Tracking employer 401k contribution @ Merrill

Michael Tissington

How do I track employer contributions to my 401k?
I did manage to download transactions from Merrill which records the purchase of shares however it does not show the $ contribution.

And it seems that Quicken for Mac does not have the paycheck feature (or I can't find it)

John_in_NC

Howdy, Michael:

Yes, you can and it isn't hard.

All that paycheck feature did was create a split transaction. You just need to manually setup a split transaction that will accomplish the same. It might appear awkward, but it really isn't. I find it superior than the paycheck wizard as you can setup the split for your individual situation.

Setup your paycheck in the recipient account. The net pay amount is the transaction amount, and then you have various split child lines for the various deductions, etc. Your 401k/employer contributions would be transfers lines in that split. It would look something like this in Quicken for Mac:



The transfer over to your 401k account will show the cash moved into the 401k account, and the subsequent buys (when they download/are entered) will reduce the account balance to zero.

Set this up as a scheduled transaction (reminder), and your downloaded transaction should match to it. (Yes, if your paycheck varies, you will have to mark it as paid, and update the various child lines as needed.)

Michael Tissington

Thanks for this - very helpful .. however it doesn't show matched contributions to 401k - it just shows the contributions I make (which don't show on my payslip but do show on my 401K)

John_in_NC

That shouldn't be too hard to figure it out, although you will have to use a calculator:

Select the recent "Buy" transaction(s) for your that period in your Merrill account. If you look at the upper right of your register, you will see the sum of the selected transactions. The difference between that and your contribution will be your employer amount.

You can set that amount as a reminder in the Merrill account when you see what they contribute.