Quicken Premier feature questions (renewals, after-tax 401k contributions)

Special K

Does the latest version of Quicken Classic Premier support after-tax 401k contributions (not the same as Roth 401k, which I believe it does support)? I've tried searching for an answer to this but there are so many questions associated with the keywords "401k", "after tax", "contributions", etc. that I haven't been able to find my exact question asked anywhere.

Also I understand Quicken is now a subscription service, but if I subscribe and then cancel, will the software still work but be "frozen" in its current state, i.e. no more upgrades until I re-subscribe, or will the software get completely locked down until I re-subscribe?

I'm currently using 2017 Premier and was thinking about upgrading.

Chris_QPW

Actually, the answer is no to both after-tax and Roth 401Ks.

As in there isn't any support for separating before tax and after tax in the same account, it is either one or the other. No different than in Quicken 2017.

Support for Roth 401Ks has been "requested", but not implemented.

On the upgrade/expired subscription question. If using Starter edition, it become read-only, but for Deluxe and above you can still do manual updates, but there will be two banner ads asking you to renew that take up about 20% of the main window.

Special K

As in there isn't any support for separating before tax and after tax in the same account, it is either one or the other. No different than in Quicken 2017.

Is the current "workaround" to create three separate 401k accounts, one for pre-tax contributions, one for Roth contributions, and one for after-tax contributions, and then manually adjust paycheck transfers to the appropriate Quicken account? I haven't yet made any Roth or after-tax contributions to my employer's plan, so I have no idea how Fidelity actually displays those on their website.

mshiggins

I am doing pre-tax and after-tax contributions with the after-tax contributions immediately converted to Roth in a single 401(k) account. I’m using three separate securities for differentiating the three tax types.

Fidelity shows purchases and balances by tax types quite nicely. So it’s fairly simple keeping the transactions and balances of each tax type accurate.

If I am still using Quicken when I retire, I’ll create separate tax-deferred and Roth IRAs and roll the respective balances from the 401(k) to the IRAs.

Still using Q2017, so all entries are done manually.

Special K

I am doing pre-tax and after-tax contributions with the after-tax contributions immediately converted to Roth in a single 401(k) account. I’m using three separate securities for differentiating the three tax types.

Do you mean you create 3 different securities in Quicken to represent the 3 different types of contributions (pre-tax, roth, after-tax) even though the actual security is the same? For example, if I currently invest in FSKAX (Fidelity Total Market Index Fund) and wanted to add roth and after-tax contributions, I would then enter my investments as something like:

FSKAX_pre-tax

FSKAX_roth

FSKAX_post-tax

Depending on contribution type?

I assume this would break auto-updates because the fund names have been changed in such a way that Quicken wouldn't understand, correct? It's not an issue for me now as I'm using Quicken 2017 and my auto-updates expired long ago but if in the future Quicken adds support for Roth and post-tax contributions and I decide to upgrade, I'm assuming the auto updates wouldn't work for the reason I just explained?

mshiggins

I used the same symbol for all three securities, just the security names are different. The symbol is used for quote updates, the security name is used for matching downloaded transactions. So price updates should work if you upgrade to a current version. Matching the securities for transaction downloads may or may not work - it will depend on how FI is structuring the transaction data.

I never liked how the 401(k) transaction downloads worked so have always entered 401(k) transactions manually even when I had transaction downloading capability available.

You’ll have to initially create the securities with different symbols then edit the securities to have the same symbol to get around Quicken create security validations.