Overview
The Simplifi Spending Plan takes the worry out of your monthly spending decisions by keeping track of your finances for you! The Spending Plan will show you at a glance just how much money you have left to spend, updated in real-time.
The Spending Plan can be accessed from the Dashboard of the Simplifi Web App, or by selecting Spending Plan from the left-hand navigation bar. To access the Spending Plan from the Dashboard, just locate the Spending Plan tile and click on it.
Note: The Spending Plan uses actual transactions you’ve received or expect to receive for the current month, meaning that it does not consider existing account balances.
Note: The Spending Plan is designed to not double-count transactions. For example, if you have a transaction that was linked to a Recurring Reminder, the transaction will be counted towards the Bills and Income section of the Spending Plan instead of a Planned Spending expense of the same Category. Learn more here!
You can also check out our YouTube video on using the Spending Plan here!
Table of Contents
How Does it Work?
The Spending Plan is designed to be a simple budget based on your monthly expected Income, Bill, and Subscription transactions, expected Savings Goal contributions, as well as other planned expenses, and it also keeps track of any additional spending throughout the month.
Note: The Spending Plan uses actual transactions you’ve received or expect to receive for the current month, meaning that it does not consider existing account balances.
The Spending Plan divides your monthly spending budget into four parts:
Income after bills and saving is the amount of money left to spend after subtracting your paid and expected Bills, Subscriptions, and Savings Goal contributions from your Income (both received and expected) for the current month. Simplifi uses the Recurring Transactions you've told us about to determine the totals.
Planned spending is the amount you plan to spend on items that fluctuate each month, such as gas and groceries, as well as any other one-time expenses for the month.
Other spending is an up-to-minute tally of the rest of your spending for the month, adjusted every time you update your financial activity in Simplifi.
Available is the amount left to spend after deducting the Planned Spending and Other Spending totals from the Income after bills and saving total.
Each of these areas, except Available, can be expanded for more details:
Income After Bills and Saving
You can see how Simplifi calculates your Income after bills and saving amount by selecting any of the four budget areas shown to the right. These expandable lists allow you to view and edit all of the items in each group.
Income is made up of all of the sources of income that you’ve set up as Recurring Income, such as paychecks, and is updated with any additional deposits received throughout the month.
Bills are all of the expenses that you’ve set up as Recurring Bills for each month, such as phone services, insurance, utilities, and mortgage/rent.
Subscriptions are all of the expenses that you’ve set up as Recurring Subscriptions for each month, such as memberships, streaming services, and other non-essential bills. Click here to learn more about adding and editing Recurring Transactions in Simplifi.
Savings Goals include any amounts that you’ve set aside to save toward your goals, such as emergencies, weddings, and vacations. Click here to learn how to set up Savings Goals in Simplifi.
You can view, edit, or modify any of the information for each of these budget areas by clicking on the arrow to the left of each group. Simplifi will display a list of the items included in that group.
If you want to adjust the total amount for a specific group manually, you can do so by clicking the three dots to the right of the total and selecting Set Custom.
If you need to edit or delete one of the transactions listed in a group, click the three dots to the right of the transaction amount, and choose the appropriate option.
Planned Spending
You can plan for other various expenses in the Planned spending section. Here, you can budget for items that fluctuate month-to-month, such as gas and groceries, or for other one-time expenses that you're anticipating or planning for that month.
Once you think you've spent all that you're going to spend for the month in each area, you can release the funds for that expense back to your Available funds by clicking the three dots to the upper right of the expense and selecting Release Available for spending.
Other Spending
You can review and manage your current spending with several helpful tools that are easy, intuitive, and fun to use!
The Other spending area shows how much you've spent to date in each Category. You can move the colorful Category bubbles around as you like, and they expand when clicked on to display all of the transactions for that Category.
Note: The Other Spending bubbles will only display your top areas of spending for the month; any additional items can be found under the "Other" bubble.
Available
The amount displayed under Available in the bottom left of the Spending Plan is the total amount of money you have left to spend for the month, also broken down into a per-day average, and updated in real-time.
Projecting Into the Future
Simplifi now offers the ability to move forward in the Spending Plan by 12 months so you can easily budget and prepare for the future! When doing so, you'll see your Recurring Income, Bills, and Subscriptions for each month, your planned Savings Goals contributions, as well as the monthly Planned Spending expenses that you've set up. You can also easily create new Recurring and Planned Spending items for future months!
When it comes to projecting your Other Spending for future months, you'll have a few options available: Don't project, Use a custom amount, and Use my average spending from the last 'X' completed months. If you elect to use your average spending, you can tell Simplifi how far back you'd like to go to calculate the average (up to 12 months), as well as allow yourself a buffer!
Note: New users won't have past data for Simplifi to project for future months and may need to use Simplifi for a few months to have an accurate projection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Learn the answers to frequently asked questions for this topic!
Does the Spending Plan offer a rollover option?
The Spending Plan does not currently offer the ability to roll over leftover funds from one month to another. However, you can set a custom Income amount for your Spending Plan to include any additional amounts! Please see here for more details on using a custom Income amount in the Spending Plan.
Can I create a Planned Spending expense for a Recurring item in the Spending Plan?
Simplifi is designed to not double count transactions in the Spending Plan, so once a transaction is linked to a Recurring Reminder, it will be included in the Bills and Income section of the Spending Plan and will not be counted towards a Planned Spending expense of the same Category. Learn more here!
Can I customize the Columns in my Spending Plan Transaction Activity?
At this time, the ability to customize Columns in the Transaction Activity registers of the Spending Plan is not available, including having access to the 'Reviewed' Column. However, you will see a gear icon available to do so in the Spending Plan, as this ability is coming soon!
How do I ignore an account from the Spending Plan?
At this time, if you'd like to ignore an entire account from the Spending Plan, you'll want to use the "Ignore from Reports" option available from the Accounts Settings page. Using this option will also ignore the account from Reports, the Spending Plan, as well as Watchlists. More details are available here!
How do I ignore transactions from the Spending Plan?
Ignoring transactions from the Spending Plan is super easy! Not only can you ignore transactions from the Spending Plan directly, as well as anywhere else you see your transactions, Simplifi is also designed to automatically detect and ignore 'Transfers', meaning less work for you. Find out more here!
Why are some of my Bill and Income transactions grayed out?
If you see Bill, Subscription, or Income transactions that are grayed out in the Spending Plan, this means that they are being "ignored" from the Spending Plan. For example, you may have a Recurring Credit Card Bill setup that you've selected to ignore from the Spending Plan -- while you will still see this item in the Bills section of the Spending Plan, it will be grayed out since it's being excluded from any Spending Plan calculations.
Note: At this time, Recurring Transfers (those that use the Category of just "Transfer") will always be excluded from the Spending Plan, even if you select to include them during the Recurring Series setup.
What does "Including ignored" mean?
When viewing your Bills and Subscriptions in Simplifi, you may see an "including ignored" total. This means that you have Recurring items that are being ignored from the Spending Plan, such as a Recurring Credit Card Bill. Although you'll still see these items in the Spending Plan, they'll be grayed out, and you'll see an "including ignored" total telling you your total including all of the ignored items.
How are Credit Card Payments handled in the Spending Plan?
Since Credit Card Payments aren't considered an income or an expense and are instead a transfer of money from one account to another, Simplifi treats these as 'Transfers' and automatically ignores them from the Spending Plan. However, you can easily include your Credit Card Payments in the Spending Plan by following the steps here!
How are Savings Goal Contributions and Withdraws handled in the Spending Plan?
When you elect to include a Savings Goal in the Spending Plan, the 'monthly contribution' amount will automatically be used. However, if you end up contributing more, the extra amount will also be included. When it comes to withdrawing from a Savings Goal, withdrawing to spend for the Goal will not impact the Spending Plan, as you've already saved this money to spend for your Goal. Withdrawing for another purpose, however, will remove the funds that have been withdrawn up to the standard 'monthly contribution' amount. See more details here!
How do I link or delete 'past' scheduled payments in the Spending Plan?
When resolving outstanding items in the Spending Plan, you may be prompted to link or delete 'past' scheduled payments. When this occurs, it means that you have at least one Recurring Reminder that was not linked to a transaction during that month, and it is now showing as 'past' in the Spending Plan. We have a Support Article available here that goes over how to resolve these items in Simplifi!
How do I release unused Planned Spending funds?
When resolving outstanding items in the Spending Plan, you may see that you need to release unused Planned Spending funds. This means that you had leftover funds in at least one Planned Spending expense for that month that can be released to your leftover funds. Our Support Article here has the steps to do so!
To learn about using the Spending Plan on the Simplifi Mobile App, please click here!