Mac Planning Tools

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OguguJE
OguguJE Member

Please add the planning tools to Mac Quicken, as this was the primary motivation for my purchase. I was frustratingly surprised to see that the planning tabs are not available on MAC, which seems both silly and antiquated. Thank you.

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  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
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    The Windows Planning tab is many different functions. They aren't going to all just appear because you ask for the tab.

    Most likely most of them are already requested in other Idea threads that can be voted on. For instance, Savings Goals, Lifetime Planner, and Debt Reduction have definitely been suggested before. The reason they aren't there is just because each feature takes time to develop, and Quicken Mac has a lot of catching up to do from the time it was totally rewritten.

    For reference here is the Quicken Windows Planning tab:

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  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
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    @OguguJE Idea posts — feature requests for the developers — are the only way for users to influence the developers here. You can add your votes and comments to existing threads, or if you can't find one for a feature you want, you can create a new Idea post. The four Idea threads which address what you're asking for and linked above. Three have recently been marked as "Planned", so we're likely to see some or all of them in 2024. The fourth one has a lot of votes but the developers haven't commented yet; you should add your vote.

    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • Pam Wise
    Pam Wise Member
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    I am one of millions of Baby Boomers needing a Retirement report form including such things as RMD to be included in one's income tax report. Please address this as I don't like Windows. We are MAC users!

    PAM

  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
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    @Pam Wise If you're looking for a tax report showing your retirement account withdrawals, the existing Quicken Mac tax reports do that — you just have to have the transactions recorded correctly.

    There are two ways to make your RMD show up as taxable income to work around Quicken Mac not having a specific built-in way to do it. One requires two transactions to transfer the money, and the other requires a little hack. In both cases, you start by recording the sale of whatever security you sold to make the withdrawal. In Quicken Mac, a sale transaction creates Cash in the account. Now the trick is how you move the cash out of the IRA account into the receiving account (typically a checking account or non-retirement brokerage account.

    In the first method, you enter one transaction in the IRA account as Type=Payment/Deposit for the amount of your withdrawal, and use Category=Transfer. This is not a linked transfer to the receiving account just a generic Transfer, a special category Quicken uses to make money appear or disappear without being income or expense. Then you enter a second transaction in the receiving account, a deposit (money-in) transaction using the category Personal Income > Taxable IRA Withdrawal (which is assigned to the proper 1099-R tax line for the Tax Schedule report). It's this transaction which will show up in your Tax Schedule report. It's funky, because the first transaction makes the money go out of the IRA account without specifying where it went, and the second transaction in the checking account records income without specifying where it came from — but both accounts have the correct balance and the taxable income is recognized.

    In the second method, which is what I use, you use a linked transfer to show the movement of money between the two accounts; but because transfers can't be income or expenses, you then need to manufacture the taxable income. This sounds a little more complex, but it's pretty simple:

    1. In the account receiving the IRA funds (e.g. checking, savings or non-retirement investment account), create a transaction to Transfer the cash out of the IRA account into the receiving account. It's important to create this transfer in the non-retirement account, transferring money in from the IRA account, not from the IRA account transferring money to the non-retirement account. (You'll see why in a second.) If federal and/or state taxes were withheld at the time of the sale, the transaction is a split, with one (or more) lines for the taxes withheld and one for the gross amount of the IRA sale.

      That transfer transaction gets both accounts to have the correct dollar amounts: the IRA account is back to a zero cash balance, and the receiving account has the correct cash received. But because Quicken Mac does not include IRA account transactions in the Tax Schedule report, the amount of the RMD — which is taxable income — does not show up on the Tax Schedule report. So here comes the hack…
    2. In the same transaction in the receiving account which does the transfer, add two more split lines:
      • Use Category "Personal Income:Taxable IRA Withdrawal", which is assigned to the proper 1099-R tax line for the Tax Schedule report, with the amount of the total RMD withdrawal.
      • Use category "Adjustment" or for the negative of the same amount.

    "Adjustment" is a special category in Quicken Mac which makes money appear or disappear without showing up in any report. So in this approach, one split line creates the taxable income which is needed for the tax report, and the adjustment split line makes that money come from nowhere by keeping the transaction amount unchanged. This is how to work around the transfer from the IRA account not being able to also have an income category.

    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
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