How do I get the employer match portion of my 401k contribution to not show up in my budget?

JordanL

I'm using the paycheck planner to account for not just my spending, but also my taxes and pre-tax deductions in my monthly budget. I'm running into a problem however where it's counting the ENTIRE contribution against my budget, instead of just the portion that actually came from income.

When I went to my 401k account, it shows the contributions as being split, but it shows both as coming from my checking account.

How am I supposed to keep them separate in my budget planner?

Bob_L

AFAIK, You need to include the hidden income category for 401-employer contribution in your budget as well as the “transfers out” to the 401k.Then the budget will net out properly.  I know it seems like you are overstating expenses but in reality, the full combined amount is what is being transferred to the 401k, and the employer contribution is in fact income, just not taxable.

Double check to be sure the contribution from the employer contribution category is set to no tax code so it won’t affect tax reports.

Bob_L

AFAIK, You need to include the hidden income category for 401-employer contribution in your budget as well as the “transfers out” to the 401k.Then the budget will net out properly.  I know it seems like you are overstating expenses but in reality, the full combined amount is what is being transferred to the 401k, and the employer contribution is in fact income, just not taxable.

Double check to be sure the contribution from the employer contribution category is set to no tax code so it won’t affect tax reports.

JordanL

This worked. It was definitely counter-intuitive, but it makes sense to count the employer contribution as income, which then balanced the budget correctly. It would be nice if I could rename the category for budget purposes so that I didn't have that odd looking "_401kEmployerContrib" category, but I'll settle for having it balance correctly.