Budgeting with net paycheck option - amounts higher than actual net pay

AaronD

Using the subscription Windows Premier product, latest revision.

I am trying to use the net paycheck option in my budget. I created a copy of my original budget, to make the adjustments and work out the bugs first. One thing I noticed is that some of the paychecks from prior months were not being counted by the budgeting tool. I was able to fix that by going into the checking account register and deleting those paystubs, and re-entering them using the “Bill & Income Reminder”. Not too hard just select the paycheck item from the list, and press the “Enter” and correct the date before logging it to the transaction register. Afterwards I needed to realign the reminder schedule for the date of the next upcoming payday.
Now that every paycheck was being counted in the budget, I noticed the amount appearing in “budget status” column was “off” versus the net deposit, and always on the high side. Upon inspection, I find the discrepancy is coming from pre-tax and post tax deductions. Specifically in my stub it is the discrepancy is equal to the exact amount of my HSA contribution.

Taking my wife’s stub, in detail, this is what is going on in the budget planning screen (monthly graph view):
If I press “category history” for my wife’s paystub line in the budget: “Transactions” is a list of net deposit values for the month, plus another total for “Items budgeted elsewhere” that is matching the split deposit to savings account. That total amount makes sense to me.
The green bar horizontal shows more money than expected, and does not match the total mentioned above in transactions. The amount is “off” by the combined total of the pre-tax HSA deduction and an after tax deduction for a charitable contribution.

Any ideas? Thank you.

Kevin Hurni

I had the same thing in 2016 version. Guess they still haven't fixed it. It kept putting in higher amount even though I'd used the "paycheck" setup tool to put the itemized stuff in there.

Never did get an answer, AFAIK. Might have to open an actual ticket.

I'm debating about whether to attempt to use the budgeting tool again or just keep old pen and paper around.

Quicken_Natalie

Hello @AaronD,

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community and post your issue, although I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing these difficulties in Quicken.

If you are still needing assistance, please take a moment to review the information available here and post back to let us know what version and release of Quicken you're using.

I'd also suggest taking a look at these ongoing Discussions regarding a couple of known issues, to see if either have any merit towards what you're experiencing:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7861045/r22-12-broke-paycheck-function/p1

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7872816/paycheck-splits-are-removed-cleared-when-syncing-with-cloud-and-includes-401k-line-item/p1

If so, please bookmark the Discussion(s) by clicking the yellow star in the upper right corner so that you can be automatically notified of any updates/changes as they're posted.

Thank you,

Quicken Natalie

AaronD

Quicken_Natalie -

Thank you for your reply.

I am using:

Quicken Premier 2020 Version R28.18, build 27.1.28.18, USA version

Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit, Version 2004, OS Build 19041.450, Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.31.0

My issue is really the implementation "paychecks" in the budget tool, and getting that amount in the budget tool to match the deposit amounts in the bank acount. I have clean YTD paycheck data in the bank account registers. Every paystub, every line item split, for the year. Now I move over to the Planning/Budgets/Graph View/Monthly screen. It is in this budget screen where the month's paycheck amount on the green horizontal bar is shown as a higher amount than the bank deposit(s). The size of the descrepancy is a combination of pre-tax and post-tax deductions. For example in my wife's paystub the discrepancy is exactly her pre-tax transfer to an HSA account plus her post-tax charitble United Way contribution. In my paystub it is only my pre-tax HSA transfer - no post-tax deductions on my stub.

Thank you,

Aaron

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @AaronD

Thank you for the response and for providing additional details.

To better help understand what could be occurring, could please include a screenshot of the issue you are encountering? 

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7867159/faq-how-do-i-post-a-screenshot-in-the-community-from-windows

Alternatively, you may contact support directly for assistance.

https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support

Quicken Care has the ability to initiate a screen share to view the issue in real-time to review and research this further.

Thank you,

-Quicken Tyka

AaronD

Quicken_Tyka,

Thank you for your response.

Unfortunately, I don't have the editing toolbar available to me with the cut/paste option for images. There is a forum discussion mentioning these tools are not available to everyone, and added after achieving some level or longevity in the community. Attempting to drag and drop an image is also blocked. Too bad. I spent about an hour making some detailed slides in Powerpoint with notes, images, etc. that would be helpful to show exactly what I am seeing.

Aaron

KentK

I would like to add to this thread that I am experiencing the same issue. In my case, I use my gross pay amount in the Bills & Income feature thinking that I want to capture my total annual salary. I then hoped to use the Split feature to direct amounts to pre-tax and post-tax items.

Both the gross pay amount from the Bills & Income feature and the net pay amount from my bank statement end up in my Quicken check register. I can't match them because the amounts are different.

Scheduling my pay and splitting it into the pre-tax and post-tax items automatically to track for tax preparation was a very big reason I purchased Quicken. In my view, this function is a CORE feature of this product. I really need to know how to make it work.

What is the work around? I will also visit all the links shared in the thread above.

Ten days ago, I purchased Quicken 2020 - Premier, version R28.18, Build 27.1.28.18. USA. I am running it on a Windows 10 laptop.

Please advise.

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @AaronD

Thank you for the response although I apologize that you were unable to upload an image. The Community does allow dragging and dropping images, however it does not accept Powerpoints I apologize.

You may consider submitting through Help > Report a Problem. This will not receive a response, however, it will help contribute to the research of the issue.

-Quicken Tyka

AaronD

I now have the option to upload images. Please see attached. Also attached is an image of the error when I tried to submit through Help>Report a Problem.

Don B

I'd like to jump into this discussion because you are all dealing with some of the same issues and questions as me.

Quicken - Home, Business & Rental Property subscription
Version: R28.18 Build: 27.1.28.18
Windows 10

I just set up a 2020 budget in the planning tab and was pleased to see the Paycheck option in lieu of using gross pay and tracking all non-discretionary "expenses" such as taxes and retirement contributions. I track three monthly paychecks: my job, my Army retirement, and my wife's retired pay.

I have also had the challenge of getting the actual amount to accurately display here. The problem appears to stem from having any split in your paycheck (as set in your reminder and the transaction posted to your account) that is categorized as an Expense category you are tracking in the budget planner.

Since I'm not trying to track Gross Pay and all deductions as expenses in my budget, only net pay, the Paycheck feature is a good option. (Tax planning is a different exercise so let's keep this discussion focused on the budget tools.)

If you can eliminate from your budget all Expense categories associated with pre-tax and post-tax deductions on your paycheck, you'll have an accurate budget of how you spend your take-home pay. Aye, there's the rub! What about categories you do want to track in your budget?

See that pesky $21 difference between Budget and Actual amounts in the screenshot? [Ignore the $1 delta on the first paycheck, it's a rounding issue.]

I have a monthly health insurance premium deducted from my Army retired pay. It shows up in the Expense section of the budget under the Everything Else subcategory under the Medical category. To get rid of this discrepancy, I can't have the roll-up Medical category in the budget -- only the subcategories I want to track for expenses from my net pay.

One last note: If you are using the roll-up category for Expenses (and not exclusively subcategories) the expense from your gross pay will still show up in the transaction list (when you click on the Actual amount) but it won't be included in the total. I may want to go back and re-categorize these "Other Medical" to their own subcategory ("Doctors" or something) so this part of the Expenses in the Annual View is cleaner.

I am going to do a separate post on another quirk that I'm dealing with, but this one is long enough already. I hope this is helpful.

Don B

Don B

Quicken - Home, Business & Rental Property subscription
Version: R28.18 Build: 27.1.28.18
Windows 10

I think the Paychecks feature for budgeting only net income/take-home pay for your discretionary expenses is an improvement over using Salary and tracking all deductions as expenses. Once you set up your tax withholding and retirement contributions or other deductions with your employer, that money isn't going into your checking account to spend. I believe the primary purpose of a budget is to make sure you are spending less than you are bringing home. Quicken has other tools for tax and retirement planning, so I don't over-complicate your budget.

The issue I'm having is how the pop-up details for the two retirement checks are being displayed. Any idea why two separate paychecks, each deposited into different checking accounts, are both listed here? And why the "(items budgeted elsewhere)" then backs out the "wrong" one?

Thanks.

Don B

Quicken_Natalie

Hello All,

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community and share your feedback regarding this issue, although I apologize that you're experiencing these difficulties in Quicken.

If you have not already done so, I suggest performing a Validate and Repair on your Quicken data file, following the steps outlined here.

If the issue persists, please report it via the Help>Report a problem menu. This will provide our Teams with the necessary data to investigate. 

Please be sure to leave all boxes checked, as well as include a description of the issue that's occurring and a reference to this thread.

@AaronD, I see that you received an error when attempting to report a problem prior. In that case, I'd suggest attempting to report the problem once again to see if the issue is now fixed and you are able to do so.

Thank you,

Quicken Natalie

AaronD

@Quicken_Natalie - I was able to upload the error files to Help>Report a problem. My file is regularly tuned up with the Validate & Repair tool, as a cure to an issue with the little flag indicating downloaded tranactions that won't clear afterwards on the Fidelity HSA account.

KentK

I need Quicken to track all of my expenses, to include what is taken out of my payroll check. All of these expenses are a part of my budget. For sure the IRS is tracking what is taken from my gross paycheck amount.

After much trail and error, I figured out how to make what I need to work. It all makes sense now that I see the solution. It would have been great to have it written down somewhere to save all the headache.