The ever elusive _401EmployerContrib category

tribbiani
tribbiani Member ✭✭
After realizing there's no paycheck concept in Quicken Mac (long time Quicken Windows user), I figured no big deal... just create a split transaction.

So how exactly would a 401k employer contribution work? The way transferred paychecks worked looks like there's a transfer and a credit using a hidden category ("_401EmployerContrib"). Can't enter a hidden category in a transaction tho.

How best to handle a 401k employer contribution?

Comments

  • tribbiani
    tribbiani Member ✭✭
    UPDATE: I duplicated an old paycheck and altered the amounts. But man... this should have some kind of normal process (to create a paycheck entry from scratch) as people do need to keep track of 401k employer contributions.
  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta

    The hidden categories used in Quicken Windows aren't used in Quicken Mac. But you can certainly deal with your 401k contributions in Quicken Mac. For your employee contribution deducted from your paycheck, it's simply a split line that's a transfer to your 401k account.

    For the employer contribution, there are a couple ways you can handle it.

    One way is to add two additional split lines in the paycheck transaction. The first is to create the employer match as a positive number; the second is to transfer that amount to the 401k account as a negative number. But how do you create the amount to be transferred? 

    If you want to see the employer match as income when you run your internal Quicken reports, then create a new sub-category under Personal Income like "Personal Income:Employer Match". Because this new sub-category is not marked as "tax related", it will not show up on the Tax Schedule report (because the employer contribution is not reported as income), but will show up on a Quicken report of your income.

    If you do not want to see this as income on your Quicken reports at all, then use a special category called "Adjustment". Using Adjustment means the amount will not be seen as income or expense in reports; it's a way to create income or expense out of thin air. 

    You could, alternatively, leave the employer match out of the paycheck deposit and simply create a scheduled transaction for the deposits in your 401k account. You could use any income category for the employer match, because Quicken won't include income in a retirement account on the Tax Schedule report. If you want to make the match deposits invisible on all reports, then use the Adjustment category.

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