to install it locally. It does a lot of things better than simplifi and gives more options but simplifi IF its framework works for you has some advantages in how it displays the data as well as it is web based and seems to get features added to it so its SLOWLY catching up. But it wouldnt hurt if you want to try it. There are tons of youtube videos on "quicken" that might give you the answer beforehand.

  • Josh_Currier
    Josh_Currier Member ✭✭✭

    @DannyBoy

    Also to answer your questions now that i understand it better i don't think even quicken classic handles credit cards the way you are wanting, i would still double check but i dont recall a way to have it setup that way. Sorry for not understanding the first time.

  • y11
    y11 Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited December 2023

    interesting to come back after couple weeks and see some traffic on this.

    just want to add 2 cents - I want to maximize every cent I have in my cash account - so on my pay day:

    1. receive paycheck
    2. pay any pending bills, including credit card bills full between now and next paycheck
    3. send remaining cash to high-yield saving account
    4. remaining cash in check account: less than $100.

    Please help me save money by getting those interests :)

  • UrsulaA
    UrsulaA Superuser ✭✭✭✭
    edited December 2023

    I agree with @n8likes2Save - I was testing the Bill Connect service to connect my billers and while I was aware that Capital One and other banks do not play with bill connect, I could not even connect xfinity or Mint Mobile.

    Update: Just connected GEICO.

    Being able to connect the credit card bills with the recurring reminders will be a time saver to estimate cash flow from my checking account. The expense equation is already covered with the spending plan. For now, I have a notification set up on each credit card letting me know of the statement balance and autopay set up to pay such balance. When I get the notification, I will update my reminder to pay the credit card bill with the statement balance. Will love if Simplifi saves me this manual step. Agree with this.

    I am also using the credit balance to estimate statement balance as @DannyB outlines in his post.

    Simplifi User Since Nov 2023

    Minter 2014-2023

    Questionable Excel before 2014 to present

  • geekmax
    geekmax Member

    +1 for this feature

  • Helios
    Helios Member

    Please add Citibank option in biller

  • UrsulaA
    UrsulaA Superuser ✭✭✭✭
    edited December 2023

    Until Simplifi implements this feature, I will be tracking my credit card statement balances and due dates by updating the reminders in Simplifi manually to keep my projected checking account balance updated. I move money from a high yield savings account to checking to cover expenses. I am earning interest in idle cash.

    I am using a competing free app that gives me credit card statement balances and due dates all in one place. That app is helping me gather the info to update my Simplifi reminders. However, I find that my credit card balances in Simplifi are accurate. I just need the amount of what I am paying the credit card to keep my checking account projected balance accurate and to not bounce any payments.

    Simplifi User Since Nov 2023

    Minter 2014-2023

    Questionable Excel before 2014 to present

  • y11
    y11 Member ✭✭✭✭
  • dabing
    dabing Member

    +1 for this feature

  • UrsulaA
    UrsulaA Superuser ✭✭✭✭

    After using a free aggregator to get my credit card payment amounts to match the statement, I am reminded of what some users have said - Simplifi is a secondary source and the banks are the primary source. The aggregator got some amounts to be paid incorrect for a PNC card calculating instead what the current balance was instead of the statement balance due from the prior month. Even Mint had mistakes like this. I do find that Simplifi's balance is accurate.

    I agree with @DannyB - another way of going about credit card payments is to pay the balance displayed on Simplifi as of a given day to keep the credit card current. Use the normal credit card due date in the recurring credit card transfer reminder. The projected cash flow for my checking accounts helps me determine funds available to pay the credit cards.

    Simplifi User Since Nov 2023

    Minter 2014-2023

    Questionable Excel before 2014 to present