Simplifi Needs Better Support for Real-World Budgeting & Cash Flow Forecasting

cubateve · October 17

I’ve been using Simplifi to manage a tight household budget and track day-to-day and week-to-week spending. While I appreciate its clean interface and core features, I’ve run into several limitations that make it harder than it should be to manage the basic financial workflows of everyday finances. Here are some key challenges:

Key Frustrations:

Planned Spending doesn’t show in Projected Cash Flow
I want to forecast weekly expenses like groceries and gas, but Planned Spending items don’t appear in the Projected Cash Flow view. To work around this, I’ve created recurring weekly placeholder transactions for each category, which feels redundant and manual. In doing this, I had to remove those expenses from Planned Spending which just feels… wrong. I thought I would be able to use Watchlists to track and manage Planned Spending instead, but:
Watchlists don’t account for reimbursements
When friends reimburse me for shared expenses (e.g., lunch), I categorize the incoming funds under the same category (e.g., Dining Out), but the Watchlist still counts the full expense without subtracting the reimbursement. This inflates my actual spending and makes it hard to track true out-of-pocket costs. I then have to either try and sort it out from Other Spend, or run reports, but:
Reports cannot be saved or bookmarked
I rely on reports to track monthly spending by category, but I have to rebuild filters every time I want to check progress. This adds friction to what should be a simple monthly review.
Flow-through transactions from savings to checking cause matching issues
I keep my money in savings and let it flow through checking for bills (go SoFi!). I've allocated my bills against savings for forecasting, but this causes auto-matching problems — it frequently overrides one of the transfer transactions incorrectly because it watches the wrong account for the transaction.
Savings Goals don’t reflect in Projected Cash Flow and can’t be scheduledI had to create manual recurring transfers to simulate savings goal contributions. Without dedicated vaults (like I use with SoFi) or separate accounts, this workaround wouldn’t be possible.

Workarounds I’m Using:

Created weekly recurring transactions for groceries, gas, dining out, and health expenses to simulate real-world cash flow in the Projected Cash Flow view.
Manually split transactions to isolate personal vs. shared costs, though Simplifi doesn’t allow negative splits or linking multiple transactions to one reminder.
Re-categorized my SoFi savings account as checking to reduce matching issues with flow-through transactions and more accurately account for my available cash vs what I've tucked into savings.

Bottom Line:

I use a spreadsheet to manage my budget at a high level, and Simplifi seems like the best solution for tracking day-to-day and week-to-week expenses. But it doesn’t exactly live up to the name by making everything simple. I'm spending more time and energy trying to track everything than /I should. These improvements would make Simplifi far more usable for everyday budgeting and help users like me manage household finances in a simplified way.

DryHeat · October 18

@cubateve

I fully agree with you that the month-oriented Spending Plan doesn't really work for daily or weekly budgeting. But I have questions about a couple of your items.

Planned Spending doesn’t show in Projected Cash Flow

This has been mentioned before, and one of the questions that always comes up is, "Where in the Projected Cash Flow timeline do you want the Planned Spend Expense Items to show up?" The past transactions related to an Expense Item are already booked against whatever account they occurred in. Should the remaining "Available to spend" amounts be booked against Projected Cash Flow immediately, or spread out in some way, or what?

Watchlists don’t account for reimbursements

I just looked at one of my Watchlists that has only two transactions so far that are dated in this month. One was an expenditure, the other was money refunded by a vendor. Both have the Category appropriate to the Watchlist, and both are listed in the Transaction Activity underneath it. The "Spent so far" amount is equal to the expenditure minus the refund. Does yours not work like that? Or are the transactions not in the same Month?

SRC54 · October 18

I agree about Reports, and they are getting better. But we do need saved reports, and this request is under review. We've been given to understand that enhancements are coming.

So tell us how your SoFi account works. It sounds like that as needed, money is moved from savings account to checking account. I know PNC Bank has something like that, which I had considered especially since it is actually here in town. Internet Banks are great but it is nice to be able to go to the branch if one needs to!

Luckily I get a very high interest rate in my Checking account with my local state bank (up to $30K), and though not quite as good st the 4.5% of a HYSA (I think it is 3.83), it has served my purpose. and it is here in town.

cubateve · October 19

@DryHeat
Planned Spending in Projected Cash Flow:
I think this could be an optional feature, toggled on or off. Simplifi already calculates a “$xx.xx left per day” in the Spending Plan under “Left this month.” A similar approach could be used in Projected Cash Flow — dividing the remaining Planned Spending by the number of days left in the month and showing it as a dotted line for estimated daily outflow.

This would give users two views that could be overlaid: One based on actual bills, and one that includes anticipated discretionary spending. It wouldn’t need to forecast far ahead — even just 1–2 months would be helpful. (I wouldn't expect it to reliably project any further out because life and budges will change.) Since Planned Spending can be set up in advance and use recurring series, this could be a flexible and user-controlled enhancement.

Watchlists and reimbursements:
I re-checked my setup and confirmed that reimbursements do reduce the “Spent so far” total when they’re in the same category and month. What caused confusion was that future-dated recurring transactions (which I use to simulate weekly spending) are also included in “Spent so far.” Understanding that now, I like the functionality but I think the label is misleading. Something like “Planned + Actual” or “Total Activity” would better reflect what’s being shown.

@SRC54
Sofi and Vaults
SoFi uses Vaults, which are sub-accounts within savings. All money stays in savings, and anything not assigned to a vault is available to fund transactions. When I make a purchase I do so from my checking account and SoFi automatically moves the needed funds from savings to checking in real time — no manual transfers required. This lets me keep all my money earning interest while still covering transactions seamlessly. This setup creates some challenges in Simplifi (as outlined in the original post), but it’s a great system for maximizing interest and organizing funds. I do maintain a (basically inactive) local checking account with a CU in case I need something physical, but I do have free ATM usage with Sofi which mitigates that need.

DryHeat · October 19

@cubateve

Planned Spending in Projected Cash Flow:

I understand what you are proposing to be something like this: If I have 15 days left in the month and $1500 left unspent in my planned spending, then the Projected Cash Flow should show some kind of estimated expense transaction of $100 on each of the remaining days in the month.

Personally, I would opt out of that. I don't think I would find it helpful. Perhaps others would like it.

Watchlists and reimbursements:

It's good that reimbursements are working correctly for you.

But I agree with you that the handling of future-dated transactions in Watchlists is a problem. Counting those as "Spent so far" makes no sense to me. That issue was discussed on another thread (see below), but I don't know if there is any plan to fix that.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/60025#Comment_60025

SRC54 · October 19

I can see why you opted to make it a checking account though I guess that throws off your savings report assuming you keep a good amount in the account. I assume that all these sub-accounts are downloaded as just one balance in Simplifi.

I also assume you get more interest in your long-term savings than in the sub-account available for spending.

Thanks for telling us about it. It will help others who might be looking for a new account.

I agree that future dated spending shouldn't be included in Watchlists. I don't use them extensively. I just have 2 just to keep up with some unnecessary spending we do that I would like to have the discipline not to do. 😉

And good luck with your other issues. It looks like your workarounds are working well.

RobWilk · October 19

Re:Planned Spending in Projected Cash Flow

@cubateve

Right now, the spending plan's planned spending -does- -not- apply to any particular account. In my case, I have 3-4 checking accounts, plus a number of credit cards - it's not clear which account the planned spending should apply to, should it deduct it from one, multiple or somehow all accounts.

Also, when spending plan says so much is left per day, that only has to do with budget for the calendar month and does not reflect any actual balances.

EDIT: Assuming i don't get paid the first of the month and only the first of the month, cash flow could be negative for earlier parts of the month if it was done the way you suggest. That would ba. problem for me

-Rob

cubateve · October 19

@SRC54 one important clarification I will make with SoFi: Quicken Simplifi does register the vaults as distinct accounts, so I can see money transfer in / out of them, and I have each of them configured as savings accounts. This is where most of my true savings lies, and everything left in the "savings" account is more transitory.

SRC54 · October 19

Ah, well that doesn't seem optimal, as it is more complicated, and I can see why you had problems with matching.

So you have that transitory savings account as checking. Thanks for clarifying. It would be nice if these accounts caught on and may Quicken could add sub-accounts. I am not sure any app does.

So how much interest do you get in the Savings Account. I assume you get little to nothing in the transitory account. But that wouldn't matter since money isn't there long or maybe not at all as when you spend, the money then comes out of savings.

cubateve · November 8

A few weeks ago, I posted about the workarounds I was using to simulate weekly spending in Simplifi — specifically creating recurring placeholder transactions for groceries, gas, and medical to make up for the fact that Planned Spending doesn’t show in Projected Cash Flow. I'm posting an update to what I've found using that strategy and why I'm making changes. Hopefully what I've learned and experienced will help others struggling with the same challenges!

I’ve decided to remove the weekly placeholders and shift to a cleaner monthly budgeting strategy. Here’s why:

Weekly placeholders added friction. They helped with short-term cash visibility, but made it harder to see where I was within my monthly budget. If I overspent one week, I had to manually adjust the next — which felt tedious and disconnected from my actual goals. Without saved reports, it took extra time to review where I stood in spending relative to my budget.
I’m learning to trust the budget. Instead of asking “Can I afford this right now?” based on cash flow (and trying to squeeze in a purchase I hadn't budgeted for), I’m shifting to “Is this in my budget?” or “Where does this come from within my budget?” That mindset helps me plan better and avoid impulse spending.
I’ve adopted a $100 rollover threshold. If I underspend in a category and the rollover exceeds $100, I move the excess to my Life Happens vault. If I overspend, I pull from that vault to cover it. This keeps things flexible without losing control and provides me with a monthly cadence of accountability to my budget.
Yes, I lose some projected cash flow visibility. But I’ve realized that trying to forecast every dollar weeks ahead isn’t as helpful as sticking to a well-built monthly budget and adjusting only when necessary.

Simplifi still has limitations — saved reports, reimbursement handling, and cash flow forecasting could be improved — but this change should help me simplify my workflow and reduce the mental load of constant adjustments or remembering where things stand.

If you’re using weekly placeholders or struggling to reconcile cash flow with budget discipline, I hope this helps. Sometimes the best way to simplify is to trust the system you (or somebody else) has already built!

RobWilk · November 8

@cubateve Yeah, once I figured out the week to week expenses could be put on a CREDIT CARD (which they were anyway) and be PAID any time in (at least) a 30-day window (without interest penalties), monthly budgetting makes more sense.

DryHeat · November 9

@cubateve

You are right about Simplifi's Projected Cash Flow … depending on how you use Planned Spend, there can be lots of expenses that it doesn't take into account. I don't find it as useful as the Spending Plan.

On the other hand, I think the Spending Plan budgeting approach works best for folks who are able to (and willing to) keep enough cash in their checking accounts so as not to worry about the balance from day to day. (I know some folks like to keep their cash at a minimum and move everything to investments, for example.)

But the Spending Plan is very focused on how you progress month-by-month, not on cash on hand. The question is, "Did you spend (or obligate) more than you took in? Or vice versa?" That works well in the long run, but doesn't provide the day-to-day balance projections that some folks might find more helpful.

SRC54 · November 9

I like the way you have found workarounds to make Simplifi work for you. Everyone has individual needs and I do workarounds every day to make the data make sense for me.

Thanks for the update!

Simplifi Needs Better Support for Real-World Budgeting & Cash Flow Forecasting

Key Frustrations:

Workarounds I’m Using:

Bottom Line:

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