Tracking 401K loan in Quicken for Mac

Question

I have my 401K account in quicken.  I want to track a 401K loan that will come directly out of my paycheck.  I don't have the option to download automatically from my 401K into Quicken so everything is manual.  How can I do this in Quicken for Mac

shadetown · Answer

Yes, I have had my 401K account in Quicken for some time.  I have figured out a process to do this which includes quite a few steps as I can't download automatically.  I do split my paycheck.  So how I have set it up is I have added a line item in my paycheck split for the total loan amount (can't amortize here).  That payment goes to a cash account (basically a zero balance account) I created.  I then created the 401K Loan account which takes the payment from the cash account I created and amortizes the loan.

The only thing this does not do is to track net worth appropriately.  So I then created an Asset account for the total amount of the loan.  Each period I will have to manually enter the "principal" amount of each payment to decrease the Asset account I created and offset it with an increasing entry back into the 401K account.  This step is only necessary for tracking net worth as I saw no other way to get the principal portion back into the 401K account I have been tracking for years.

John_in_NC · Answer

Sure, it can be done. But, the answer depends on how you have Quicken setup: Do you split your paycheck? Do you track your 401k in Quicken? How is this loan handled in real life?

Some details about how you have Quicken setup really are needed before we offer more advice.