Budget Actuals Incorrectly Showing Employer Match Amounts for RRSP

Van Canucks Fan

I'm making an effort to implement budgeting but have come across an issue. My "Employer Match" amounts for my RRSP (Canadian equivalent to 401k) are showing up as an expense. However they really aren't an expense as there is no corresponding income added to my paycheck to offset it. I'd like to show my contributions to my RRSP in the budget but not the Employer Match ones. Is there a way to do this?

Chris_QPW

I don't know about how the Canadian version of Quicken handles your RRSP, but here are the details on how the 401K works which should give you are way to make this work.

First I'm going to start with the Paycheck reminder.  When a person adds the 401K contribution entry they actually get two entries.


Now I take that entry in the register, right click on it and select "add reminder" and then drill into the spit details I get this:


On line two you will see that for the employ contribution it a straight transfer from the checking account to the 401K account.  For the employer contribution they play a trick.  They first do the transfer and then they offset it with the built-in (normally hidden) category _401EmployerContrib(Spouse).

So this is how it gets the "income offset" to make it balance out.

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @Van Canucks Fan

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to report this issue, although I apologize that you have not received a response.

Are the amounts for the RRSP part of a transfer from your paycheck? If not, the first step would be to create a transfer that shows these funds transferring to the RRSP account.

 https://www.quicken.com/support/how-do-i-categorize-transfer-quicken-windows

You will then need to enable the budget to display transfers:

To include transfers in the budget, please see the steps below.

1. Click Select Categories to Budget at the bottom of the Budget window.
2. Click the Transfers In or the Transfers Out tab.
3. Select the accounts you want to transfer money in or out of.
4. Click OK to save your changes.

I hope this helps, please let us know how it goes!

-Quicken Tyka

Van Canucks Fan

Hello Tyka. Thanks for the reply. These transfers are indeed part of my paycheck. So if I pay $100 per paycheck to my RRSP then my employer also pays $100. The total for both items ($200) shows up as the "actuals" when I compare budget to actuals which is misleading. I want Quicken to either show only my side of the contributions in the "actuals" side, or add an item to my income actuals so at least the numbers balance out.

Chris_QPW

I don't know about how the Canadian version of Quicken handles your RRSP, but here are the details on how the 401K works which should give you are way to make this work.

First I'm going to start with the Paycheck reminder.  When a person adds the 401K contribution entry they actually get two entries.


Now I take that entry in the register, right click on it and select "add reminder" and then drill into the spit details I get this:


On line two you will see that for the employ contribution it a straight transfer from the checking account to the 401K account.  For the employer contribution they play a trick.  They first do the transfer and then they offset it with the built-in (normally hidden) category _401EmployerContrib(Spouse).

So this is how it gets the "income offset" to make it balance out.

Van Canucks Fan

Great, thanks Chris. I found a similar hidden category for Canada called "_RRSPEmployerContrib". Once I added it to the budget it all balanced out. Thank you!

Katnahat

Oops. Sorry. I see from the heading that this is for Windows. Would you have any information regarding Budget in Mac that doesn't add up? Thanks.

Chris_QPW

Katnahat said:

Oops. Sorry. I see from the heading that this is for Windows. Would you have any information regarding Budget in Mac that doesn't add up? Thanks.

I suggest you post your own question so that it is visible to the Quicken Mac people.
Quicken Mac has a quite different budget system so you really have to ask them and you need to give as much details as possible.