# Build brief — a focused alternative to Quicken Simplifi

> **Verdict:** Not faithfully · **Buildability:** 20/100 · **Category:** Personal Finance
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/quicken-simplifi
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Quicken Simplifi. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**Quicken Simplifi** — Import account exports and build spending plans, watchlists, and reports. It currently costs $5.99/mo.

A consolation build is possible, but the paid product's decisive value sits outside a solo rebuild. For Quicken Simplifi, import account exports and build spending plans, watchlists, and reports. The hard boundary is bank aggregation, transaction cleaning, mobile sync, support, and mature finance workflows, plus financial integrations, compliance, and trust.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Quicken Simplifi that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

Import account exports, categorize transactions with transparent rules, build spending plans and watchlists, reconcile balances, and export clean reports without moving money.

- Build a focused single-user workflow with real persistence, search, and export.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- CSV or OFX exports from financial institutions.
- Local encrypted storage.

### Data and integrations

- Optional exchange-rate API key.

Each of these needs a real account, credential, or quota. Set them up before writing feature code.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build a closest honest personal substitute for Quicken Simplifi in an empty repository.
Use Next.js 15, TypeScript, SQLite, Drizzle ORM, and local-first encryption; do not offer alternative stacks.
The core loop is: import account exports, categorize transactions with transparent rules, build spending plans and watchlists, reconcile balances, and export clean reports without moving money.
Make the first run work locally with one documented command.
Store all user data locally by default and make export straightforward.
Put secrets in .env, ship .env.example, and never commit credentials.
Support CSV and OFX import with saved column mappings and duplicate detection.
Implement accounts, transactions, transfers, categories, payees, notes, and split transactions.
Add deterministic categorization rules whose matches can be inspected and undone.
Provide reconciliation, monthly budget, cash-flow, net-worth, and export views.
Keep an immutable import log and require explicit confirmation before destructive changes.
Encrypt local data, create automatic backups, and document restore on a fresh machine.
Include clear empty, loading, success, and recoverable error states.
Add input validation, safe filenames, and graceful handling of unavailable APIs.
Write focused tests for the core transformation and one end-to-end happy path.
Create a README with setup, architecture, permissions, data location, and backup steps.
Do not add accounts, billing, telemetry, analytics, or a hosted control plane.
Do not claim to reproduce proprietary data, network liquidity, regulated access, or frontier infrastructure.
Deliberately leave out initiating payments or moving money.
Deliberately leave out tax, payroll, or accounting compliance guarantees.
Deliberately leave out screen-scraped bank access and commercial institution aggregation.
Finish by running the tests and listing the exact commands used.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Bank aggregation, transaction cleaning, mobile sync, support, and mature finance workflows.
- Direct bank feeds.
- Tax filing guarantees.
- Payroll and payments.
- Connectors, OAuth flows, and vendor API changes require constant upkeep.
- Compliance, licensing, and legal accountability are core features.

## What you still own after launch

- Secure credentials, rotate secrets, and handle provider rate limits.
- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.
- Maintain every third-party integration as APIs and OAuth rules change.

## Risk

**High consequence.** Use this as a prototype or personal aid. Keep a qualified human and an established provider in the loop for consequential decisions.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: high. No independent one-shot implementation is linked yet.

## Prior art

Working open-source software you can read, fork, or borrow from before starting:

- [Actual Budget](https://github.com/actualbudget/actual) — Active local-first open-source personal finance application

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Generated by [Can It Be Vibe Coded?](https://www.canitbevibecoded.com) · Full report: https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/quicken-simplifi