Assessing Simplifi by Quicken: A Comprehensive Review of the Personal Finance App

During the early 1990s, Quicken, a personal finance software, entered the market and rapidly became the dominant player. As the only desktop application that comprehensively covered every aspect of personal finance, it enjoyed unparalleled success.

 However, recently, the very company launched a new web-based personal finance solution named Simplifi, which is targeted at a younger audience and others who want to track their financial accounts, monitor daily spending, and work towards savings goals.

Simplifi is a new personal finance app that is gaining popularity due to its user-friendly features and affordability. Simplifi isn’t just a money management app, it also offers tax software to help you file your taxes quickly and easily.

 Simplifi is not just a lighter version of Quicken; rather, it represents an entirely different approach. It provides a modern user experience, an informative dashboard, and innovative perspectives of your data, such as watchlists, spending plans, and reports, that keep you updated on the status of your finances.

Simplifi allows you to link your financial institutions for seamless money tracking and provides a comprehensive view of your net worth. And With Simplifi, you can manage your finances seven days a week, anywhere you have an internet connection. 

However, one can also use a simplifi account which is a management app that offers advanced tracking and budgeting features similar to Quicken. You can also create a Simplifi account with your partner to manage your shared finances more efficiently. Similarly, Simplifi will keep track of all your accounts, so you don’t have to worry about missing any important transactions.

A personal finance app is a digital tool that provides you with the knowledge on how to manage your financial accounts and transactions in one convenient location. With a personal finance app, you can link your various accounts, such as checking and savings accounts. credit cards, and brokerage accounts, to the app.

Once connected, you can view the latest activity and balances of each account individually, as well as a consolidated register of all your accounts.

One good thing about using a personal finance app is the ability to monitor your finances in near-real-time. You are able to access all your financial information in one place, making it easier to track your spending, budget your money, and manage your investments.

 Besides, many personal finance apps provide budgeting tools, investment tracking, and financial goal-setting features that can help you reach your financial objectives. Overall, personal finance apps are a convenient and effective way to stay on top of your finances and take control of your financial future.

Simplifi is a personal finance app that provides a user-friendly and straightforward interface for users who want simplicity and clarity in managing their finances.

Unlike Quicken, which requires users to spend hours recording, planning, and reporting their finances, Simplifi’s interface is designed to provide answers to financial queries faster.

Users can log in, view their account balances, track their spending, and get an overview of their finances all in one place.

Simplifi’s dashboard is designed to minimize the time needed to find important financial information. The dashboard shows account balances in a vertical pane on the left, along with slices of personal finance information that users commonly seek, such as upcoming transactions, top spending categories, and Spending Watchlists.

Six-month graphs also outline users’ income and spending, providing a concise overview of their financial situation.

In contrast to Mint, Simplifi’s user interface is more intuitive and visually appealing. The app’s design is orderly across all screens, making it easy for users to navigate and find the information they need. In summary, Simplifi offers superior user experience for individuals who want a simplified, yet effective approach to managing their finances.

Simplifi costs $5.99 per month or $47.88 per year, with a 30-day trial available for those who wish to test it out before subscribing. If you’re not satisfied with Simplifi within the first 30 days, you can get a full refund. In comparison to other personal finance apps like Mint, Credit Karma, and WalletHub, which are all free, Simplifi’s cost is relatively rare.

 Nevertheless, it’s absolutely necessary to bear in mind that Simplifi is a newer app, and as such, it hasn’t had the same time to mature and develop as some of its competitors. It’s available for download on both the App Store and Google Play Store for a monthly subscription of $5.99.

While Simplifi may not have as many features as some other apps, such as Quicken Deluxe, which is also owned by the same company as Simplifi, it’s worth noting that Quicken Deluxe has a higher list price of $59.99 per year. Besides, Quicken Deluxe provides more technical features for tracking investments and tax planning, which Simplifi does not have.

Mint, which is Simplifi’s closest rival, provides numerous tools for tracking bills, budgets, and credit scores, which Simplifi currently lacks. However, it’s important to note that Simplifi is designed to be a simpler, more streamlined alternative to Mint, which may be more user-friendly to those who prioritize ease of use and a more intuitive interface over a wider range of features.

For just 5.99 per month, a Simplifi subscription will give you access to all the tools and features the app has to offer. Additionally, the cost of the premium features of the budgeting app is only 3.99 per month.

Simplifi has lately launched some useful new features. One of the updates is a custom income option that makes it a bit easier for self-employed individuals to use the service, although it still falls short compared to Quicken Deluxe in that aspect. Simplifi has also made improvements to its investment tracking and introduced a new tool called Achievements, which recognizes personal milestones.

In addition, Simplifi has also improved its core Spending Plan to further emphasize the importance of controlling spending. While additional advancements such as a performance-over-time tool and enhanced reports have been announced, they are not yet available. Simplifi doesn’t just help you manage your money; it also makes it easy to understand your spending habits and identify areas where you can save. 

Setting up Simplifi is a breeze with its simple process. After creating an account, users only need to provide their name and ZIP code. To get the best results, Simplifi asks for access to all financial accounts, including online checking and savings accounts, credit cards, investments, loans, and other financial instruments. After entering the login credentials for each account, the platform imports recent transactions and updates automatically.

Simplifi offers generous support to users, making it user-friendly. In the event of any queries, users can initiate a live chat any day of the week, request a callback, or search for possible answers in the platform’s article database.

To get started with Simplifi, you’ll need to go through the registration process. This step can be time-consuming, but it’s necessary for knowing where your money is coming from and where it’s going.

Simplifi comes with default categories such as Auto & Transport, Dining & Drinks, Entertainment, Groceries, and Utilities, and you can add, edit, and delete categories and subcategories as needed. You can also tag and flag transactions for better organization.

Simplifi also automatically assigns categories to transactions based on educated guesses, but you can modify them to ensure accuracy. When you do, Simplifi learns how to correctly categorize similar transactions in the future. Besides, you can set up rules that automatically assign a category based on the payee’s name or keywords that you specify.

Overall, Simplifi’s categorization system is intuitive and customizable, allowing you to get a clear understanding of your spending habits and make adjustments as needed.

Tracking your income in Simplifi is as important as tracking your spending. If you have a steady paycheck, you can easily have your recurring income in Simplifi. You only need to find one of your deposits and make it recur. After that, you can indicate the frequency of your payment, and the deposit will automatically appear on your Spending Plan. 

Notably, if you are self-employed or have varying income from side gigs, Simplifi may not be as useful. In this case, it’s best to consider investing in a small business accounting solution instead. 

Despite Simplifi’s limitations for self-employed individuals, tracking and categorizing income and expenses is still essential. Having this information is crucial when paying estimated taxes and preparing annual returns.

Nevertheless, you won’t have the exact picture of your projected balances at the start of each month unless you have clients that pay you nearly the same amount every month.

If that’s the case, you can come up with individual projects as recurring income. In another option, you can come up with custom income that overrides your scheduled income total, but this may require making an educated guess. 

However, with a personal capital cash flow management feature, you can easily track your income and expenses and identify areas where you can save money. Personal capital can also help you get a clear financial picture of your wealth, investments, and spending. Through wise investments, your net worth can grow to over a million dollars.

 As a user, you have the option to categorize transactions at any time in Simplifi, and it is not mandatory to categorize every transaction that comes in. If you wish to begin categorizing from the day you signed up, you can do so.

However, if you have recently faced issues in tracking your spending and earnings, categorizing transactions for at least a month can help you clear things up quickly.

A personal finance application can save you money by alerting you to unwanted transactions that you may miss when checking your accounts individually. For instance, you may have annual fees that are not immediately visible until they come around again. In such cases, using Simplifi can help you identify such charges and take appropriate action.

Simplifi offers a single login for you to view all activity across all of your accounts, making it less likely for you to miss anything. You can also view your register in several ways, including by date, account, payee, or category, making it easier to get a comprehensive view of your financial transactions.

While Simplifi’s bill-tracking capabilities are not as advanced as Mint’s, it gives you the opportunity to include bills in your monthly expenses, add notes and attachments, and split transactions.

Besides, Simplifi lets you exclude an entry from Reports or your Spending Plan by toggling a button. With a personal finance app, you can easily track your upcoming bills and ensure that you have enough funds to cover them.

Simplifi has features to help you manage your spending. One of these is Spending Watchlists, which let you track spending in specific categories, payees, or tags. You can set a maximum amount and view all your Watchlists on one screen.

Each Watchlist shows your monthly average spending and year-to-date totals, as well as the current month’s spending toward your projected total. Simplifi also provides a 12-month comparative chart. You can create ongoing Watchlists or one-time tallies, like for holiday spending, to help you stay on budget.

Simplifi offers you an appealing overview of your financial status. If you meticulously document all the transactions that come in during your initial imports, you can get real-time feedback on your finances through the Spending Plan.

The Spending Plan is an important tool that calculates your remaining spendable money for the current month using basic addition and subtraction. It combines your scheduled income and deducts bills, subscriptions, and other expenses. You can literally view all these transactions listed chronologically.

The app also has a Trends section that displays a graphical representation of your spending habits, so you can get a more comprehensive understanding of where your money is going. This section has charts that break down you’re spending into categories, such as Groceries or Auto & Transport, so you can see where your money is going each month.

You can even view your spending by the payee, which allows you to see how much you spent at specific stores or with specific merchants. The Trends section provides valuable insight into your financial behavior over time, making it easier for you to identify areas where you can cut back on spending.

Simplifi does not provide traditional budgeting tools but instead has Watchlists. Simplifi’s developers and early users found that people spend discretionary money differently each month, making it hard to come up with a proper budgeting plan.

The Watchlists are an effective compromise as they allow users to watch their money closely without getting locked into absolutes that might make them give up on the whole concept.

However, using a budgeting app can also be an effective way to keep track of your spending and achieve financial goals. Additionally, you can also use a web app to access your budgeting information and financial data from any device.

 Mint, on the other hand, offers more traditional budgeting tools that are flexible. Users can set up individual budgets for each category that they can easily adjust. Mint also tracks actual numbers as they increase and lets users schedule email and push notifications for budget overruns and numerous other situations.

Besides, Mint provides easy access to users’ current credit performance, which Simplifi does not. Mint subtracts users’ budgeted spending from their budgeted income on the Budgets page so they always see how much money will be left over theoretically. This feature provides users with the opportunity to navigate their spending accordingly.

Despite the differences in their budgeting tools, Simplifi and Mint both offer ways to monitor and control users’ spending habits, ultimately leading to better financial management. Finally, if you’re looking for an app designed to help you with both tracking and budgeting, Simplifi is a great option.

Simplifi provides a Savings Goals feature that allows you to create tracking records for your financial goals, such as saving for a vacation, emergency fund, or a new car. You can set a target amount and make an entry whenever you add or remove funds.

The site keeps track of your progress by displaying your current monthly contribution, the total amount saved so far, and how much more you need to save. If you set a target date, Simplifi calculates how much you must save each month to reach your goal.

While the Savings Goals feature in Simplifi is not linked to your existing accounts, it is a useful tool to keep you accountable and encourage you to work towards your goals.

However, Mint offers a more integrated approach by linking your goals to your accounts and providing personalized recommendations based on your spending and saving habits. Despite this difference, Simplifi’s Savings Goals feature is a great way to track your progress toward achieving your financial goals.

Simplifi has improved its investment tracking capabilities, allowing you to connect to online brokerage accounts and view the value of your holdings. The portfolio updates daily, with a table showing the number of shares, price, value, and one-day profit or loss presented in both percentages and numbers.

Clicking on an entry opens a more detailed view of that security, and there’s a new chart that tracks the balance over time. Additionally, related market news is displayed in the right vertical pane.

While Simplifi’s investment tracking has improved, it still lags behind Quicken Deluxe, which offers more portfolio-tracking tools than any other personal finance service tested.

However, this is not a significant disadvantage for Simplifi since there are many free and paid services that provide investment tools. The primary focus of personal finance sites is to raise awareness of your day-to-day income and expenses.

While Simplifi’s investment tracking has improved, it still lags behind Quicken Deluxe, which offers more portfolio-tracking tools than any other personal finance service tested.

However, this is not a significant disadvantage for Simplifi since there are many free and paid services that provide investment tools. The primary focus of personal finance sites is to raise awareness of your day-to-day income and expenses. Whether you’re looking for a money-tracking app or a comprehensive money-management solution, Simplifi has got you covered.

Simplifi recognizes the importance of reports and their role in personal finance. The website offers a variety of reports that can help you to track your finances more efficiently.

These reports include Income, Spending, Net Income, Savings, and Monthly Summary. Simplifi also keeps track of refunds you’re expecting, which is an excellent feature that sets it apart from other personal finance sites.

Modifying reports is also possible in Simplifi. For instance, when you select one of the first four report types, you can view it in chart form and as a transaction list. If you click Spending, you can choose to view the data by category, payee, account, or tag.

 Besides, a new advanced option is available for more targeted reports. You can also select a date range or create your own and choose from numerous filters.

The Monthly Summary report is a great feature that compares your income and expenses from the last two months and lists the top categories and payers.

Overall, Simplifi provides a general overview of your finances by offering a range of reports that you can customize to your preference. The site also keeps track of refunds you’re expecting, making it stand out among other personal finance sites.

The Monthly Summary report is an excellent feature that compares your income and expenses from the last two months, providing insights into the top categories and payers. The app offers robust Quicken features such as automatic categorization of transactions, spending insights, and customized reports.

Simplifi’s mobile apps for Android and iOS are advanced, according to our reviewer. The apps provide an excellent overview of your finances, opening to the Dashboard, which displays your banking and credit totals, recent spending, and upcoming transactions.

The Spending Plan, Portfolio Value, Watchlists, a colorful pie chart that represents your top spending, and Spending Goals and Achievements are also easily accessible.

The apps use mobile technology well and offer the best of both worlds: a quick overview of your finances and the ability to take a deeper dive into details. You can access details either by clicking through on the Dashboard or by opening the app menu, which is the same as on the browser-based version.

In comparison to Mint’s mobile app, which only contains a subset of the features available in the desktop version, Simplifi’s mobile apps are preferred.

Simplifi’s security measures are strong, which is typical for personal finance apps. The app’s developers use similar technology to major banks, but it’s still important to keep your sensitive data secure by avoiding public Wi-Fi and enabling multi-factor authentication.

Quicken, the company behind Simplifi, has been securing online financial data for nearly 30 years. Simplifi uses multi-factor authentication with a choice of security code delivery via email or text message.

Data from your bank servers is transmitted securely using robust 256-bit encryption, and any information downloaded from your bank is confidential and only used to update your accounts.

Simplifi by Quicken has made significant strides since its launch four years ago, with new features and enhancements that make it easier for people who don’t want to micromanage their finances but want to keep an eye on their money. The service offers a smart set of tools and features for tracking finances on both desktop and mobile devices.

However, mint is a more feature-rich and free personal finance app that provides top-notch features such as bill-tracking and traditional budgeting.

However, Mint’s ads can be intrusive and may get in the way of data, requiring a lot of scrolling to bypass. Simplifi, which costs a few dollars per month, offers an ad-free experience and may be worth the cost if users don’t need Mint’s advanced features.

Quicken Deluxe is the most comprehensive, feature-rich personal finance app available and only costs a little more than Simplifi. While it is a desktop-based app, users can still access their data through the web or mobile app.

Personal finance is personal, and users may have specific preferences for the information they want to see and how they want to view it. Mint or Quicken Deluxe are recommended as the first choices, but Simplifi’s free trial is worth considering, as it continues to build on its strong foundation. Finally, with simlifi you can easily manage your finances.

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