Quicken Simplifi: Budget Smart 4+

Super frustrating

I love this app. I am not a zero-based budgeter at this phase in my life, and that’s why this app is so stellar. It allows you to prioritize the things you need, prepare for certain things that may come up in the month and then still have a lump sum leftover that’s flexible for whatever your life turns out to be that month.

It’s just so frustrating to use, and I’m holding out hope the developers will really put in the elbow grease to make it run smoothly. Debt payments on cards that are carrying balances (on a debt payoff journey) are not intuitive to the app, you have to work against it to make sure they don’t just count it as a transfer and not money “lost” to a debt balance. Your current balance seems to never reflect what’s actually reflecting in your bank statement, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why this is. It always seems like my available to spend does not line up at the end of the month with how much money I still have in my account. I feel like I am constantly making workarounds to get the best accuracy possible.

Truthfully, this review should probably be a 3 star but I just love the concept of the app and it’s function to see the future, make “buckets” and not force you to do zero-based budgeting like so many others. Also, it’s account integration is heads and shoulders above a lot of other apps I’ve used - it tracks all kinds of accounts for you. I really hope it gets improved soon!

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your review and honest feedback! We actually released a new version of Simplifi this week which not only comes with significant speed improvements, but hopefully helps eliminate the need for some of those manual workarounds.

Those are great call-outs regarding debt payments too — I'll bring it to the product team to see what can be done. If you haven't yet, also consider contacting the support team through the in-app Help Center as they might also be able to fix that experience for you. — Jonas @Simplifi

I thought I had no money but now I know for sure

I was obsessed with Simplifi for a few days when I started with it. It’s a game changer. The features - transactions, watch list, reports, savings goals, and spending plan - especially the spending plan - are intuitive. All the ways I would think I’d want to understand my money are all here. It’s not 5 stars because it’s got a lot of little quirks that I think mostly come from the complicated nature of tracking money from various accounts that all behave differently. They’re so unique that I would need a few paragraphs to adequately explain any one of the examples. I’m hoping Simplifi gets better at handling all the weird situations it finds itself in. Simplifi is quirky but I still really love it. It’s given me a lot of peace knowing how much money I actually have to spend.

Edit: I don’t know any money tracking app with similarly useful features as Simplifi, so there is no replacement. But the mobile app has been so hard for me to use lately. Categories and tags and planned spending budgets are missing. The way pending transactions work sometimes is clunky and it throws balances off. Spending from a savings goal is awkward. I’m going to uninstall and reinstall to see if that helps.

Close to greatness

I have been looking for an app that provides a financial forecast, something that I’ve missed since I stopped using quicken desktop, and finally found something comparable! Simplifi has done a good job at basically rebooting quicken and updating its functions to be usable on the go. There is definitely room for improvement, but I am hopeful that updates will fix some of the main issues.
The lack of an iPad version is a big disappointment though and there are some features that could to with some fine tuning (it is difficult to move a variable cost recurring bill to the right place for tracking, some options/features are only accessible on the website, etc.)

Bottom Line: For the price, this is an incredibly useful budgeting/financial tracking program. There is room for improvement, but I’m willing to bet that most of the issues are already being worked on. It has become my go to and would definitely recommend it