Quicken Simplifi—Budget Better Reviews

by CARealtor

What a waste of time, I was excited to download a new app from Quicken a company I used to love. In the old days it was all about simple easy accounting software but now it’s all about complicated worthless information. It seems like QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter spends all its time predicting the future and not telling us the past! I want to know what I spent for tax purposes and for my knowledge not to have a machine tell me the future.
So now I want to cancel and I wasted time trying to find where to cancel? How do I cancel? Someone please tell me?.
Years ago, yes I’m that old when Quicken really cared about their customers they developed great simple software, sold it to us and it kept our records, now this new quicken company wants to harvest our info, sell it to marketers, predicts our future spending and keep us confused about our current numbers and recharge us every year for the same software.
All I need is simple record keeping software. Why is that so difficult to produce Quicken you did it in the past?

by WASF1

Whoever is leading app development here should be fired and should never be allowed to work again. QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter STILL does not work on iOS despite the numerous updates claiming “bug fixes and performance improvements.” Here are a few examples, in case you think I’m lying or being too nit picky.

The hamburger button in the top left doesn’t work. Period. Yes that’s right, that means when you try and access the menu, nothing actually happens. The button doesn’t do anything. You press it and it just sits there staring back at you. Same with the profile button in the top right. I push it and nothing happens.

This seems like pretty basic stuff no? Is there any semblance of quality control here, because it feels like a bunch of 5 year olds are pushing random buttons and someone accidentally authorized an app launch that wasn’t even close to being ready.

by StarOcean17

Honestly it’s missing some of the basics and it has been out for a while. QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter is great for budgeting by categories, but it goes no further. You cannot see cash flow, you cannot see a P&L report, you cannot export any of the reports (which is honestly important and needed for accountants). The cash flow is useful so you can see a quick breakout of all your expenses vs income and the net income. For the reports that are there you can’t click on it to view the data broken down at a quick glance. You’re relying that you categorized it correctly to begin with.
Dashboard doesn’t let you view cash flow which is worthless. Having to push the back button multiple times to get back to the dashboard is obnoxious. No dark mode. App can only pull 4-5 months prior when syncing for the first time. Yet there is no way to import financial statements to fill in the missing months. So when you start QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter you cannot see a full annual account report. Etc. If you just care to monitor your budget only you’re better off using something like spendee, wallet or that envelope app. This is not worth $40 annual. For that sum I expect a fully usable personal finance app.

by Jostini85

QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter is fantastic. I’ve used Dave Ramsey’s envelope system with all cash, graduated to EveryDollar, dabbled in Mint and settled with YNAB over the past 12 years before reading about Simplifi in Wirecutter. Started using four months ago and is hands-down the best app I’ve used for budgeting and money management. Easily saved me hundreds in first few months by getting me back on the money-management wagon. There are loads of unique features which make it a cut above the rest.

A few weeks ago, arguably the best feature of QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter , the Spending Plan, just stopped working correctly for a day or so. Annoying, but not the end of the world. Well, three weeks later, the bug has returned and the Spending Plan has been out of sync and offline for the past four days…right at the end of the month when money needs the most active managing. Needless to say, this is a criticism issue that needs to be addressed. I’m hoping the developer gets this fixed ASAP and this does not become a recurring error.

Hoping for the best, but expectations have officially been lowered.

by Jbas21

First off, I do like the layout and the general appearance of QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter . Worked well right away and decided to buy a yearly subscription. This is where it started to go wrong. Bugs, Bugs and more Bugs started to appear. Spending plan has been broken for me since the start of February. Spending plan says all zeros no matter what I do. This is an important part of QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter for me and I sent in a support ticket that was escalated but it’s now March and nobody can fix it. Customer service is responsive in QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter but without resolution of this bug I have a hard time finding value in QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter. Second, QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter has become painfully slow. I mean very slow, app freezes are normal and have to resort to access on the Mac. Saving Goals often disappear, then magically come back after a week of so. I’m ready to be done with QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter and will not renew next year if significant changes and bug fixes aren’t made. Can not recommend QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter at all to anybody at the moment.

by Rezzzed

I loved QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter at first but the more I use it the more frustrated I become. There are constant duplicate entries that you have to go in and manually delete. They obvs know because they have a “oops sorry” blog post abt it, but it’s not fixed months later. It doesn’t learn category rules for some repeat transactions no matter how many times you set it. The prediction for income / expenses in the month ahead is useless unless you earn the same amount every month and have no irregular anticipated income or expenses. It’s so annoying! And what’s worse is that there’s not a better app to switch to. As soon as somebody makes one, I’m outta here unless they fix this wreck. Seriously, wayyyy back in the day before Mint (the worst!) when Quicken had a free online budgeting thing that was 10X more simple, it was perfect and easy to use. Why?????

by Gyposse

I’ve tried really hard to like QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter. It has a lot of potential and could someday be the premier app. First, it does not try to get you open credit card accounts or sign up for investment accounts or save money on car insurance. It is focused on your finances and budgeting. They are fairly responsive and will work with you to fix issues, it may take an extended period, but they will work with you. What’s holding it back? Glad you asked. First, connectivity. Every week, sometimes multiple days you will see messages that you have to fix connections to financial institutions. It is painful. QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter doesn’t fix the connections in the background. You have to sit there and take it like a champ. Second, it does not support property accounts. Simplifi’s sister company has full integration with Zillow and will show you estimates of your property value to help calculate your net worth. Not here! If there is a change in property value, you’ll have to delete and set up your account again. Third, there is no native support for iPad. It claims to work on iPad until you use landscape orientation. Watch out for the crick in the neck.

3/3/22
Took this down a star because there are no reports to see how you are doing over time. For example, the most basic of charts, net worth is missing.

by Eks2

The design of QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter is fantastic. The features are well thought out. From a design and feature point of view, it is THE BEST financial management app available. And it’s not ready for prime time. I feel like I am paying to be a beta tester. Nearly every day some issue crops up. While their help desk is responsive, I would prefer not to have to contact them! The biggest issue for me is the integration with AMEX credit cards doesn’t work. It’s constantly not updating which requires disconnecting/reconnecting them as a biller. And on the rare occasions when that is working, it incessantly asked for MFA validation. While the features of QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter, eg watchlist, recurring transaction planning, refund tracking to name a few are the best available, they need to get MFA “known merchant” working like Mint has and get the bugs fixed.

by Erica_FL

As a former Quicken, Quickbooks and Mint user .. I was looking for a simple app for my phone. Today I downloaded and added my first account (Chase, a major bank) and it downloaded transactions for the pas 90 days .. except ZERO transactions from the past 30 days were downloaded. The balances were also incorrect. I contacted support and they’ve escalated the issue .. but this was just strike #1.

As I was on their chat support for 30 min trying to figure out why my most recent 30 days did not import, I started marking my business transactions as ‘remove from reports’ but when I clicked spending reports, those transactions still showed in the reports’ transaction lists (including the eyeball icon indicating it should be hidden) I was told this is intentional, but the balances do not include those transaction amounts .. but I didn’t take the time to manually confirm this is the case.

QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter just isn’t ready yet .. it has way too many bugs to squish. I’m disappointed that Intuit/Quicken would release such an incomplete product.

by Cutter85

Love the concept and fresh look. Obvious that a watered down version of this powers the Quicken web app. It’s frustrating that instead of really plowing these development efforts into the existing paid platform in Quicken they are launching a separate product and not even offering a subscription credit to existing quicken customers who want to switch to this.

I also get these are separate products and governed by different data usage/connection agreements but it’s frustrating there isn’t better crossover for connectors between quicken and simplifi.

They desperately need a data migration solution from Quicken to SImplifi or at least let us upload transactions. At least they are working on a mobile first approach rather than depending on an outdated file structure in Quicken. Still a couple of disappointing facets but I’ll keep my eyes peeled.

by Birds Masher

QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter has a lot of things to love but it still has some bugs to work out. I stopped using quicken awhile back because it was more than I really needed to manage my expenses. QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter gives me everything I want from seeing my spending plan for the month, to tracking savings goals, to analyzing spending and tracking regular bills, without the extra clutter that quicken has.

The bugs I’ve experienced are mainly around the savings goals. Adding or taking money out of the savings goals doesn’t always work and I’ve also seen it show an incorrect balance in the savings account summary screen on the account I added the money from. We should also be given the option to either show the savings contributions in the balance of the account summary or not. And there definitely needs to be an option to set up an automatic savings contribution to the goals that is also captured in your spending plan.

The investment tracking doesn’t offer much other than adding in your investments for net worth tracking. It would be nice to see some analysis on the mix of investments and set target assets to monitor against what you actually have.

Overall I’m very optimistic about Simplifi and will continue using with the hope that they work out the bugs and add the enhancements that I’ve noted.

by Ginger44

QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter isn’t bad. It’s helped me pay attention to my spending, especially in certain areas. However, on several of my bills it will automatically “remove from report” and sometimes you can’t link it to a transaction. It’s finicky so I definitely don’t trust the amounts it says. It is also hard to tell what is a reminder bill and what is an actual bill. So I have to use a different app to keep track of the bills I need to pay. Also, the savings contributor is awful. It can’t track transactions and if you try to “contribute” after you have already moved the actual funds from you account, it will show insufficient funds and won’t let you contribute that money in QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter . My bank does a save as you spend, so with every charge some money goes into my savings but QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter can’t track that. A big reason I bought QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter was to track my savings so it’s disappointing.

by Aca_christy

For many years I have struggled to figure out a budgeting system that isn’t burdensome to actually use. I was looking for an app that helped me to track spending by category and was not unpleasant to use. If I don’t enjoy using an app I probably won’t use it. I have been using Simplifi for two months now and it has done the trick. Most of the time I use it on my PC. It does not always interpret things like transfers between accounts or credit card payments in the way I expect them to but it is easy to catch and fix small incidences of jankiness. I login daily to re-categorize transactions although the system does allow you to tell it to categorize future transactions the way that you want them. Halfway through the month I copy the spending by category into an Excel spreadsheet to see where I’m at and then at the end of the month I update it and analyze the variances from my budget. It would be great if that functionality was actually within Simplifi, but it is easy enough to do.

by Cgriffin215

I’ve been using Simplifi since it was in beta last year, and it has evolved in some nice ways. You can import transactions now (and it specifically supports Apple Card which Mint couldn’t!), and they have been improving their reports over time too. I appreciate not being bombarded with ads all the time, and the price feels right for what you get.

I enjoy the Spending Plan feature. Once I got my bills and things input it’s a nice way to see how I’m doing this month at a glance. PLEASE MAKE A WIDGET for this!!! It’s begging for one so I can add it to my Home Screen.

Things I would like to see in the future that keep it at 4 stars: iPad app, Dark Mode, better investment tracking tools, the ability to mark certain accounts “closed”.

by Allanklu1

Painful at first, but now I really like it. Just a little learning curve on transfers. Use mostly to keep track of bills and how much cash I need to make it through the month. Also has nice line graph with income and expenses on web app. Probably at 7 accounts I’m tracking. One drawback is you seem to have to update all accounts and not select just one. I’m able to use 2FA but of course it’s a slow down. It also has import capability. On import transfers are suppose to set up the linking account, mine did not. You can set it yourself but was suppose to be auto. You can import Apple Card csv but if apple can’t get better than that I’m dropping Apple Pay. No access to Apple Pay but wallet. Ridiculous. No change my mind not paying 40. A year for this. No way.

by Dipsychic

I have struggled for years with different softwares that always lack too much to continue their use. I was hopeful with this product since it’s from Quicken. I am very happy with this software! I love the dashboard, reports ,drill downs, ability to export to Excel. This is the FIRST product I have used that gives me the information I need and frankly has enlightened me to my actual financial situation. I do have two asks from the developers...1, as others have mentioned it would be much easier to have a running balance on the transactions page so I don’t have to go back to the dashboard to see account balance. 2, iPad app that allows both portrait and landscape views. I get around this by opening on the web and not in QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter . Overall this is a great financial tool that has allowed me to make a significant change to the way I can see, plan and ultimately change how I manage my money. Thank you!!!

by Justin/Odd Autist

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

by (JLB)

I’ve had them all - and compared to Personal Capital and Mint, the nod goes to Simplifi. It’s not perfect - the investment performance in Personal Capital has more features and the UX in Mint is slightly better plus the integration with Turbo Tax makes it convenient. But Simplifi has the complete package - I’ve had been using these three in parallel but have finally decided on Simplifi as my go-to platform for all things aggregated from a financial perspective. The layout is intuitive from a design standpoint, the ability to add manual investment accounts is very much appreciated (I have an offshore equity account) and the linking of bill payers is excellent - a much more complete experience than Mint or Personal Capital. There isn’t Zillow linking yet - or KBB for vehicle values - but I’m sure it’s a high priority on the product features backlog. Looking forward to future developments with this exciting and promising aggregation platform.

by Tpierce71

I’ve been using Simplifi for about a year and a half now and can say that it’s the best personal finance app currently available online (and I think I’ve tested them all). It’s bank connect feature saves a huge amount of time but if your bank isn’t supported yet you can still manually upload your transactions so it essentially supports every bank and credit card accounts you have. You can track your recurring bills/subscriptions/transfers and what’s really helpful is the Spending Plan which determines your available “to spend” for the month after breaking down your income, recurring bills, planned spending and more. I’ve personally never seen this before in any other app. Since Simplifi is still relatively young you do run into the occasional bug, but the support and developers have been quick to help and seem to be right on top of things. They have many new features still in development (which I’m looking forward to) do the software will continue to get better. I highly recommend giving it a shot!

by The Sox Converter

I recently found out that the computer based Quicken was more than my old MacBook could take. So I was left to either spend $$$$ on a new one or try out a web based tool like Simplifi. I tried Mint and multiple other tools and just did not like them. I needed something that would show me how my expenses will affect my overall balance and that would give me a good view of the month or months ahead.

Then I tried Simplifi. And, for the most part, it is a perfect tool. It has so much financial planning packed in it - it really makes an impact on how I plan my spending.

Not much more to say other than give QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter a try. Oh, the web based experience is really what makes this work. You will love it.

by Shannon Delle

QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter has potential. it looks nice, but there are so many bugs. there’s also literally no way to customize it, no way to filter your transactions (for example, the recurring transactions are listed in alphabetical order instead of the date the transactions will become due, and there’s no way to change that). so inefficient. one of the bugs that gets me is when you enter a transaction date and hit save, the day before or sometimes the day after that date will be saved, not the date you chose. so annoying. for the bugs, the lack of customization features, and the inherent inefficiencies, I have deleted QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter . maybe some other time. there are entirely too many apps out there that get it right. this one seems super half-baked. certainly not worth a fee of any amount.

by Swinebone091516

I had high hopes for Simplifi. It has the looks of a nice app and has the features I was looking for in a finances app. But my first problems began when I tried to sign my bank up to link with QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter . Simplifi gave me multiple options for the same bank with no information about which one was appropriate. After I entered my security details, I would get a bland error message that the link wasn’t working and to try back later. I went to the Help section of QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter to try and, well, get help but was greeted with an error message.

Frankly, I won’t be using QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter if they can’t get their own Help section working. On top of that, it makes little sense that it can’t or won’t connect with my bank—especially since I bank with a major USA bank.

by Ebuhrendorf

If Transactions could be filtered by tags, I could create a Tag called “Approved” and then as Transactions are reviewed and confirmed accurate and valid, I could Tag them as Approved and they could disappear from the filtered transactions list so all transactions can be reviewed and reconciled. Mint lacks this feature and why I tried Simplifi but it’s basically a Mint copy with the same missing functionality. Without the ability to manage transactions like this, the software is useless.

by Dirkdelor

It’s fine for a first try, but it could be so much better and that’s largely because it’s just unnecessary given Intuit’s other offerings. The syncing doesn’t work as well as Quicken or Mint. There’s no budgeting function. It’s a little clunky compared to Quicken and Mint. Instead of offering 3 apps that do the same thing a little differently, with each being good at only a couple things, why not just offer 1 app that combines the best of all 3? Everything in QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter could just be a tab in Mint and no one would miss this. They need to just consolidate into Mint and maybe offer an in-app purchase for certain premium features.

by Alpha_plus

I am really attracted to the interface and general UX in QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter but I feel it is missing a few crucial features for me. I couldn’t figure out how to set a clear budget different categories (I’m hoping there is a stronger feature than using the spending watchlist).

I am a big fan of the envelope budgeting method which essentially creates a hypothetical account for each category—having that as a feature would make QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter a much more attractive option!

by COLORADOAPPUSER

So far this seems to be good. My one big issue with these types of apps is the way in which future transactions and the running balance is displayed. Here’s how I do my budget. I enter the next two months of expenses as scheduled transactions, things I know I have to pay. In QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter I’ve been using those transactions show up in the register like every other one. But with QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter, for some reason I can’t explain, they felt the need to change the user experience to a horizontal scrolling view. Please Simplifi just add it to the normal register. And please please add a column on far right with the DAILY RUNNING BALANCE. This seems to be such a challenge for makers of finance software.

by Phuncky

Been using Mint for a long time because there was nothing I could find that was easy to use or had the right amount of depth. This has it and I don’t mind paying the cost as it’s a reasonable price for a good piece of software.

It would get 5 stars if it didn’t keep asking me for 2 factor authentication for my son’s 529 account and if the website itself supported google Authenticator which is preferable to text based TOTP.

by Veticor

Long time Mint user but with its freemium model it struggles between offering utility vs pushing offers for stuff i don’t need. QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter has the utility without the fluff - just wish i could import my data. It’s also struggling to connect my Betterment account but that may be related to current market volatility. Also wish there was an ipad version of QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter , but I’m sure that will come eventually.

by Awthaa

This is a great app, although it has some bugs and it’s not fully functioning with all platforms yet... we all know that updates and bug fixes are coming. So far the layout looks great, the tools to manage finances and wealth are all there, and the goal setting feature is exactly what a millennial like myself is looking for, and it’s $4 a month fee is not bad for what you are getting. It does need to integrate with Betterment, hopefully they’ll fix that bug soon. My hats off to the engineering team who built QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter. I’ll be using it moving forward. Personal Capital had a good run for awhile until their latest update. Simplifi definitely makes up for that loss.

by Jeremyp1997

I’ve been using Mint for the last few years and can honestly say this is a better user experience than Mint. I love Spending Watchlist in particular because of its customizability and I also love tracking my net worth and my income with the reports tracking. QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter itself is very fast and I love the functionality. It would be great if I could pay my bills from QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter , but I’m sure they’ll add that feature at some point. Other than that, it’s definitely won me over.

by Akademiks44

I don’t really write reviews, but QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter is something I’ve been wanting for a long time. I don’t use Mint due to the bugs and I love Quicken (Mobile Quicken app not so much).

QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter works as if Quicken and Mint had a love child. I’ve been using it for a few days and thus far my only complaint is we need an IPad app ASAP, other than that keep moving forward with the positive updates!!!!

Thank You!!!!!!! 💯

by Lroathe

If you need something to track bank balances and spending, this is a great app. It also has a easy to use budget feature. My one wish is for the budget feature to integrate into the spending watch list. Overall a better solution for simpler financial needs than other apps I’ve tried.

by TheT3knik

I rarely write reviews but QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter warrants one. First, I think that QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter solves all the problems of modern financial apps. Information that is private (mostly) and zero adds. I love the apps like clarity but I hate all the adds and free information they get from me. QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter still has a long way to go and I hope they keep improving it!

by Saurabhnigam04

I’ve been using Mint for a long long time now to manage my finances but the ads bug me a lot. I looked into a LOT of other money management solutions online but none of them were able to show Pending transactions. That’s when I found QuickenSimplifiBudgetBetter. I am really liking the interface so far.