Coming from another budgeting program

enigmon · October 13

Hello everyone,

I am excited to be here. I have been using Everydollar for several years now. I need something like Quicken Simplfi to meet my needs. I signed up for a coaching session tomorrow.

Question:

I am used to the mechanics of everydollar and always have used zero-based budgeting….however, I hhave to change the budget quite often and find it to be not-so-dynamic. I have used Quickbooks before and have a decent grasp on it. Will I like Quicken Simplifi?

Brian

Aspiring personal finance manager on my life

DannyB · October 14

Welcome to Quicken Simplifi, @enigmon !

I’ve been using QS for almost 3 years now and have found it to be an excellent personal finance app.

You have certainly already noticed the difference from your former personal finance app especially that this is not a zero based app.

For me the Spending Plan is the chief difference and my favorite tool in the QS tool box. A lot of users find the Watchlist feature to be critical to their success with QS.

Your coaching session should be most helpful, but you’ll find this forum to also be a great resource for support.

Will you like it? I hope so, a lot of folks do and trust you will become a fan also.

SRC54 · October 14

@enigmon Welcome to the community! I think you will like Simplifi, but it will be different. It took me a while to get the hang of the Spending Plan but it is so much easier than using a budget. You named an app I've never heard of and I've used most of them, so I will check that out! (Just for fun, not to switch!)

I like the recurring bills as they are outside planned spending, and like death and taxes, they cannot be avoided.. Think of planned spending as budgeting categories. For the most part, I keep planned spending for categories, but I do use Watch Lists for Sub-Categories I want to keep an eye on.

And best of all you can use Simplifi your way. It is up to you what categories you use, how you "budget" them, or whether you want to plan them or not! Have fun learning the app!

P.S. Now I know why I hadn't heard of your former app (or didn't remember it). It's primarily a budget app and I was always more interested from the viewpoint of bookkeeping/accounting!

UrsulaA · October 14

Welcome! I used Mint before Simplifi and I find the spending plan module provides a simpler budget. I budget by parent category groups and use an approach like @SRC54 - add required recurring expenses as bills like rent and taxes. I use a watchlist with a target to track all expense categories and ensure that income is more than expenses on any given month. Hope you enjoy Simplifi.

enigmon · October 14

Thank you all! I just had a conservation I guess with technical support. I can't seem to get my mortgage connected and she wasn't able to help me. I use Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing. Anyone else have any issues?

I really like Simplifi quite a bit because it is dynamic, feature rich. I guess I need to keep going forward and learn as much as I can.

DannyB · October 14

Hi @enigmon

One idea would be to set up a manual account for your mortgage and if your mortgage company has the means, you can download your account transactions in a .csv file and import them into your QS manual account.

If you can't download a .csv file from the Shellpoint, then you would have to make any past transactions you may want to enter or just start with your current balance and go from there.

Do you have an escrow account?

enigmon · October 15

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/42157#Comment_42157

That's a very good idea. However, I do not see where they have that option to download a .csv file. I guess I will figure out how to manually do this….no better time to learn than now.

DannyB · October 15

@enigmon

once you have created the manual mortgage account, go to the Transactions page and scroll down to the Mortgage account listing - if you created it as a Mortgage account it will appear under Liabilities - and click to select and open the Mortgage account register.

In the title bar at the top on the right you will see some icons. the Cloud icon with an up arrow will open the import menu and you can select to import a CSV file.

Flopbot · October 18

@enigmon , welcome!

For several years I attempted - keyword attempted - to do zero based budgeting in the classic Quicken Desktop. It was largely a fail. While I don’t believe there’s a way to do it with Quicken Simplifi, I have soooo loved the cleaner, faster, and all around less needy approach that Simplifi has allowed me to take towards my finances while still giving me access to quick answers.

I hope it will work for you too!

DannyB · October 18

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/42161#Comment_42161

I believe I miss read what you meant - I think you mean you couldn't find a way to download your account data from Shellpoint into a CSV file. If you want/need the historical data, it might be worth a phone call to see if it's possible to download your historical data. If you don't need the historical data, you can still start with your current balance and move forward.

This may be helpful:

https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4593261-loan-liability-tracking-in-quicken-simplifi

SRC54 · October 19

@Flopbot As you know I still use Quicken Classic and today for fun, I created a budget there. I haven't a clue as to how to proceed. It said I was $12000 in the Red (I think because NOV-DEC income haven't happened), but clicking here and there and everywhere I couldn't figure out how to change the numbers. And I am pretty tech savvy. I am sure I could figure it out, but not going to waste my time.

Coach Kristina · October 19

Hello @SRC54,

If you decide you do want to experiment more with budgets in Quicken Classic, you'd be able to get better assistance posting to the Quicken Classic Community:

https://community.quicken.com/

If you're using Quicken for Mac, the option to Edit your budget is near the upper left, directly underneath the budget name.

Once the Edit window comes up, you can change the numbers. Additionally, there will be buttons near the bottom left that let you choose the categories and select accounts that you want to show in your budget.

I hope this helps!

Coming from another budgeting program

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