FAQ: TIAA-CREF Systematic withdrawals & interest payments in Quicken

TIAA-CREF & Quicken Systematic Withdrawals and Interest-Only Payments

Although TIAA-CREF provides downloads to Quicken, things don't always download properly. I'm doing a lot of manual correcting of entries. And neither Quicken help nor T-C help could tell me how to handle systematic withdrawals and interest-only payments, both of which I have set up as monthly EFTs into my checking account, with Fed and state taxes withheld.

Apologies in advance: this is quite a long entry.


I have come up with a way to create Systematic Withdrawals and Interest-Only Payments as scheduled, split transactions in Quicken. I’m using Quicken Deluxe 2013.






Systematic Withdrawals
Use Quicken download to download the regularly scheduled sale of securities (or variable annuities) within an account. Say that you are scheduled to sell five different securities producing $250.00 cash each month. Thus each month you will have five security sale transactions to download, and a $250.00 cash balance in the account. Check to see that shares of each security are Sold, and that the proceeds go to the TIAA-CREF account’s cash balance. For some reason, T-C does not show things this way in the quarterly statements.

1. In the checking account in which the deposit will take place, create a new deposit transaction.
2. In the Category box, choose the TIAA-CREF account from which the payment will occur
3. The Amount is the gross amount of the payment, or transfer. [In our example, that would be $250.00]
4. Split the transaction
5. On line 2, enter as a negative number the amount of the Federal tax being withheld.
6. On line 3, enter as a negative number the amount of the state tax being withheld.
7. Continue likewise with any other amounts being withheld
8. If necessary, click the “Adjust” button. This will change the deposit amount to the net amount after taxes, but will show the gross amount as a deduction from the TIAA-CREF account’s cash balance.
9. Click “OK”, and then Save the transaction
10. Find the transaction in the checking account register and right-click on it. Choose “Schedule Transaction.” The “Add Reminder” screen comes up.
11. Choose your preferred settings in the “Add Income Reminder” screen, and click Done.

You’re done. The scheduled transaction is available in your Quicken checking account register as an Income Reminder at the next scheduled date (monthly, in our example).





Interest-only Payments
Note that the difference from Systematic Withdrawals is that this is NOT a cash transaction, but Quicken will try to set it up as one. This data has to be entered manually after notification, because TIAA-CREF does not currently make these Annuity accumulations and payments available to customers for download to Quicken. It would seem possible to do so, and that would change the steps required below.


I should also note that I am ignoring the conversion of the TIAA Traditional amount in the employer contract to an Interest Payment Annuity, as paperwork irrelevant to my purposes; the amount is the same as it was before. (Note: I could, I suppose, create a new account in Quicken titled [Employer name] Interest Payment Annuity, with the same amount as the TIAA Traditional in the old account; but why?)

1. In the checking account in which the payment will take place, create a new deposit transaction.
2. In the Category box, choose the TIAA account from which the payment will occur
3. The Amount is the gross amount of the payment
4. Split the transaction
5. On line 2, enter as a negative number the amount of the Federal tax being withheld.
6. On line 3, enter as a negative number the amount of the state tax being withheld.
7. Continue likewise with any other amounts being withheld
8. Click the “Adjust” button (if necessary). This will change the deposit amount to the net amount after taxes, but will show the gross amount as a deduction from the TIAA-CREF account’s cash balance.
9. Click “OK”, and then Save the transaction
10. Switch to the TIAA account from which the payment is being made, and find the transaction, which appears as an “XOut,” and is being deducted from the account’s cash balance.
11. Edit the transaction. Change “Cash Transferred out of account” to Income. Quicken notes that “this is cash income that you did NOT reinvest.”
12. In the “Security Name” box, find the correct security; I use “TIAA Traditional.”
13. Manually enter the gross amount of the payment on the “Interest” line.
14. Click “Enter/Done.”
15. Switch back to the checking account.
16. Find the transaction and right-click on it. Choose “Schedule Transaction.” The “Add Reminder” screen comes up.
17. Choose your preferred settings in the “Add Income Reminder” screen, and click Done.

You’re done. The scheduled transaction is available in your Quicken checking account register as an Income Reminder at the next scheduled date (monthly, in our example).


I have only been able to test this process with my copy of Quicken 2013; I trust that the steps would be similar with similar versions.