How do I access underscored categories?

dsw12

I need to add an employer 401k contribution to a recurring paycheck. I've done it before — and the category was _401EmployerContrib. Now I need to use it again, but when I try to set up a recurring paycheck, that category doesn't appear as an option. I can see it on previous paychecks, so it's available, somehow. Thoughts?

jacobs

Did you migrate from Quicken Windows? Quicken Windows uses leading underscores for investment categories, but Quicken Mac does not.

In the case of a paycheck with an employe 401k contribution, though, you don't use an income category at all — the contribution is a transfer to the 401k account. So if you had an account named "401(k)", your paycheck might look like this:

This creates cash in your 401k account, where you would subsequently record what the cash was invested in.

Jon

I think this case is slightly more complex since it's an employer contribution rather than just a paycheck deduction. You would need some way to categorize the incoming money before transferring it to the 401K. I would check to see if there is actually a _401EmployerContrib category in the Categories window; I can't think of any reason why Quicken would not show that category if it exists (though to be fair I also can't think of a reason that category would not exist if it's already been used).

dsw12

Yes, I did transfer from Quicken Windows a while back. That explains why what used to work doesn't any longer.

I know I can use the transfer $$$ from the paycheck, but since what I'm struggling with is the company contribution, I need a way to balance the transaction. If, say, the company contribution is $500, what I did back in the Windows days was had a positive $500 in the category _401EmployerContribution and a negative in the transfer to 401k. What I'm looking for is where to put the positive $500 without artificially increasing the gross pay amount.

Thanks!

dsw12

And to Jon… it's strange. When I look at the list of categories by clicking on Window → Categories, there are a bunch of underscored categories listed. But when I am entering the transaction from my paycheck there are only three underscored categories available: _FlexContrib, _FlexContribSpouse, and _DepCareContribSpouse (I've never used the DepCare category, the others I did use long ago). Interestingly, the last time I used _401EmployerContrib was in 2021, so I had transitioned to Mac by then. When I try to use that category now, Quicken just reassigns it to uncategorized.

jacobs

I know I can use the transfer $$$ from the paycheck, but since what I'm struggling with is the company contribution, I need a way to balance the transaction. If, say, the company contribution is $500, what I did back in the Windows days was had a positive $500 in the category _401EmployerContribution and a negative in the transfer to 401k. What I'm looking for is where to put the positive $500 without artificially increasing the gross pay amount.

@dsw12 It's a kludge, but here's what you can do: record a positive $500 for the employer contribution AND a second split line for -$500 using the category "Adjustment". That balances the transaction and the Adjustment category is not visible on any report, thus making the employer contribution appear from out of nowhere (which is sort of what happened in the real world.) You could do this one of two ways. You could add these two split lines in your recurring paycheck transaction. The employer contribution would be recorded as a transfer to the 401k account and offset by split with the opposite sign categorized as Adjustment. Alternatively, you could create this as a scheduled transaction in your 401k account, independent of the paycheck, with one split line increasing the asset account balance categorize using a transaction you create, such as Personal Income:401k-Employer Contrib, and a second split line in the opposite direction using the Adjustment category.

dsw12

Thanks, Jacobs. As you say, it's a bit of a kludge, but better than anything I'd come up with so far.