Spending Plan - How to include checking account balance?

djp2025 · February 3

Spending plan for the month is typically in negative numbers for me and does not provide value. This is due to because Simplifi is NOT including the Starting Balance of the checking account each month. (Why???) To only look at new money coming in, and exclude money which exist at the start of the month, is not how everyone manages their money and what is left to spend.

Yes, I can have Simplifi ignore large payments to my credit card to avoid this… but why should I. It's part of my monthly spend

Consider if this needs to be changed. Offer at least an option for users to choose to include their starting balance is their spending plan for each month. (Just like you can choose to show current balance, with or without pending. (which would be financially unsound to NOT know your balance including pending)

Thanks!

DJ

SRC54 · February 3

It sounds like you haven't set up recurring income reminders for your monthly income? That may be why your Spending Plan is negative. The Spending Plan isn't concerned with the balances in your account, just your monthly spending versus your monthly income.

You are correct that Credit Card Payments and other transfers are ignored by default in the Spending Plan as well as in Reports. This is because they are not really spending. This works because most people track their credit card expenses in the credit card accounts so these are then included in the Spending Plan. Are you tracking credit card accounts?

Now that said, you may have transfers from accounts that you want to count as income. This typically happens with IRA distributions, but I assume that is not your case. There are some ways to get those transfers to show up in the Spending Plan if you like.

Anyhow, give us more information, and we will get you pointed in the right direction.

DryHeat · February 3

@djp2025

It sounds like you are wanting to use Spending Plan to monitor your cash flow and cash reserves. That's not what it is designed for and it probably will not work well for you. Managing "what is left to spend" can be done better by looking at your account balances and Projected Cash Flow.

Here's a short description of what Spending Plan is actually for (in my opinion).

Spending Plan compares your monthly spending to the amount of money you have coming in every month (not to the amount you happen to have on hand). It's main purpose is to help with spending decisions by showing you how those decisions will affect your financial position month by month. (That is, will you spend more or less than you take in for the current month — thus making your reserves go down or up).

As for credit card payments… Because Spending Plan is focused on decision-making, it counts credit card spending at the time you make the purchase rather than when you make the credit card payment. That way you can see if you are over-spending at the time you are doing that spending, not the next month when you pay the bill.

Spending Plan - How to include checking account balance?

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