Split transaction for 529 account

davidkerrdesign

I've got education savings 529 accounts for two kids, and the automatic withdrawls to scholarshare529.com show up from them as one transaction. I'm able to manage this by marking it as a split to the 2 529 plan accounts it's going to, but then Quicken will not let me accept it in the register. "The transaction was created from a split transaction. In order to change it, you must go to the source transaction..."

I know it would be better to record these as 2 different transactions, but then the withdrawls from my bank would not be able to be reconciled, as scholarshare529.com does both withdrawls in a single transaction.

Any ideas?

Tom Young

OK, things are clear now, though it's not entirely clear why this is happening. 

My guess - and that's all it is - is that the date used in the 529 Account download, which probably is different then the date used in the checking Account - is causing the "Near Match" notation and that's enough to cause Quicken to insist that you have to go back to the source transaction.  As a test, try changing the date over in the checking Account to the date contained in the download and see if things now work properly in the 529 Accounts.

If that fixes things and the change in dates doesn't affect your bank reconciliation - the date is still within the statement period - that's a possible workaround.  Of course the other way to handle this, assuming the dollar amounts in the 529 Account really do match, would be to delete the download and then manually change the "Clr" from blanc to "c".  That way you know the dollars are correct and the transactions do get marked as cleared.

Tom Young

Make a manual entry in your bank Account BEFORE the "automatic withdrawal", (which I assume you're downloading from the bank), splitting the amount between the two 529 Accounts.  That's the source transaction.  The download will then match your prior manual entry.

davidkerrdesign

Hi Tom, this is what I do, and it works to reconcile the withdrawal from my bank. But then the split transactions cannot be reconciled in their individual accounts. After I tell Quicken to match it, the error is "The transaction was created from a split transaction. In order to change it, you must go to the source transaction..."

Reconciling seems to be a change to a transaction that can't be done to a split, unless there's a workaround somebody knows?

Tom Young

Just to make sure I'm following along...

You enter the split transaction in your checking Account and the correct numbers do appear in each child's 529 Account.  Is that correct?  I'm confused because your post suggests that one "combined" amount is showing up in one or the other 529 Accounts and you're attempting to edit that combined amount - splitting it - to get the correct amounts lodged into the two Accounts. 

You seem to be using the terms "reconcile" and "match" interchangeably, though they really mean different things.  Your second post now appears to say that you ARE seeing the correct amounts in each Account, that the correct amounts are being downloaded by scholarshare529 but the matching process of getting the downloaded amounts linked to the correct transactions in the Account itself is causing problems?

Re-reading your original post, maybe I've got this all backwards and the "automatic withdrawals" you refer to aren't contributions being made out of checking and to the 529 accounts, but are really disbursements out of the 529 accounts to the checking account?

If you can post some suitably redacted pictures of what you're seeing in Quicken, that would clear up a lot.

davidkerrdesign

Hi Tom, sorry for the imprecise terms.

Yes, the split transaction in the checking account correctly assigns deposits to two different 529 accounts. The withdrawl from the checking account, downloaded from the bank, matches and can be "accepted" into the transactions list and is then marked "c" in the register.

In the 529 accounts, in the window "Accept downloaded transactions into transactions list" the deposit shows as a match (or rather it says "Near Match," but the amounts are identical)... when I try to use the "Accept" button I get the popup error "This transaction was created from a split transaction. In order to change it, you must go to the source transaction..."

So it seems like Quicken is unhappy making a save (the "c" in the register) to a split transaction in this case?

I'm not finding a way to attach a screenshot, but can if you clue me into what I'm missing...

Unknown

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Tom Young

OK, things are clear now, though it's not entirely clear why this is happening. 

My guess - and that's all it is - is that the date used in the 529 Account download, which probably is different then the date used in the checking Account - is causing the "Near Match" notation and that's enough to cause Quicken to insist that you have to go back to the source transaction.  As a test, try changing the date over in the checking Account to the date contained in the download and see if things now work properly in the 529 Accounts.

If that fixes things and the change in dates doesn't affect your bank reconciliation - the date is still within the statement period - that's a possible workaround.  Of course the other way to handle this, assuming the dollar amounts in the 529 Account really do match, would be to delete the download and then manually change the "Clr" from blanc to "c".  That way you know the dollars are correct and the transactions do get marked as cleared.

davidkerrdesign

Tom, the dates were the thing! Great guess, thank you so much! Editing the dates to exactly match makes it work. YAY!