Spending Plan should include existing account balances
I want to track my checking account to make sure there is enough money in the account to pay for expected expenses. But the spending plan feature only processes new income and expenses for a month. But that is not how accounts work! There is often money left in an account from the previous month. Simplifi allows carryover for planned spending. It should also allow carryover for the income category.
Comments
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I think the spending plan presumes most spending is on 'credit cards' and they get paid with the monthly income once a month.
There is no tie-in between account balances and the spending plan. In my case, I have at least 3 "checking accounts" (one with a bank, 2 with credit unions). Which one would it use?
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Rob Wilkens - RobWilkens.com1 -
I use the Cash Flow projection to make sure I have enough money in my checking account. It doesn't take spending plan into account but that's fine with me since those transactions are almost all made via credit card so the money doesn't come from my checking account until the next month anyways. For things that are paid from my checking account, I use bills / recurring bills whenever possible so that they'll show up in the cash flow projection for my checking account. I only use spending plan to check an overall "how am I doing this month" in terms of keeping my expenses under my income - which will affect my cash flow next month when those credit card bills are due.
I don't love the disconnect between cash flow and spending plan but I'm not sure I could come up with a good workable way to combine them. Like RobWilk said above, the spending plan would need to know which accounts to expect to spend it from (which can vary) and in addition, which dates should it expect the money to get spent? My spending plan is mostly for categories which have many transactions throughout the month.
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