Paycheck reminder with 401k contribution to IRA tracked with "Simple Investing"

Question

Recently, Quicken released a simplified version of investment account tracking called "Simple Investing".  I'm kicking the tires of this new feature with a small account my spouse has.  It's a 401k, so it effectively has no cash balance ever.  How do I setup her paycheck reminder for the employer and employee 401k contributions?  I should no longer transfer money to these accounts to record a "buy" transaction since Simple Investing just tracks the cash balance and holdings - not the transactions.

What's the best way to setup a Paycheck Reminder with cash transactions to an account being tracked with Simple Investing, if later, I'd like to see how much the employer and employee have each contributed in a report?

nick.koch · Answer

For an account that is linked to a brokerage firm, I can see how one wouldn't want to change the Paycheck Reminder.  For one of my spouses accounts, I have to update it manually, so there is no automatic setting of the cash balance to zero.  I guess I should keep the Paycheck Reminder the same, and just update cash and share balances manually each statement.  Thanks for talking me through this.

Chris_QPW · Answer

You shouldn't change the Paycheck reminder.  You will still want those transfers so that other parts of Quicken know about the contributions and such.  Like @Jim_Harman said the register is still there, it is just hidden.  One can think of the simple investment mode as if the user is manually maintaining it and only periodically goes in and adjusts the cash and security positions.

Jim_Harman · Answer

I think you can still transfer cash into an investing account in Simple mode. You won't see the transactions, but when the securities have been purchased and you download, Quicken will take away the cash and add whatever securities were bought. You should be able to see what went on behind the scenes by temporarily switching the account back to Complete mode.

Please post back and let us know if this works for you.

Back up your data first in case something goes wrong.