Why does Simplifi say I have available money when I don't?

just know the spending plan has ZERO to do with balances. Use the cash flow forecast for that. With the spending plan, if you do not rollover, it will simply tell you if you spent less than that month’s income.

It shouldn’t show $100 available. It should show -$500 available. If your SP includes more spending then income you should be seeing a big red donut and a negative available.

As a planning tool, the Spending plan for each moth starts out with what you tell it to start with, as you know. Would you be willing to share a screenshot of your SP showing the discrepancy?

(One thing that does come to mind and this is a long shot, but if you have any income that comes in as a transfer, it wouldn’t show up as income but will be added to the bottom line of your Income after bills & savings section.)

Going back to your initial post and question, it’s hard, or perhaps not helpful to try and correlate the Spending Plan available/left at end of month with your real world accounts. When I look at my Spending Plan, at the beginning of each month, I’m looking at a hypothetical and at the end of each month I am looking at an actual. But I am only looking at that one month unrelatedly to all previous months and all following months. On the other hand, my real world accounts are completely integrated with all previous months/dates up to the current day.

I hear your question about the Spending Plan telling you that you have extra money when you don’t. The Spending Plan should only tell you the results of your planned income and expenses including savings contributions for any given month and whether you are in the green or in the red based on the data you include.

@monkeybudget

Per Simplifi, we had (in round numbers) $120 still available at the end of September. However, when I add up the amounts set to roll over to the next month and the amount set aside in our bank account for savings goals, and subtract it from my October 1 bank balance, I get -$425! Why does Simplifi think I have $545 more than I actually do? That amount doesn't match the amount for my rollovers or my savings for goals. (Both are about twice that.)

As mentioned earlier (see also @RobWilk 's comment) the Spending Plan is a planning tool for a given month. I agree that there should be a correlation between your Spending Plan over time and your actual bank balances, but the correlation will not be one-to-one as an actual accounting system might produce (e.g. Quick Books, Quicken Classic, a well-built accounting system in a spreadsheet app).

The screenshot of your Planned Spending summary appears to be accurate for what it is designed to do: You had X amount of net income and after fixed expenses, included transfers and Savings Goal contributions you had $4006.11 available for your flexible Planned Spending and any unplanned spending. After all those expenses were accounted for (including the overspending in one of more planned spending categories) you were left with ~$120. This is not an accounting of your actual bank accounts and QSimplifi is not saying here what you should or should not have in your real world accounts. It's simply reporting that in September, working with and only with September's income and expenses, you had a positive outcome for the month.

As far as Rollover amounts in the Spending Plan and in what funds are available in your bank account - trying to keep that all straight was why I elected (after trying rollover for a couple of months) NOT to use rollover in any of my Planned Spending categories. It's difficult to keep track of those "rolled over" funds outside of the Spending Plan.

As for the $1600 transfer, it's easy enough to mark that money to be excluded from the Spending Plan for September if you indeed you don't want it to affect your September plan. Open the transfer transaction and check the "Exclude from Spending Plan" check box and save. This will remove the $1600 from the September Spending Plan and perhaps give you a more "accurate" picture.