Transfers are not Bills!

@donnajean, @Melisa, @EL1234

I agree that Transfers should be treated separately.

Some time ago I suggested that the Spending Plan layout should look like the image on the right, with a separate Transfers section that could end with with a positive or negative value, depending on what was transfered.

You may want to vote for that suggestion in the thread linked below.

@DryHeat My point was I can see somewhat the logic of putting them in all the same section as transfers often are payments. It's not a perfect solution though, and I don't mind having them in a separate place. But with six votes, it doesn't look like that is going to happen.

I also wanted to point out that you can sort them by type, which helps to keep them straight. I know originally one could not do that and that "by date" was and maybe still is the default.

I don't consider transfers to be either income or expense though. They are half and half and zero out unless you are using a one-sided transfer for a special reason or again for a special reason, you only want to count one side of the transfer. I do that sometimes for various purposes but not very often. So Simplifi is flexible enough to let you do that, which is why I like it.

@SRC54

I don't consider transfers to be either income or expense though. They are half and half and zero out…

For me, the "special reason" for not doing it that way happens every month. Viewing transfers as Income (for Spending Plan purposes) happens when I transfer money from a retirement account to a checking account.

I don't want those transfers to "zero out." For purposes of the Spending Plan, I want them to show up as part of what I have available to spend that month.

I also don't want those "income" transfers to be buried in the Bills section, where they show up as a positive numbers (but in black!) that just reduce the total amount of Bills. Doing it that way makes both my income and my bills look less than they really are and makes the Spending Plan numbers unrealistic.

@DryHeat I definitely understand as I have the same thing with my IRA distributions. For the Spending Plan, they are income as I have to pay tax on it. But it is a transfer of funds from one account to another, which is why I decided to pay my tithe from it. So I make a payment to the church each month and I have to jump through hoops. LOL. I end up with a Gross Distribution canceled out by a Qualified Distribution and I have to then enter a transaction as an expense to the church. Because I did spend money and my account went down.

So I end up with this:

IRA Account: Transaction for $1000 Payee Church that is categorized as Qualified Distribution.
Cash Payment Account: A Split Transaction for +$1000 as Gross Distribution and $-1000 Non-Deductible Donation.

In Reports, I end up with a total IRA Distribution of $0 taxable income and a $1000 expense, which is what I want.

If I were going to spend the money as income, I would probably transfer it to my checking account and make an entry for another transaction in my Cash account.

It would be a Gross IRA Distribution of say $5000 and a transfer of $-5000 showing up as a $0.00 transaction. Then you would have your IRA Distribution in your Income Section of your Spending Plan leaving the transfer from the IRA to Checking as a pure transfer.

The whole IRA thing is silliness. It was a great idea to get people to save for their retirement by giving them a tax credit. BUT we should get to spend that money tax free as long as we wait until retirement to spend it. It is as absurd as paying tax on social security. Both should be tax free for middle and lower incomes.

I looked back through my Spending Plans and I see that we had a monthly transfer that counts as expense because my wife transferred money to State Retirement each month. When she retired, they zeroed out her account but she will get an annuity for life (and so will I if she predeceases me. So it was an expense so that is how it shows up although it doesn't show up in reports as an expense. It probably should have. But I am leaving it alone, but it bugs me.

I had one other one sided transfer for "mileage" my wife got in August for a trip reimbursement. I have a particular OCD reason for not wanting to put that down as a negative maintenance expense, which is what it is, so I have it as a transfer and it shows up as a negative expense in the spending plan, just one that doesn't show up in reports. But I think about changing it all the time.

So I understand and think it would be great to mark a transfer as an IRA Distribution income category. And all of this is complicated by the fact that investment and retirement accounts don't allow for recurring transactions or splits, which is why I jump through the hoops above.

@EL1234 — "treat transfers where one side is not excluded … as either income or expense"

I can see how that would work. I assume that, as far as Spending Plan goes, a non-excluded "income" side would end up in Income and a non-excluded "expense" side would end up in Planned Spend or Other Spend. (I'm not sure what you intend if neither side is excluded.)

@SRC54

I am interested in other ways to handle this issue, but I don't really understand what you are proposing. Your first scenario, for example, seems like it does not involve a transfer at all.

As for the second scenario... It sounds like there is a $5000 transfer from IRA to Checking (which would reduce the balance in IRA and increase the balance in Checking, which makes sense). But then there is another transaction for another $5000 — what account is it in and what does it do?

Finally, you suggest "marking a transfer as an IRA Distribution income category." I don't know what you mean by that as Transfers don't have normal categories.

@DryHeat The second transaction for $5000 is so that you will have an income category to show up in Income for your IRA distribution. You have to create that one. Then your distribution shows up as income.

In the first scenario, there isn't a transfer because it is a payment from my IRA to the church, but it is categorized as a qualified distribution. The second transaction is to counter that with a gross distribution and an expense to donations.

As for the suggestion about marking a transfer as an IRA Distribution, that would solve the problem but would have to be put in my Simplifi. Not sure how it would work but if you are going to mark a transfer as income, you might as well have a category for it.

@DryHeat Yep. I use my Cash Payment (or Cash Account) but any payable account would do. I just make another transaction with category IRA Gross Distribution of +5000 which I would counter with a -$5000 transfer (because there isn't any money involved here) so that you will end up with a $5000 income in the Spending Plan. The other transfers get ignored.

@DryHeat It's a split transaction for $0.00

+5000 IRA Distribution

-5000 Transfer

You've got to get the income into the Spending Plan somehow. Trust me; it works.

@EL1234

If you're not transferring it to a specific account, why not categorize it as Income or Expense? 

I am trying to understand what @SRC54 is doing. As I understand it, he is trying to do is create a zero amount split transaction (which will not affect the account balance) where the positive split does show up in the Spending Plan in the Income section and the negative split does not show up in (or is excluded from) the Spending Plan.

Categorizing the negative split as an expense would not accomplish that. But categorizing it as a generic Transfer doesn't do it either. So I guess I'm still not understanding what he is doing.

EDIT: Regarding your suggestion on how to handle unexcluded transfers:

I think this is a really good idea that might be easier to implement than what I suggested. You should make an idea post if you haven't already done so.

@DryHeat Sorry I got busy. Go to Spending Plan: Income, and make sure that you have the setting to include new income automatically.

I am going to do some testing on my end.

@DryHeat Yes. The problem was that in my case, I wanted them to cancel out; I just did a test run and it has to be different for you.

The first part is the transfer from IRA to Checking. That is a transfer and doesn't count.

Then in the Cash Account, you have to do two transactions:

Transaction 1: Gross Distribution: +$5000 (Make sure it's included in both reports and Spending Plan)

Transaction 2: Transfer: $-5000 (this one is ignored in both).

Edited: Sending you screenshots:

Sorry about this. It is hard to do all this, cook dinner and talk to my hypochondriac friend on phone for 2 hours. 😀

Now you have $5000 income and the transfers are ignored. My fault for trying not to make 3 transactions, but accounting problems sometimes require it.

@SRC54

Then in the Cash Account, you have to do two transactions:

Earlier you said, "It's a split transaction for $0.00," and I couldn't get that to work. Now I know why.🤣

Anyway, your method is too roundabout for me to adopt. It requires creating not only the original transfer from retirement savings to checking, but also creating two imaginary transactions in an arbitrary account that represent income (from nowhere) and a transfer (to nowhere).

That's too far removed from reality for me. The money is really moving from one of my accounts to another in a pretty standard transfer. I'd prefer Simplifi let me recognize it in the Income section, using one of the methods @donnajean, @EL1234, or I suggested.

But until that happens it will just have to show up as a positive amount in Bills. Not great, but workable.