How to Categorize Transactions for a Group RRSP

markbahnman

I'm manual setting up an RRSP in Quicken because RBC doesn't seem to have a download transactions option for Investing. Thus far I have just been using 'Add Shares' for both employee and employer contributions, as the money is taken directly from the paycheque / payed for by the employer. Is there a better way to track these two types of transactions?

Pam Flaig

In the US we have something similar for retirement called a 401K.   In the paycheck setup, gross amount, you can itemize everything deducted on your paycheck.   This can include your retirement contributions and the employer portion too.   I then have these linked into my retirement account in quicken.   If your retirement account doesn't connect, you could still enter the investments to track and monitor.    

Pam Flaig

In the US we have something similar for retirement called a 401K.   In the paycheck setup, gross amount, you can itemize everything deducted on your paycheck.   This can include your retirement contributions and the employer portion too.   I then have these linked into my retirement account in quicken.   If your retirement account doesn't connect, you could still enter the investments to track and monitor.    

John_in_NC

markbahnman said:

I'm manual setting up an RRSP in Quicken because RBC doesn't seem to have a download transactions option for Investing. Thus far I have just been using 'Add Shares' for both employee and employer contributions, as the money is taken directly from the paycheque / payed for by the employer. Is there a better way to track these two types of transactions?

Well, the "Add shares" will work in terms of getting the correct share balance, there is a better way.  Ideally, you will be wanting to use the "Buy" shares command instead as this will show the $ used to acquire funds.

Now, the problem is that you have to account for how said $ ended up in the account. As Pam alluded to, you ideally would want to "split" your paycheck out to show the transfer of $ from your paycheck over to your RRSP account. The Mac versions don't have a paycheck setup wizard, but that does nothing more than create a split transaction yourself where you can accomplish on your own. You can ask if you are not familiar with splitting a paycheck to show your gross amount and all the various deductions.

You also have left off a few details that you might have to deal with: Are you entering all of the transaction history for your RRSP, or are you just just coming on board with an account you have had for a while? Are you going to be downloading the price history/quotes from a market such as the Toronto Stock Exchange?

markbahnman

John in NC said:

markbahnman said:

I'm manual setting up an RRSP in Quicken because RBC doesn't seem to have a download transactions option for Investing. Thus far I have just been using 'Add Shares' for both employee and employer contributions, as the money is taken directly from the paycheque / payed for by the employer. Is there a better way to track these two types of transactions?

Well, the "Add shares" will work in terms of getting the correct share balance, there is a better way.  Ideally, you will be wanting to use the "Buy" shares command instead as this will show the $ used to acquire funds.

Now, the problem is that you have to account for how said $ ended up in the account. As Pam alluded to, you ideally would want to "split" your paycheck out to show the transfer of $ from your paycheck over to your RRSP account. The Mac versions don't have a paycheck setup wizard, but that does nothing more than create a split transaction yourself where you can accomplish on your own. You can ask if you are not familiar with splitting a paycheck to show your gross amount and all the various deductions.

You also have left off a few details that you might have to deal with: Are you entering all of the transaction history for your RRSP, or are you just just coming on board with an account you have had for a while? Are you going to be downloading the price history/quotes from a market such as the Toronto Stock Exchange?

Right now I'm just entering the transaction history which has the total value of each transaction and the number of shares purchased (There's only about 20 transactions for the account so it isn't too tedious). I haven't actually setup any paychecks, as the net amount gets gets directly deposited into our account and I'm just setting up quicken with manually downloaded transactions from RBC. Would it be best to go back and adjust each of those direct deposits into split transactions, use buy shares for the employee purchased shares, and add shares for the employer purchased shares?

John_in_NC

It is up to you.

Since this history is relatively new, I personally would go back so that everything is right moving forward.

You might wish to change those Add shares to buy shares, and then make a cash adjustment to bring the balance back to $0. Then, you can setup a scheduled transaction as a split of your paycheck, and future downloads from RBC will match to your scheduled transaction.