Allow users to classify an Investment Account as a non-investment account

SRC54 · January 10

Today I threw in the towel and moved my Fidelity Cash Management account back into Investments. I had to make some changes in both Classic and Simplifi, but I can live with them.

Frankly, I blame Fidelity for a lot of this but at least in Classic you can split transactions and have check numbers. If I were younger, I would dump Fidelity.

Simplifi needs to update investments to use the same (though modified) Register with Brokerage accounts. This means split transactions as well as recurring Transactions. We also need check numbers. We also need to be able also to make payment/deposit the default type in these accounts.

None of this is new; we've asked for it before. But it is worth emphasizing. Please vote this up.

RiversideKid · January 11

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/63709#Comment_63709

I did the opposite, I reclassified my account from Brokerage to Checking/Savings. I've gone back and forth and each time there are pros and cons each way. This is where all debits and credits are just debits and credits rather than investment and banking. I have not found a good way to manage these accounts with Simplifi. At present, the Fidelity Payee falls in the Category field, the Payee Field is always blank or filled in with something that Fidelity does not even have. I have no way of modifying the categories on many transactions. Many transactions are hidden from reports automatically making the reports totally inaccurate. I called Simplifi customer support and the rep took details, screenshots and video but the case was closed the same day. If they are going to fix it, I have no way of knowing. Many transactions are automatically hidden from reports, making the reports inaccurate.

If the reports are automatically wrong, why would I categorize transactions in the first place?

SRC54 · January 11

The change from savings to brokerage only messed up one split I had since investment accounts don't support splits. I changed to a category. Everything was already a payment/deposit. Before when I got dividend, I had to reclassify it and I had two transactions, one I had to delete, then I had to wait four hours for the next download for Simplifi to recompute the balance.

Another thing I will not be able to do now is use recurring bills in my Cash Management Account. I am hopeful that this year they will add recurring, splits and check numbers to investment accounts.

If you have it classified as a bank account, you just have to fix the dividends, the payments and deposits should be categorized and they should show up in the Spending Plan and Reports. Make sure they aren't being excluded.

cdksprad · January 18

Reading all these comments about the impossibility of treating my Fidelity CMA as a checking account is just about to convince me to cancel my new subscription to Quicken Simplifi. It's a deal breaker for me.

rabonini · January 20

Is there any intent on Quicken's part to support reclassification of accounts by the user, or some other mechanism to support Fidelity CMAs as checking accounts?

Recently purchased a Simplifi subscription to use as our primary financial planning and tracking tool. However, we run everything through Fidelity, meaning Simplifi is essentially broken for us.

If there is no intent to support this type of account and use case, we'll need to cancel our Simplifi subscription and take the 30 day refund.

SRC54 · January 20

@rabonini Well, according to Quicken, Fidelity insists on its being an Investment Account.

I've been given to understand that Quicken Simplifi hopes to make it work better, which I assume means they will add Splits, Recurring Transactions and checking features. But there is no ETA as to when that will happen.

I have asked for us to be allowed to make it a bank account, and I had it that way for a while but each month I had to clean up the investment downloads that needed to be just a simple dividend deposit.

My recommendation here is for no one to open a Fidelity CM account and check out other brokers who aren't so persnickety. LOL

rabonini · January 21

@SRC54

Appreciate the update. That seems oddly particular on Fidelity's part? From my understanding, competitor apps allow for users to assign the account types. Does fidelity just want it brought in as investment by default but are ok with user reassignment?

(un?)fortunately Fidelity offers flexibility and features for specific circumstances that other banks simply do not. Will likely try another option in light of this.

SRC54 · January 21

@rabonini Yep, I would dump Fidelity if I were younger. They are peculiar but all of them are. AmEx made it clear to me they didn't care if my Savings Account connected or not to Quicken, so I told them fine and sent my money to another bank. Closed the account.

I am most likely going to close my Fidelity CM account. I don't use it. Opened it to see what the fuss was about. I made one debit transaction on a Monday. It took until Saturday to clear. That's in 2026?

I expect Debit card transactions with pin to clear in 1 day, without pin in two.

I will tell you that Simplifi is more flexible than Classic. There is no way on God's earth to move that account from Investments in Classic. I had it as a manual account there. Now they are both investment accounts pending my moving the money elsewhere, probably back into my real brokerage account.

RiversideKid · January 21

I have really enjoyed how Fidelity handles my finances and I really enjoy that it's not a bank. Yes, some transactions are a bit slow, but this does not bother me, and yes, trades can take a while to settle before those funds can cover debits. I use a separate account so funds never have to settle.

I would change a good many other things before I moved away from Fidelity CMA.

SRC54 · January 21

@RiversideKid I understand. It's what works for you that matters!

I do think Fidelity and Quicken should work this out for their users, and I cannot fathom why it hasn't happened.

rabonini · January 21

I'm in the same boat as @RiversideKid in that I'll have to try a different budgeting app over moving away from the Fidelity CMA, it just provides too many advantages given our present situation.

@SRC54, thanks for your help.

FlyingAround · January 27

I’m experiencing the exact same issue with my Morgan Stanley Cash Management Account (CMA), and it’s becoming clear this is a Simplifi/Quicken problem, not a bank issue.

I’ve tried every workaround:

Adding the account as checking
Re-adding it as brokerage
Adding it as money market

None of these resolve the core problems:

Duplicate transactions appearing after syncs
Payees being hidden in Simplifi (even though the payee is visible when editing the transaction)
Recurring transactions never mapping correctly

Support told me this was due to Morgan Stanley’s data feed, but that explanation doesn’t hold up. Other CMA users report the same issues across multiple institutions (Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, etc.).

To sanity-check this, I tested Monarch and Rocket Money both correctly recognize CMAs as checking-style, ledger-based accounts, and none of the issues above occur.

At this point, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that:

Simplifi/Quicken has not properly built support for Cash Management Accounts.

That’s frustrating, because I’ve grown accustomed to Quicken products, and features like future cash forecasting are genuinely better than what competitors offer.

So the question is: how do we get this prioritized?
CMA users are not a niche group… more and more people are using Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Wealthfront, and similar brokerage-based accounts as their primary checking accounts.

If others are experiencing this, please upvote and comment. This clearly needs a development fix, not another explanation that blames the financial institutions.

FlyingAround · January 27

Cash Management Accounts (Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Merril, etc.) do not work correctly in Simplifi, regardless of how the account is added.

Common issues in Simplifi:

Duplicate transactions appearing after sync
Payees hidden in the transaction list (visible only when editing)
Balance does not properly synch
Recurring transactions and upcoming transactions don't play nice with these type of accounts

I’ve tried adding the same CMA as:

Checking
Brokerage
Money market

None of these resolve the issues.

Support says this is a financial institution problem, but that doesn’t line up with reality. Other apps [removed competitor mentions] correctly treat CMAs as checking-style, ledger-based accounts and do not have these problems.

This points to a Simplifi/Quicken limitation, not a bank feed issue. Especially since when I click edit on the transaction in my account it properly displays all the correct information.

More people are using CMAs as their primary checking accounts (Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Wealthfront, etc.). This is no longer an edge case and it needs first-class support.

If you’re experiencing this, please upvote so this gets prioritized by simplifi. ☺️

RiversideKid · January 27

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/64630#Comment_64630

One of the Quicken coaches indicated that the way to solve the categorization issue was to add the account as a manual account and create each transaction manually. (In fairness, this reply was in response to the interest transactions, before I realized that there were several other issues going on. My phone calls to Quicken support included several other symptoms like the mapping of fields to the wrong Simplifi fields, automatic hiding of transactions, ATM withdrawals, etc. Payee filed is blank, unable to modify fields, etc.)

I have reluctant to use my primary checking account as a manual account, but I have tried every other suggestion.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/58835#Comment_58835

Good luck.

SRC54 · January 27

@FlyingAround Thoughtful comments, and I cannot disagree with any of it. I complain to Fidelity all the time and I just say Quicken because most of these service reps don't know what Simplifi is and couldn't care less. I get some who say it is up to Quicken, and Quicken says it is dictated by the FI. I do know that in Quicken Classic last summer Fidelity did away with its Direct Connect so that it now doesn't update as quickly and as in Simplifi, sometimes a transaction doesn't download. Unlike Simplifi, I have to put it in myself to keep the cash balance right. OTOH, Fidelity now wants the Cash balance to be zero so I have to put in buy transactions for the core account to bring cash balance back to 0.00.

At least, Quicken Classic does support splits and checks. I wish Simplifi would use the regular register so we can have reminders and splits. I also think pending transactions should subtract from the downloaded balances in Investments. Right now, they are just ignored like everything else until the balance updates. The easiest thing would be to treat CMAs as checking accounts or savings accounts but that seems to have been rejected by Simplifi.

I do know we've lost several users because of the lack of support for CMA. In my case, I don't use it much because it is so crippled so I continue to use my local bank account for most spending. But when a new user comes along and they depend on this account for their daily spending, they are likely to go elsewhere.

I do think Simplifi does plan to address CMA compatibility in some manner, but I fear it is low on the list and they ae very busy implementing other things right now. So it seems unlikely not to be soon.

Thanks for posting.

Allow users to classify an Investment Account as a non-investment account

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