Do recurring transfers work only if the reminder has the correct amount?
I was wondering if anyone has had success in recurring transfers correctly linking when the reminder amount is different from the transaction? I've had luck when the reminder amount is the same but not otherwise which is a problem given that credit card transfers will usually be incorrect unless manually set.
for example: The "Amazon CC Payment" is set for Feb 22.
I like the idea of setting reminders for $0 amounts to clearly indicate when an amount has not been set. So the transfer pair has been correctly linked and the Feb 22 transaction has been correctly associated with the "Amazon CC Payment" series, but not the Feb 23 transaction. Also, when I try to use the "link to transaction" feature of the reminders, no transactions appear….
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@RockLee, good question. I don’t know the exact amount, but the Recurring Series and the actual transaction need to be fairly close. If the Recurring Series for the Amazon with the red arrow had been between $77-78 or so, it would have likely matched up.
Chris
Spreadsheet user since forever.
Quicken Desktop user since 2014.
Quicken Simplifi user since 2021.1 -
Thanks for the responses… It seem that the right answer is that you must have the correct amount, or very close to it (untested), in the reminder for a recurring transfer to link everything correctly. I wish there was better documentation on this. It would be nice to know the rules that Simplifi uses to make the links, either transaction to transaction, or reminder to transaction. Strange that it at least associates one side of the transaction pair to the Series on the exact date of the reminder, but still is unable to make the full connection.
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I also manually update the amounts on my recurring (monthly) credit card payments - I do that so that my cash flow projection accurately reflects those payments.
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I get messages quite often from QS that say a bill was paid and it was $X.XX less/more than expected. I've seen this vary by up to $10 before.
I've also seen cases where it links the transaction to the wrong account. This seems to happen mostly when I have two recurring items with similar or identical dollar amounts, or when something comes in that isn't actually in the Spending Plan, and QS struggles to find something to link it to. In this case, I've seen incorrect links over $10 and 10 days different.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye1 -
I have a similar experience. For the credit cards, I set up email alerts that tell me the statement is posted and sometimes these alerts have the statement amount on them. Other times, I login to the credit card website and get the statement amount. I have 6 credit cards, one that I use primarily. After getting the statement amounts, I update all 6 credit card reminders. When the payments post, Simplifi flawlessly links the reminders to the transactions. For 4 out of the 6 cards, the payment amount does not vary as I only charge one item per card, usually a subscription. I do so to keep the cards active.
I am hoping the feature request below gets implemented so I do not have to manually update statement amounts for credit cards for payment. I have the request bookmarked.
Simplifi User Since Nov 2023
Minter 2014-2023
Questionable Excel before 2014 to present
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You are right on the support docs. All I found is Simplifi stating that it matches transactions to reminders and that the program learns over time when the user manually links transactions.
"As you download transactions, Quicken Simplifi searches for matches to your Recurring items and is designed to match transactions within a certain variance."
Articles
Simplifi User Since Nov 2023
Minter 2014-2023
Questionable Excel before 2014 to present
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@UrsulaA I'm a little leery of the "learn" approach. I would much rather know the rules or heuristics used. I like what Simplifi has done with the transfer/linked/pairing/recurring functionality but I think it could be a little more robust. hopefully in time.
@EL1234 Yup, manually updating is the way to do it. It's not a big deal, but I'm probably a little OCD with automation, I would rather see Simplifi do this then myself. As @UrsulaA has mentioned, I look forward to when Simpilfi can pull these amounts from the existing account connections.
I hope it doesn't seem egotistical to flag my response as the answer to this question :)
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I agree that it would be great if Simplifi could pull in the amounts automatically! If you haven't yet voted for that idea, you can do so here:
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@RockLee, Although I'm not sure what the "certain variance" is, I don't personally have any issues with transactions being linked to Reminders when the amounts vary. For example, all of my Recurring Credit Card Payments are set up for $5 a month, but some payments actually end up being over $1000 — Quicken Simplifi still links these items automatically with no issue.
With that, since Quicken Simplifi is designed to learn over time, I'd suggest some manual intervention by manually linking them when it doesn't happen automatically to see if the behavior improves. I also wonder if what you're seeing could be due to using $0 for the Recurring Series; if I recall correctly, I don't think this used to be possible which is why I set mine up for $5. Maybe do some testing and designate a small dollar amount instead of using $0 to see if you get better results.
Let us know what ends up working for you!
-Coach Natalie
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@Coach Natalie Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try your $5 amount on one of my credit cards and see if Simplifi can "learn it" just out of curiosity. I did wait a couple of months before reporting to give some time for adjustments or make sure it wasn't user error.
When I tried to link the reminders to the transactions, the reminders did not list the transaction which made it difficult to "train". More could be said about this, but maybe for another thread that would be more on topic.
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@RockLee, sounds good!
Also, if a transaction is not listed when trying to link from the Reminder directly, you can easily link from the transaction directly instead:
-Coach Natalie
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