Latest update changed ability to edit 401K Contribution Transactions

user20250625

Quicken Classic Premier on Windows.

I have two accounts in Quicken for my 401K, one for my contributions and the other for company matching. Contributions are entered via a paycheck transaction entered in my Quicken account for checking.

The transactions in the company matching account goes in as BoughtX. It lets me edit and change the number of shares. It works great. It has Inv Amt and Share Bal columns but not Cash Amt and Cash Bal columns.

The transactions in my contribution account go in as ContribX, placing the contribution amount in Inv Amt field and in Cash Bal field. The Share Bal field is empty.

For years, I used to be able to do the following steps to edit the transaction so my Share Bal is correct…

1. Click Edit button for transaction.
2. Switch Transaction from Cash Transferred into Account to Buy - Shares Bought
3. In "Use Cash for this transaction", I'd switch from "Account's Cash Balance" to "Checking".
4. I 'd select Security name from dropdown.
5. I'd enter number of shares.
6. I'd enter Total cost. (Which is annoying because it used to auto-fill until a year or so ago because it should know but it doesn't anymore, but okay.)
7. I have to calculate share price.
8. Click Enter/Done.

But, now, a message pops up saying…

This transaction was created as a transfer from a split transaction.

In order to change it, you must go to the source transaction by using "Go to Matching transfer" from the Edit button. There is no "Go to Matching Transfer".

CaliQkn

@user20250625 contributions to a 401(k) account should be deposited or transferred as cash and then investment funds are purchased with the cash deposit.

That being said, it seems you are using a very different way to record both your pretax and match contributions. It also seems like your match contributions are being deposited to a "single mutual fund account". Is your match invested in company stock?

My recommendation would be to simply leave the contributions to your 401(K) deferral account as cash, and then use a "Buy" to purchase investment funds, using cash from the 401(k) deferral account.

For the match account, since it's working for you, I would leave things as is. But again, technically, you should be depositing the match as cash and then purchasing funds with that cash.

That all being said, I am not sure why your process is no longer working. But that message indicates that you need to enter the transfer first to the account register before you make any changes to it. And after it's entered, you can only make changes to the "Split" side of the transfer.

I suspect that the issue is with step #3. If you skip this step and post the transaction, and then go back in and do step #3, I think it might work.

user20250625

Thank you @CaliQkn for taking the time to help me.

You gave me a great workaround by entering a Bought transaction to convert the ContribX Cash to Shares. That makes a lot of sense to me.

It used to create a BoughtX transaction that was like a Contrib and a Bought together together and it would use the latest share price to define the number of shares purchased. I would go in later after looking at the transaction in my account and update the share price to what it actually was.

Your question about "single mutual fund account" was a good clue for me to check that out. It is a single mutual fund account but in Account Details it is set to No. The matching account is set to Yes which explains why the BoughtX transactions are going in as I expect.

However, when I try to set "Single Mutual Fund Account" to Yes in my contributing account, it doesn't work right. It does remove the Cash Bal column but it still doesn't allow BoughtX transaction type. And if I go back into Edit Account/Account Details, it has switched Single Mutual Fund Account back to No. I can Cancel out and the Cash Bal column is still there but if I click OK, it comes back.

Soooo…at this point, I'm going to let it ContribX cash and then add a Bought transaction to add shares.

Thanks again.

dma05

That might be a work-around…but does Intuit plan to fix it?

I have been a Quicken user for over 30 years and have always been able to use the BoughtX function and then select the stock, price, amount and shares for the amount that was transferred into a mutual fund account. Now I get the same error saying "This transaction was created as a transfer from a split transaction… use "Go to Matching transfer".

Why is it wrong with doing it the way I have for so long? You mean my incorrect way of doing spilt purchases was wrong for so long and no one caught this until now? It would seem it would be more efficient by stock from split transactions the way I was doing it compared to now.

CaliQkn

@dma05 I think the only reason why you were able to do it was that it was loophole but was never intended to work that way. It seems like Quicken is fixing some gaps, or loose ends in their programming.

Bottom line, cash is always deposited first and then investments are purchased using the cash that was deposited.

It seems like the process you were using might have been a workaround for something that hadn't been working entirely correctly.

Jim_Harman

@CaliQkn I think the issue here is not the ability to use a BoughtX for a 401(k) contribution but the fact that Quicken will no longer let you edit an Xin that is part of a split transaction to make it a BoughtX.

But I agree that it is cleaner to enter this as two transactions in the 401(k). If nothing else, there is sometimes a delay between the cash being received and the shares purchased, so the 2 transactions better refelects what happened in real life.

CaliQkn

@Jim_Harman The issue is not using a BoughtX transaction per se. It is the way it's being used. Changing a cash transaction into a BoughtX transaction is the issue, in my opinion. Even though it can be done, that was not what was intended. What I have seen is that these jerry-rigged transactions can get unraveled when there is a programing change or update.