401k Account Set Up If Not Tracking Investments / Shares

If you just want to have a placeholder for total value, then you could just update an asset account periodically. Or you could do the same setting it up as a 401k. Depends on which sidebar group you want it included in.

On the other hand, if you download from a brokerage, it can be pretty painless to let the 401k keep track of individual share holdings and transactions.

Paul Schwartz said:

Rick, I’d like to have it show up under the retirement sidebar, so can you further explain “or you could do the same setting it up as a 401k”? I’d like to just have a placeholder for “total value”, but it seems that approach would require me keeping it as an asset. Can you explain how to just have a placeholder for total value setting it up as a 401k . . . or am I miss understanding your reply? Ssems like if I want it set up as a 401k I’d have to set up downloads.

Easy... create a 401k account in Quicken. When the Add Account window comes up, click Options and then Manual.  

Enter one and only one transaction in the account. That transaction would be a Payment/Deposit transaction with the amount equal to the total account value. The category can be Balance Adjustment and the Payee can be Opening Balance. When the account value changes, just edit the transaction and change the amount to the current value.

It would look like this:



The amount value of $12,345.67 will appear in the sidebar under Investing > Retirement.

If you want to record the quarterly changes, then instead of editing that first transaction, you could put in additional Payment/Deposit transactions (category Balance Adjustment) to reflect the quarterly account value change shown on your statements.

If you further want to record the contributions, you could show those deposits separately, either directly into the account (employer contributions) or as transfer transactions from your paycheck in your checking account (employee contributions).

Essentially you're just treating the 401k as a cash holding account labeled as a 401k. There's no problem doing it that way if that's what you want.