Tithe in Paycheck Setup
I want a fully automated feature (with customization choices) to handle tithing starting from Paycheck Setup. [Tithing is a statute in the Christian and Jewish religions where a certain percentage of you income is required to be given away - the idea that this money does not belong to you - it is to be given directly to the poor, or to your religious/charity organization.]
- Would you like to set up Tithe for this paycheck? (Yes/No)
- Specify base from which you will be tithing (gross pay, net pay, or include/exclude other multiple elements from the paycheck sections)
- What percentage would you like to tithe? (Defaults at 10%)
- Would you like to set up a ledger Account in Quicken [not an actual account at a bank] in which this tithe will accumulate until you disburse it, or would you like it to be associated with an Expense Category instead?
- If [Account]: Would you like the accumulated tithe in this account to be counted, or excluded, in your Accounts total(s) and/or in your Net Worth? [Some people believe that upon arrival of their paycheck, their tithe no longer belongs to them, but to God, and should not be counted as "spendable" money - Quicken might be able to use existing credit card structure to create this sense of "money owed".]
- If [Category]: Which category should this tithe be associated with? (Option to select existing category or create new category)
- Would you like to set up Automatic Payments and/or Bill Reminders for your tithe? (Or would you rather manually control when and to whom your tithe is disbursed, or both.)
- When they make tithe payments (to organization, or pay for a hotel for a homeless person from checking, for example) they can add [Tithe Account] or the Tithe Category to the category field in the register.
- They are able to include tithing into their budgets
- They can easily see at any given time how much tithe has accumulated so they know how much they still need to disburse. (Needed for those who do not set up Automatic Payments on the full amount of tithe each paycheck.)
- They can give MORE than their allotted %, and they can easily see that they've "gone over".
- FYI Savings Goals will not be sufficient for this.
- I created a Quicken banking account called [Tithe]. It is not associated with a real account at a bank.
- I created a Reminder that coincides with paycheck dates. The Payee is the name of my job. The Category is [Tithe]. The account to use is Tithe. The amount I leave blank until the paycheck comes.
- When the paycheck comes, I go to the Reminder, click Enter. I manually calculate 10% of takehome pay, and put that in the amount field in the reminder. Click Enter Transaction.
- This creates a negative balance in the Tithe account (red) - like a credit card. If it's red, I know I "owe" tithe. I set it up this way so that it will be subtracted from my Banking total and from my Net Worth. I still can see exactly how much money is in Checking, but I can also see that some of it isn't "mine" by looking at the banking total.
- When I write a check to my organization, or purchase something for the needy, I put [Tithe] in the category field. This makes the red value in the Tithe account less negative. If the expense exceeded the amount "owed" in tithe, then the Tithe balance becomes positive. This is where it breaks down, because now the black amount is added to my Banking total and my Net Worth, which is doubly wrong.
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It simply can't work as the OP requests.
Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Home & Business
Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP
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I think the challenge would be to make it versatile enough to appeal to a wider user base and use cases.
You may be able to make something work, albeit with some manual intervention/tracking, with either the Savings Goals, budgets, or simply a report that tracks what qualifies for donations and what was actually given (the latter is how I do it).
(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)
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I look at the way you are doing it, it seems like a very good efficient way to do it.
Then I look at your suggestion that tries to generalize it so that it will work with lots of different combinations, and it gets very complicated on how anyone would even fill out that information.
Your goal seems to be to automate it completely for you. But now that you have it up, that consists of basically making one calculation and entering it. I'm not counting the withdraw because even in your proposal that out be outside of what the new "reminder functionality" does.
My wife works hourly, and different hours each week, and is paid weekly.
That means that I have to enter every single line of her paycheck. What's more her 401K transactions can only be downloaded using Web Connect (QFX file), and still I can do this all in a few minutes.
It would be nice if the paycheck reminder would allow me to put in hours and calculate all of this. But I also know that I would have to always double check everything because there isn't any way that all the different employers would calculate everything to the penny in the same way.
And this kind of "entry" has been suggested a few times over the years, but as people have pointed out it would get complicated, and it has never been implemented. And frankly given the "user work vs possible bad results" of Quicken Inc implement this I think that is probably the right answer (not doing it).
Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Home & Business
Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP
All other commentaries are simply suggestions on alternatives, either in the meantime, or even sufficiently instead.
The bottom line test will be now many add their vote to express a desire for this kind of feature. Let users cast their votes.
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(Canadian Q user since '92, STILL using QM2007)
What about the way you are doing "breaks" when you give more than 10%?
BTW the "solution" might not be a change to the paycheck reminder which is complicated, but instead a "wizard" to setup what you are already doing.
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(Canadian Q user since '92, STILL using QM2007)