How to Show 401K Employer Match

Question

I have been using Quicken for a very long time but am still struggling with certain things.  One of them is what to do about 401K Employer Match money that shows up into my 401K account the same time as I get a paycheck.  The way I've been doing it is to:

* create a credit in my checking account for my salary
* create splits for all the different categories of income and deductions (e.g. gross salary is one split with a positive number and deductions for taxes, healthcare, insurance etc are splits with negative numbers
* create a split for "401K Employer Match" with a positive amount
* create a split for a transfer to my 401K account with a negative amount

One reason I ended up doing it that way (if I recall correctly) was that when I linked my 401K account to Quicken it wouldn't let me manipulate the transactions.  I ended up delinking that account now, so I don't think it's a factor anymore.

What's the "best practice" here?

Chris_QPW · Answer

You have entered you question in a Quicken Mac thread, but your profile says you are using Quicken Windows.  Which is correct?

This is especially important because this will be properly handled completely different depending on which you are using.

Jon · Answer

It sounds like your 401K was set up for Simple Tracking, which would let you see your current holdings and account value but not enter any transactions. Disconnecting your account should have put it back to Detailed tracking which would allow you to enter transactions again. You can verify this by looking at Account Settings for the account and on the Details tab see that Detailed is selected under Investment Tracking Method.

I'm not sure what the best practice is here, I never bothered tracking day-to-day activity in my 401K. Entering the Employer Matching deposits directly in the 401K account register would be pretty straightforward; I believe there's a way to include them in your paycheck split transactions but don't recall the specifics.  @jacobs I think is familiar with it.