Planned Spending Rollover: Share your feedback here!
Comments
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If an expense is tracked in Recurring Bills or Subscriptions, it won't be included in any Planned Spending category.
Since I am tracking my auto registration in Planned Spending, I do not have these expenses set up as recurring bills. One of the advantages of having an expense set up as a recurring bill or subscription is that this allows Quicken Simplifi to include the expense in the account cash flow projections. Since I don't use or rely on the account cash flow projections, I'm fine with tracking my auto registration (along with my other annual fixed recurring expenses in Planned Spending.
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer0 -
Here are my thoughts on this:
The Spending Plan is where I plan out my income and spending "in detail" so to speak. "This is my plan and I'm 'sticking to it!'" 😁
For tracking parent and/or child categories, I use Watchlists. Your Auto and Transport parent category would be a good candidate to track in Watchlists. I can also keep tabs of spending at various levels of granularity in the Reports module.
I'm experimenting with preparing for specific annual/semi-annual expenses in the Spending Plan using the rollover feature.
I do have a couple of "catch all" Planned Spending categories that are based on parent categories, but all the others are to designate spending limits for specific monthly expenses.
My catch all planned spending cats are:
- Other Fun Stuff
- General Expenses
- Annual Flexible Expenses
Each of these parent categories have several child categories that I want to be able to track and monitor, but as a group, I don't what to spend more than a certain amount overall.
Quicken Simplifi works so close to perfectly for me out of the box because I have highly predictable monthly/annual income and expenses based on our spending over the past 10 years.
As far as your idea, to set up a separate Planned Spending category based on a child category that is already included in another Planned Spending category based on the parent category, it seems to me you would need a way to pick and choose which child categories you want to include or exclude much like the way you can select specific categories for reports.
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer0 -
"As far as your idea, to set up a separate Planned Spending category based on a child category that is already included in another Planned Spending category based on the parent category, it seems to me you would need a way to pick and choose which child categories you want to include or exclude much like the way you can select specific categories for reports."
Yes exactly, instead of just a single selection, give me checkboxes that allow multiple subcategory selections. Much like how QS allows this in Report filters. Of course QS should not allow duplicate selections in that work flow.
Thanks for you thoughts on how youre are using Spending Plan.
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So this is the first month I've had rollover activated, and it's showing up in my mobile app with the extra green bar. However, it's not showing in my desktop app. I've tried logging out and back in, but still not there. @Coach Natalie any ideas?
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The spending categories are there and are correct, but the rollover portion of each category is missing. The "available amount" was reset to plan, instead of reflecting the amount with rollover.
Oddly enough, the overspend in one category I have IS showing correctly in this month's spending plan as a red bar, with the corresponding amount removed from the available amount.
The series are all set up correctly, and I also set the little rollover icon for each. Maybe I just need to let it ride another month and see what happens?
One thing I was also confused on is that yesterday, I was prompted to release unspent funds, although this issue popped up before I did so.
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@mahka42, thanks for posting!
I'd suggest reviewing our article here to ensure you understand how Planned Spending Rollover works:
If you believe you need some troubleshooting afterward, I'd suggest creating a separate post to outline what's going on so it gets the visibility it deserves and isn't buried in this feedback post.
I hope this helps!
-Coach Natalie
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The basic idea is good - I'm glad we have rollover now as a former Mint user. The piece I'm really missing though, is actual monthly spend if a category is already overspent. I use the rollover for some annual budgeting and may spend a lot in one month and then nothing for several, essentially "catching up" the category back to zero. Right now, it just shows that I've overspent in a category whether or not additional transactions exist for that month. What I'd really like is to see the actual spend total and the overage. This way I can see if I'm still on track with the original monthly budget or underspending enough to catch back up.
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There seems to be an issue with the spending plan and subcategories. After adding a subcategory to a top-level category I'm seeing the spending plan getting renamed to the subcategory while still tracking the top-level category. While I can just rename the plan, I still see the spending plan claim to track the subcategory.
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@SJM, thanks for posting!
It sounds like you're looking for this topic instead:
Thanks!
-Coach Natalie
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I started using rollovers on most of my planned spending categories but eventually removed it. The feature works fine but I don't need to roll over spending amounts from any one category.
What I really need is to be able to "roll over" my total available spending at the end of the month. That is my truly free/unspent money and it would be great to be able to treat that as it's own pool for future spending without having to set up a specific goal.
Alternatively, if I did have an amount to roll over from a given category I wish I could send it to a separate goal or spending pool. E.g., if I under spend by $50 on Groceries and $100 on Dining, let me roll $150 into a Travel goal.
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@heathvee, thanks for the feedback!
I'd suggest checking out this existing request:
I hope this helps!
-Coach Natalie
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When you come to the end of the month, you can release any unused Planned Spending funds back to your available and then you can make an additional contribution up to the amount of your Available to your Travel savings goal as long as all this is done before the end of the month.
I've never been able to satisfactorily work with the "left at end of month" thus my feature request. But I'm also not sure how big a deal it is to do anything with it based on the low amount of conversation this subject generates in this forum. However, there is a recent post that brings up the difference between the net income report for a given month and the Spending Plan "left at end of month" figure for the same given month. This raises the question in my mind of what exactly is "left at end of month" I have always supposed that the "left at end of month" money remains in my main cash account into which all income is deposited and from which all disbursements are made, but who knows? It will take someone with more accounting and numbers moxie than I have to figure it out or to say it's not worth figuring out or that there is not really anything to figure out.
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer0 -
Love the new look for planned spending. Thank you! Would you be able to add functionality that lets us sort the categories? Say, by amount over / under budget, alphabetically (default), total allocation, recurring, etc.?
Also, if we can keep working on the whole yearly budget thing, that would be awesome. I like the rollover, but putting one number in for an entire calendar year would be awesome.
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"…putting one number in for an entire calendar year would be awesome."
Actually, when you create a planned spending expense and set the target amount even using rollover, that expense and the target amount you set is copied into all of the next twelve months. Is there something else you are talking about?
Actually, this is true for the whole Spending Plan - You are planning out for a rolling 12 months. You can move forward through those 12 months and make any adjustments to each and every reminder for each of the next 12 months.
Again, is there something else you are asking for?
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer0 -
Liking the new rollover feature! My feedback is it'd be nice to be able to control whether negative amounts rollover or not. I'd also like to see the additional rollover amount in the next month be included in the Planned Spending total - currently, the Planned Spending total does not appear to include rollover additions.
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I’d much rather be able to rollover unspent ‘Income’ to the next month. I don’t have much interest in rolling over available spending category amounts as I’d much rather update those category amounts as my spending unfolds throughout the month. This way I update my budget as the month progresses and ‘roll with the punches’ (less money spent in this category can be assigned to another category).
The only thing that truly rolls over to the next month is my bank account balance! (unspent income)Thanks for your consideration.
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Hi @donnajean
An interesting idea. What I do instead of setting savings goals, whatever I have leftover at the end of the month, I consider savings. The more I have the more I win.
Also, I have a checking account that pays bonus interest so I set it as a savings account so my savings is reflected that way too.
I realize this won't work for most. BTW, I agree with you about rollover spending categories. I just adjust them each month. I don't do rollover.
Steve
Quicken Simplifi (Safari & iOS) Since 2021
Quicken Classic (MacOS) Since 2009
Microsoft Money (Windows) 1991-2009
Dollars & Cents (DOS) 1987-19911 -
Chris
Spreadsheet user since forever.
Quicken Desktop user since 2014.
Quicken Simplifi user since 2021.0 -
@donnajean I pretty much agree. I don't use rollover in Planned Spending for my regular.monthly expenss. But I di like having this ability for non-monthly variable expenses and annual expenses.
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer0 -
In response to your observation, "…currently, the Planned Spending total does not appear to include rollover additions." It's important to remember that the Spending Plan is uniquely focused on the current month. Each month deals exclusively with that month's inflows and outflows.
The rollover feature doesn't add income to the following months, it's simply a mechanism to keep track of funds from previous months and make them available for spending in the current or future months for the designated Planned expense. Since the rollover is not an income event it isn't added to the Planned Spending total which is derived from the income available after bills and savings have been deducted and the monthly planned spending goal/limit/budget.
Danny
Simplifi user since 01/22
”Budget: a mathematical confirmation of your suspicions.” ~A.A. Latimer0 -
I am getting "over spending limit" notifications for rollover categories whenever the monthly target amount is exceeded, even if the spending is less than the total category balance (monthly target + rollover). The purpose of rollover categories is that some months you spend more and some you spend less, but as long as you have a positive balance for that category, you're on plan.
This notification should look at the total rollover balance, not just the monthly target. Or, this should at least be a configurable option.
Also, I think the "Didn't Overspend" badge has the same issue where it does not take combined rollover balance into account.
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@DannyB - Ah that makes sense! In that case just showing the combined total rollover amount would be useful to me. What I've been doing at the end/start of every month is check what I have in my checking account, subtract all bills/subscriptions/savings goals/planned spending, and then I know how much my account is likely to be over/under for the month. So, if I don't factor in rollover planned spending from prior months, I could overdraw on my account if I'm not paying attention. I've stopped using rollovers and have moved a couple variable spending categories over to savings goals for this reason; they'll subtract from my spending plan that way.
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I like it. I use those details at the beginning of each month to identify money I can consider to be savings. Typically if the amount rolled over is significant, I count the money as a monthly savings in one of my savings goals, and I just zero out the rollover for the new month.
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