Simplifi - trying it out

Ps56k2

I had tried Simplifi when it was first launched. Didn’t really fit for me - but thought I would try it again here in October 2023.. Will leave comments as we go -

Doesn’t support several major areas for my financial world - but I’m not the target audience for simple checking and budgeting-

Let us know if you are also … Trying it out

Ps56k2

Investments -
doesn't really have any support for Investments - other than the simple snapshot of how things look today vs 30/60/90 days ago - but nothing for Cost Basis or any simple long term Gain/Loss - it might look like the Quicken desktop Simple Investing screens…

Splits - nope - not avail for tracking breakdowns on Income or payouts on Expenses -- YES …. Splits are there for Income/Expense

Web browser timeout - appears to have a 15min timeout when used with my Edge or Firefox

Whitespace - might just be the way it is….. but Transaction lists and other "data" are web double spaced,
which means some scrolling around to find things or enter/change things.

Ps56k2

When trying to update a transaction - there is a submenu that opens -
but that screen is LARGER than the avail window displayed - no scroll - just oversized, so can't see top & bottom -

jacobs

@Ps56k2 You're really selling it! 🤣

Rocket J Squirrel

Try CTRL-minus to make the window contents smaller.

Ps56k2

helped a little - but still missing bottom even with scroll bar all the way down

Chris_QPW

I wonder if it is any better on the Mobile app.

Ps56k2

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20394012#Comment_20394012

found the "…" in Edge - upper right corner -
and can manually adjust zoom - had to take it down to 67% to see the entire sub-menu…

Ps56k2

Here is a screen grab from Simplifi Transactions & also Quicken On The Web Transactions - twins :)

Ps56k2

well - it looks like Simplifi can't connect to Vanguard - error - FDP-105
don't have any issues with Quicken & Vanguard

Chris_QPW

Interesting that the error is FDP-105, which shows the sharing that is happening for the servers and such.

If you search this forum for FDP-105 you will see it popping all over the place, mostly on the Mac side.

The important thing to note is that it isn't a Direct Connect error message, that is why your Vanguard account setup with Direct Connect can be fine and the one with Simplifi has an error,  Simplifi doesn't use Direct Connect.

NotACPA

" Simplifi doesn't use Direct Connect."

Which suggests that Simplifi wouldn't work with Fidelity Investments either.

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20395779#Comment_20395779

Interesting that you should mention Fidelity:

Ps56k2

just added our Fidelity accounts - IRA - and yes, Quicken shows all as - Direct Connect -

Simplifi found and added our Traditional IRA accounts -
our general Brokerage account -
but did NOT find our Roth IRA account -

NotACPA

I mentioned Fido because they're hold all of my investments … taxable, regular IRAs and a Professionally Managed IRA.

Chris_QPW

BTW as I understand it, Simplifi is "balances only" for investment accounts, just like Mint, and Quicken Web/Mobile.

Ps56k2

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20395805#Comment_20395805

just looked - Schwab & Fidelity are showing full Transaction history -

Chris_QPW

Interesting. That is more than Mint had.

Ps56k2

Also - on the Vanguard not working issue -
was told Simplifi uses "Quicken Connect" as in Express Web Connect -

Here's the FI info - and it looks like it should work with the Web-Connect method being supported - but…. it doesn't -

15103 15103 15103 Vanguard
https://investor.vanguard.com/home/ 1-888-285-4563
https://investor.vanguard.com/corporate-portal/ ACTIVE
INVESTMENT,ACCOUNTINFO,401K&DIRECT
INVESTMENT,401K&WEB-CONNECT

and here is Fidelity - which does work - but WITHOUT having Web-Connect supported?

07776 07776 07776 Fidelity Investments
http://www.Fidelity.com (800) 544-7931
http://personal.fidelity.com/misc/partners/quicken/disclaimer.shtml ACTIVE
INVESTMENT,ACCOUNTINFO&DIRECT

Rocket J Squirrel

Perhaps Simplifi has its own version of FIDIR.TXT.

Chris_QPW

I would certainly believe that they have their own because there's no way that they support exactly the same just like windows and Mac don't have the same. And like I said as far as I know it doesn't support direct connect so that would make it the windows file wrong for them

Ps56k2

here’s a couple more goodies …

Not connecting with any Roth IRA accounts, but does find Traditional IRA from same brokerage - Fidelity & Vanguard

In the Transaction listing/register- the Category shows the sub-category but no way to tell the full Category name.

Filter - for searching & replacing only finds exact text matching starting from left - no free form word search.

A nit - default transaction display columns does not show the Notes/Memo column

Austin@

So far you’ve just listed off shortcomings you’ve found as compared to Quicken Classic. Are there any things about Quicken Simplifi you like, or things that are different that you see as a potential improvement given time? Just curious since down the road I would prefer a cloud-based system (I get tired of the desktop-centric limitations of Quicken Classic sometimes) and Quicken Simplifi would likely be one of the contenders if I were to make a change.

jacobs

Down the road I would prefer a cloud-based system (I get tired of the desktop-centric limitations of Quicken Classic sometimes) and Quicken Simplifi would likely be one of the contenders if I were to make a change.

Would you be willing to give up all your data in Quicken Classic? There's no migration path for data, so for me, that would likely be a deal breaker, even if the functionality of Simplifi was greatly improved.

For me, the better long-term solution would be if they engineered changed such that Quicken Cloud and syncing were as rock-solid reliable as the Quicken Classic Mac desktop program. If I trusted syncing with Quicken Cloud — which I currently don't — then that would give the best-of-both worlds of keeping all the history, retaining all the advanced Quicken Classic features, and being able to use it in a web browser or mobile app.

Ps56k2

for @Austin@ - basically, Quicken has taken the Quicken On The Web world and turned it into Quicken Simplifi - a totally web based product offering. To do this, they needed the online interface - but had to recreate "where" the data and all the settings come from, since there is no "desktop" component to anchor these components. So, this gives you a basic starting point - and also why some things don't really exist in Simplifi compared to the desktop products…. like a lot of the Investment tracking.

All of the data comes directly from the financial institutions and the Quicken Cloud - and some limited Import capability.
You of course now have to setup all you Category, Tags, Recurring Transactions, and everything else that was created on the desktop… which is why the "differences" become important or easy to spot when you try to do something in Simplifi - and have to find the new menu item, or discover it is in fact not supported or even possible - again… Investment tracking.

I am becoming more comfortable with Simplifi - learning where things are, what they are now called, and how they work.
Since most of my interest in Quicken Classic is for Investment tracking - and I don't use any of the other features like Budget, etc - the lack of Investments in Simplifi make me a bad target audience….

But if you want a simple, web based checking/savings product with saving/goals and spending tracking - then Simplifi is one of the several online cloud based products…

Ps56k2

I'll drop this mention - having been around computers, networks, protocols for a long time - it amazes me how really bad this entire Quicken financial institution situation really is - even in just the Quicken product world - how do you have a protocol sandbox and even a single target aggregator and still have random different errors across ALL products - that seem to act and download differently ?
- Quicken QWin, QMac, QWeb, QApp and now QSimplifi Web & App -

Chris_QPW

even in just the Quicken product world - how do you have a protocol sandbox and even a single target aggregator and still have random different errors across ALL products - that seem to act and download differently?

I don't get this statement, since when has Quicken ever had a "protocol sandbox"?

Ps56k2

@Chris_QPW - I don't get this statement, since when has Quicken ever had a "protocol sandbox"?

Whatever you want to call "how" Quicken products talk to Intuit to get financial transactions -
And if each Quicken product has their own non-common code "sandbox" to perform this task - that just makes it worse -

BUT…. I'll try to stay on track with just the Simplifi discussion

Chris_QPW

There is a saying "Garbage in, Garbage out.".

I have no idea (since they never talk about it) what kind of "protocol" they are using between the Quicken Connection Services and the Intuit servers. But it is probably the "least likely" source of problems.

Here are the "protocols/data feeds" that I can identify.

Web Connect, Direct Connect, Ad hock any number of systems (Express Web Connect), Quicken Connect (Mac's system which seems similar, but not exactly the same as Express Web Connect/Express Web Connect +), and then Express Web Connect +. All these feeds of data have their own error codes and flow of data. Some of which is shared, and some isn't.

In the case of Simplifi I have no idea if they took the Mac flow or the Windows side, but if I had to guess it would be the Mac side, the error codes I have seen from Simplifi seem to line up with Quicken Mac the best.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that the Quicken Connection Service/Quicken Cloud is what Simplifi is exactly what it is using. I can only judge by what they show in the GUI. Quicken Web only shows a "Simple investing" mode. No transactions. So, at least at the GUI level they are different.

Chris_QPW

I got a query about CSV files for Quicken Simplifi for a Mint user on my website. And I did quick search and found that Quicken Simplifi can import Mint CSV files and other CSV files it seems by the post in their forum.

I'm sure it pretty "dumb" in the sense that I don't think it will try to find duplicates and such, but it would be interesting to see how it handles splits and transfers.

Ps56k2

I’ll have to go look - but I think there was a discussion about CSV importing and exactly which incoming fields are supported by Simplifi

https://help.simplifimoney.com/en/articles/4413430-how-to-manually-import-transactions

Here is the Simplifi CSV “template”

And here is the Mint export template