Overview
The Quicken 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.
Note: The Spending Plan starts the same month as your Quicken Simplifi Subscription and is not retroactive.
The Spending Plan can be accessed from the Dashboard of the Quicken Simplifi Mobile App, or from the Menu icon (three lines) in the upper left corner. To access the Spending Plan from the Dashboard, just scroll down until you see the Spending Plan tile and click on it.
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!
How Does it Work?
The Spending Plan is designed to be a simple budget based on your monthly expected bills and income (Recurring Transactions) and Savings Goal contributions, in addition to other planned expenses for the month, and it also keeps track of any additional spending that occurs 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 is the amount of money left to spend after subtracting your paid and expected Bills, Subscriptions, Transfers, and Savings Goal contributions from your Income (both received and expected) for the current month. Quicken Simplifi uses the Recurring Transactions and Savings Goals 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 Quicken 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 sections, except Available, can be expanded to show which transactions are included in that section's total. You can also easily edit any of the transactions displayed in the Spending Plan!
Income After Bills
You can see how Quicken Simplifi calculates your Income after bills amount by selecting any of the five budget areas shown. 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 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 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 you’ve set up as Recurring Subscriptions for each month, such as memberships, streaming services, and other non-essential bills.
Transfers are all of the expenses you’ve set up as Recurring Transfers, such as Credit Card Payments and Transfers to other accounts.
Savings Goals include any amounts you’ve set aside to save toward your goals, such as emergencies, weddings, and vacations.
If you don't want to use Quicken Simplifi' s calculations for your Income, Bills, Subscriptions, Transfers, or Savings Goals totals, you can update each individual section with a custom amount.
Click on the section you'd like to customize: Income, Bills, Subscriptions, Transfers, or Savings Goals.
Select Options in the upper right.
Select Set custom amount.
Enter the Custom Amount.
Click Set Amount to confirm.
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, such as birthdays.
Once you think you've spent all 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.
Note: To learn about Planned Spending Rollover on the Mobile App, please see here!
Other Spending
You can review and manage the rest of your current spending for the month in Other spending. This area shows how much you've spent to date in each Category.
When you click on this section, Quicken Simplifi will bring up a graphic display of what you've spent so far that month, shown as a group of colorful Category bubbles. The bubbles can be clicked on to display all 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 for Available 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
Quicken Simplifi also 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, Subscriptions, and Transfers 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 Quicken 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 Quicken Simplifi to project for future months and may need to use Quicken Simplifi for a few months to have an accurate projection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Learn the answers to frequently asked questions for this topic!
Why am I not seeing a transaction in Planned Spending?
If you're missing a transaction in Planned Spending, you'll want to check to see if the transaction has been linked to a Recurring Reminder. Since Quicken Simplifi is designed to not double count transactions in the Spending Plan, 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!
How do I exclude transactions from the Spending Plan?
Excluding transactions from the Spending Plan is super easy! Not only can you exclude transactions from the Spending Plan directly, as well as anywhere else you see your transactions, Quicken Simplifi is also designed to automatically detect and exclude 'Transfers', meaning less work for you. Find out more here!
How do I exclude an account from the Spending Plan?
You can easily exclude an entire account from the Spending Plan, which will exclude all of the transactions that reside in that account. More details are available here!
Why do I see excluded transactions in the Spending Plan?
While excluded transactions are not included in the calculations, they will still appear in the Transaction Activity of the Spending Plan. Still, Quicken Simplifi will show you which ones are being excluded by graying them out and adding the Excluded icon (a grey eyeball with a line through it) to the left of the amount. That way, you can easily change whether or not to include the specific transaction!
Why are some of my Recurring Transactions grayed out?
If you see Recurring Bill, Subscription, Transfer, or Income transactions that are grayed out in the Spending Plan, this means that they are being "excluded" from the Spending Plan. For example, you may have a Recurring Credit Card Payment setup that you've selected to exclude from the Spending Plan -- while you will still see this item listed in the Spending Plan, it will be grayed out since it's being excluded from any Spending Plan calculations.
What does "Including ignored" mean?
When viewing your Bills and Subscriptions in Quicken Simplifi, you may see an "including ignored" total. This means that you have Recurring items that are being excluded 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 excluded items.
How are Credit Card Payments and Transfers handled in the Spending Plan?
Since Credit Card Payments and Transfers aren't considered an income or an expense and are instead a transfer of money from one account to another, Quicken Simplifi automatically excludes them from the Spending Plan. However, you can easily include your Credit Card Payments and Transfers 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 Quicken 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 Quicken Simplifi Web App, please click here!