QWin 2017: misssing _401Contrib Category

Dave Qkn

I am doing tax planning in Quicken 2017 windows H&B and seem to have lost the _401Contrib category.  As a result, my tax summary report does not show it.... I have gone into the 401k account and listed tax deferred and other items suggested on the forum..  How can I add a category for this so the tax planner will show my 401k deductions?  

UKR

This and many other built-in categories (the ones starting with an underscore and a few others) are undeletable but can be hidden.

Go into Tools / Category List.
At the bottom of the Category List view make sure "show hidden categories" has a checkmark.
On top of the view select "Show Full List"
In the left column click "All categories".
Scroll down to near the end of the list where the _401... categories are.
If there is a checkmark in the "Hide" column click it to unhide the category.
Do so for all other _... categories with a Usage count greater than zero.

mshiggins

From C. D. Bales:



Assuming you are making your 401k contributions using a pre-tax deduction in a Quicken Paycheck transaction, the _401Contrib "transactions" are in a hidden Quicken account named "Tax Impact of 401(k) Accounts".



You will not normally see transactions in that hidden tax account, but you can see them in both the Tax Schedule and Tax Summary reports.



In the Tax Schedule report (assuming you're looking for "your" contributions); they will appear in the W-2 section under "Salary or wages, self [Your Paycheck Name]".



In the Tax Summary report (subtotalled on Tax Schedule) (assuming you're looking for "your" contributions); they will appear in the W-2 section of the report, under "Salary or wages, self [Your Paycheck Name]".



I don't think you will typically see the _401Contrib category in the Tax Planner; those who use the Tax Planner can correct me, if I'm wrong.



Your 401k pre-tax deductions are recorded as transfers from the paycheck deposit account to the 401k account. Those transactions should appear in the Tax Planner in the Wages section. Clicking the "Hide Details" link in the Wages section should display the actual and scheduled contribution transfer transactions for Wages and Salary, if the "Quicken Data (from CCYY)" radio button is selected.

Dave Qkn

To clarify, I am not seeing my 401k contributions reduce my taxable income in the Tax Summary report for 2017.  Perhaps I am miss categorizing the paycheck splits...   For each paycheck, I split my paycheck via split (ie Salary, Fed tax, etc and include my 401k contributions into an account called "xxxx 401k account".  I can update account activity from a big brokerage house that way.  How do I link the _401Contrib category to those transfers..?   I think I must have set up my paycheck incorrectly?

mshiggins

From C. D. Bales:



You need to be using a Quicken "Paycheck" transaction. I assumed you knew that.



To create a Quicken Paycheck transaction go to Tools > Manage Bill & Income Reminders. When you elect to "Create New > Income Reminder", you will see an option to "use the Paycheck Setup Wizard". Choose that option. As you create the paycheck, make sure your 401k contribution is entered in the "Pre-tax Deduction" section.



If you have created your Quicken paycheck correctly, your Tax Summary report will be correct and will show the impact of your 401k contribution on your income.



To simplify the ability to see the 401k contribution impact: in the Tax Summary report, select just the Quicken account where your Quicken paycheck is deposited.



If you have setup your Quicken "Paycheck transaction" correctly (if you have made your 401k contribution a "Pre-tax Deduction"), you will see the Tax Summary report "Income" reduced by the amount of "_401Contrib".

markus1957

mshiggins said:

From C. D. Bales:



Assuming you are making your 401k contributions using a pre-tax deduction in a Quicken Paycheck transaction, the _401Contrib "transactions" are in a hidden Quicken account named "Tax Impact of 401(k) Accounts".



You will not normally see transactions in that hidden tax account, but you can see them in both the Tax Schedule and Tax Summary reports.



In the Tax Schedule report (assuming you're looking for "your" contributions); they will appear in the W-2 section under "Salary or wages, self [Your Paycheck Name]".



In the Tax Summary report (subtotalled on Tax Schedule) (assuming you're looking for "your" contributions); they will appear in the W-2 section of the report, under "Salary or wages, self [Your Paycheck Name]".



I don't think you will typically see the _401Contrib category in the Tax Planner; those who use the Tax Planner can correct me, if I'm wrong.



Your 401k pre-tax deductions are recorded as transfers from the paycheck deposit account to the 401k account. Those transactions should appear in the Tax Planner in the Wages section. Clicking the "Hide Details" link in the Wages section should display the actual and scheduled contribution transfer transactions for Wages and Salary, if the "Quicken Data (from CCYY)" radio button is selected.

Pre-tax contributions show up in the tax planner Wages & Salaries details section as offsets to salary. If you click the link "View tax form line items used here", you will see _401Contrib is one of the categories that accrue to this line. I can verify from my working days that it works in practice when using the Paycheck Wizard to record paychecks in the account register.


Adding- I went back to reports and ran a Tax Summary report for a year with 401k contributions. They report as offsetting Income in sub-category _401Contrib assigned to the Account, Tax Impact of 401(k) Accounts as negative numbers.

mshiggins

mshiggins said:

From C. D. Bales:



Assuming you are making your 401k contributions using a pre-tax deduction in a Quicken Paycheck transaction, the _401Contrib "transactions" are in a hidden Quicken account named "Tax Impact of 401(k) Accounts".



You will not normally see transactions in that hidden tax account, but you can see them in both the Tax Schedule and Tax Summary reports.



In the Tax Schedule report (assuming you're looking for "your" contributions); they will appear in the W-2 section under "Salary or wages, self [Your Paycheck Name]".



In the Tax Summary report (subtotalled on Tax Schedule) (assuming you're looking for "your" contributions); they will appear in the W-2 section of the report, under "Salary or wages, self [Your Paycheck Name]".



I don't think you will typically see the _401Contrib category in the Tax Planner; those who use the Tax Planner can correct me, if I'm wrong.



Your 401k pre-tax deductions are recorded as transfers from the paycheck deposit account to the 401k account. Those transactions should appear in the Tax Planner in the Wages section. Clicking the "Hide Details" link in the Wages section should display the actual and scheduled contribution transfer transactions for Wages and Salary, if the "Quicken Data (from CCYY)" radio button is selected.

From C. D. Bales:


"Pre-tax contributions show up in the tax planner Wages & Salaries details section as offsets to salary. If you click the link "View tax form line items used here", you will see _401Contrib is one of the categories that accrue to this line".


Just to clarify my previous comment about what shows in the Tax Planner: if you are using a Quicken paycheck pre-tax deduction to make your 401k contributions, those contributions are recorded as Quicken "transfer" transactions.


While such contributions do appear in the Tax Planner, my point was that they don't display the "_401Contrib" category: they just appear as transfers from the paycheck deposit account to the 401k account. The Tax Planner "Acct" column shows the name of the 401k account; the "Category" column shows the name of the paycheck-deposit account in square brackets -"401Contrib" does not appear ... so one might think the contributions are not being accounted for in the Tax Planner.


[My most recent test (conducted today) was with Q2017 RPM R15]

Dave Qkn

mshiggins said:

From C. D. Bales:



Assuming you are making your 401k contributions using a pre-tax deduction in a Quicken Paycheck transaction, the _401Contrib "transactions" are in a hidden Quicken account named "Tax Impact of 401(k) Accounts".



You will not normally see transactions in that hidden tax account, but you can see them in both the Tax Schedule and Tax Summary reports.



In the Tax Schedule report (assuming you're looking for "your" contributions); they will appear in the W-2 section under "Salary or wages, self [Your Paycheck Name]".



In the Tax Summary report (subtotalled on Tax Schedule) (assuming you're looking for "your" contributions); they will appear in the W-2 section of the report, under "Salary or wages, self [Your Paycheck Name]".



I don't think you will typically see the _401Contrib category in the Tax Planner; those who use the Tax Planner can correct me, if I'm wrong.



Your 401k pre-tax deductions are recorded as transfers from the paycheck deposit account to the 401k account. Those transactions should appear in the Tax Planner in the Wages section. Clicking the "Hide Details" link in the Wages section should display the actual and scheduled contribution transfer transactions for Wages and Salary, if the "Quicken Data (from CCYY)" radio button is selected.

Thank you. That clarifies my issue. I have been doing a simple transfer in my paycheck to the 401k account without using the “paycheck set up function”. This resulted in the _401k records with “no payee”... I’ll need to redo my 2017 paychecks in this manner to accurately use the tax planner.

rbknox

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

Unknown

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

I have exactly the same problem. When I switched 401K accounts the amounts show up in the 401K account from my paycheck entry but do not show up as a 401K contrib in the Tax reports. It coincides with the switch to a new 401K account. Something is broken.

UKR

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

Mike,
please check your Category List.
First make sure there is a checkmark at "Show hidden categories" at the bottom of the list view.
Next locate the built-in categories, the ones that begin with an _underscore.
If any of the categories that you need for your reports is marked "Hidden", remove the checkmark at the category.

Also make sure that your new accounts are included in the Tax reports. Click the Customize icon in the report view and review the selected accounts in the Accounts tab.

markus1957

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

I've verified that the "_401Contrib" category does show up in QW2018 Tax Summary and Tax Schedule Reports. 

It does not show up in the Itemized Categories report. 

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

UKR, as described in my post above, none of these things have any effect on the problem.  It is a Quicken bug - yet another one that is frustrating as comparisons, reporting, tax dealings etc are all inconsistent.

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

markus1957, that is a different issue.  There have always been issues with reporting of _401Contrib.   The problem I describe is that the category was active, offsetting against gross income (working correctly) until I removed and created a new paycheck grouping.  Since then, there is no activity with _401Confrib.

markus1957

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

I appreciate the effort to get to the bottom of this.   However, 401contrib DOES show up in my Tax Form Line items above within the Tax Planner.  Further, as I stated in my original post, I already made attempts to resolve by removing and recreating 401k accounts and paycheck entries, with no results.   So, not sure the efforts in the post link, which amount to creating a dummy 401k account, are going to fix my issue.  And, let's be clear, this was something that used to work, so the fact that it can be shown to function properly is not the point.  Wish Quicken took these issues more seriously instead of leaving to the community to perform detective work.

markus1957

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

Last question. If you click the Change button next to 401Contrib, is the Tax Related Category box checked? If not, put a check there. If it is you might try toggling it. It might make the category disappear from that section in Tax Planner in which case you could follow the instructions from the link to get it back.

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

markus1957, I tried what you suggested.  Category is there, so I unchecked it.  It disappeared after exiting/entering Quicken, so I created the dummy 401k account, which recreated the category, which I then checked.  All good, except when I enter a paycheck into my register, one that has a 401K amount contained in it, the _401contrib still doesn't show up in tax center, transaction count etc.   Still broken!

Sherlock

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

Sherlock, not sure I understand what you are suggesting.   I am using Quicken 2017.  I tried entering a transaction involving the Tax Impacts ... account but it error says the account doesn't exist.

Sherlock

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

Okay, able to access the register using corrected [Tax Impact of 401(k) Accounts].   The entries there further confirm that the last _401Contrib entry I have is from 1/21/17.  Again, I have no further entries after that, which I already knew because I am not seeing income adjusted for 401k contribution elsewhere in Quicken.   And again, this seems to correlate with deletion of an old paycheck and creation of a new one, though it might also coincide with the upgrade of Q16 to Q17.   In any case, it is broken.  Was there further analysis possible from the Tax Impact register?

Sherlock

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

Ralph Knox: I suggest you create a new temporary test data file to determine if entering a new paycheck transaction works as expected.  When you use the Paycheck Setup wizard, you should be selecting Add Pre-Tax Deduction > 401(k)/403(b)/457.

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

Works fine in test file.  What next?

Sherlock

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

The implication is the issue you're experiencing is specific to the datafile.  Worst case, you should be a able to resolve the issue migrating to a new datafile.

There were issues with paycheck reminders in early releases of Quicken 2017.

Can you provide more background on the datafile and the paycheck?  For example, if the datafile was converted to Quicken 2017 format from a prior version, which version and do you have access to the backup that was saved?  Do you recall whether you deleted the original paycheck reminder before or after creating the new paycheck reminder or did you simply modify the existing paycheck reminder?

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

Here's what I know:
- using Q2016 previously; installed Q2017 on or just after 4/17/17

- last paycheck entry for Company A was 1/21/17 (corresponds to last _401kcontrib entry)

-first paycheck entry for Company B was 3/10/17

- I did not modify the existing paycheck.  I believe I deleted Company A paycheck and then created Company B.  It is possible I first created Company B, then deleted Company A but seems unlikely given timeline.

- I have comprehensive backups.  I'm sure you know the filename doesn't state which version but shouldn't be too hard to find last 2016 backup.

Sherlock

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

Okay ... yes seems like new paycheck was created in Q16.  Do I care whether there is datafile conversion?

No, I have been doing this for a very long time.   To the extent that Quicken doesn't mess things up, I'm pretty good at setting things up.  401k is a key component of my paycheck.  What else would/could I have done?  

If Quicken proposed copy/validate as part of moving to Q17, then I did it.  Doesn't Quicken "manage" moving from one version to another?   

Could you maybe explain this last part in English?  I'm not sure at all what you are driving at.   

Sherlock

rbknox

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

I'm really not sure if I did a copy and validate or otherwise.  I tend to follow the suggested instructions.  Certainly I am like most users, upgrading every or maybe every other yearly release ... ?   

Regarding the go forward options:
- Manually entering entries seems like a valid approach assuming the problem gets fixed, and I want to fill in the gaps where things were broken.  It doesn't sound like a permanent solution to me.
- Well, do nothing is the "strategy du jour " when you use Quicken.  I am executing the strategy at the moment ...
- using (creating) a different data file sounds good, except that the last one that would not have the issue is more than 1 1/2 years old at this point.   Do I realistically want to try and recreate that much data.  I don't think so.


I do resist being critical of Quicken, but, you point out that there were migration problems associated with creating paychecks on previous versions/upgrades.  If this was identified previously, don't you think Quicken users are owed some sort of announcement -- at very least a place where one could go and validate that in fact there had been a problem and possible fixes.  Instead, nothing is mentioned and time goes by and then the problem is bigger than it could have been.  The onus is always on the user to figure things out, raise the issue, deal with the fact that there will be no acknowledgement of a bug ... and on and on.

Sherlock

Ralph Knox said:

I have the problem where _401Contrib is no longer showing up as an offset to my gross income.   It disappeared from Quicken 2017 last year when I started a new job and created a new detailed version PayCheck entry.   

I first noticed this when I imported tax info into TurboTax - normally W2 would populate correctly by accounting for 401k contributions.  Then I went into Tax Center (both in the Tax Planner and Taxable Income YTD) and verified that no negative offset _401Contrib transactions are being recorded.

Another way I can verify this is going to transaction list, scrolling down to the _401Contrib line item.  It shows 472 count in the usage column.  If I click on this number and hit recategorize, I will get a table report of all the 472 _401Contrib entries - all of my 401k entries over the years.  The last one is for 1/21/17 which was the last paycheck entry for my old company entry.  None of the entries for my new job are showing up. 

 I have changed nothing else - paychecks have a pretax xfer to a 401k account.  I tried deleting and recreating the 401k account.  I tried recreating the paycheck entry.  The problem remains.  I have also ran validate checks on my data file - no issues reported.  And just to be really clear, it matters not whether I hide or unhide the _401Contrib entry in the Transaction list.   Something is broken.

I saw in another closed post from 4 years ago that there have been reports of spouse income entries getting screwed up and/or possibly screwing up the my income entries.  I do also track spouse income, though no 401k -- might be related somehow... ?   

Interested in ideas on how to resolve.   

I suggest you try deleting the paycheck reminder, follow the copy and validate instructions, and then...  recreate the paycheck reminder using the  Paycheck Setup wizard but use a unique payee name in the Company name field.  In other words, if the bad paycheck reminder was set up using "Company B" use a version of the name you haven't used before like "B Company".