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Getting IRA income to show up in income reports

Cindi Anderson

A previous closed question about this said you could add the account to the income report and it would show income from an IRA. So does that mean there is no way to have it show up on the Income tab, just in a Report?

In my mind, if I earn income in a Roth account, it is my income for that year to spend if I want, and I want it showing on my income tab. I don't care if it is taxable income or not.

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Accepted answers

Boatnmaniac

I think the report that comes closest to the Spending tab view that would give you what you want to see is Reports > Spending > Income and Expense by Category. Below is a picture of what it looks like.

Note that this report will not include the Investment Accounts data but you can customize it by clicking on the Gear icon at the top to the right. There you can select the Investment Accounts that you want included. As you can see, it will then show the dividends, interest and realized gains income categories.

If you want to see the detail behind any of the numbers shown, just double click on that number to drill down to the transactions level.

Also, if you want to see this graphed out, click on the Show Graph button.

When you have customized it the way you like, click on the Floppy Disc icon just to the left of the Gear icon so you can save it to My Reports. You can even give the report a custom name. Then all you need to do in the future is pull up that saved customized report instead of pulling up a new default report and customizing it all over, again.

Do you think this will meet what you are looking for?

One other thing you might find helpful: After you have saved that customized report you can set up Quicken so an icon for it will be saved to your tool bar. Then when you want to retrieve the report in the future all you need to do is click on that icon and it will open right up. Here is how it looks in my Quicken. All of the yellow shaded icon are different reports I've customized. To have a customized report shown in the toolbar: Right click on the Toolbar > Customize Toolbar > Add or Remove Saved Reports > check the box for the Saved Report you want displayed in the Toolbar > OK > Done.:

All comments

Boatnmaniac

Please clarify what you mean by "income tab". I do not see an "income tab" in my QWin Premier installation. Maybe you could post a screen shot here (with personal/confidential information blacked out, of course)?

Cindi Anderson

I have Quicken Classic. It is very convenient to look at income and Expense categories here to drill down and find and edit mis-categorizations and other issues.

splasher

But is it income (regardless of taxable status) before it is pulled out of the Roth IRA? To me, it is more like unrealized gain.

Boatnmaniac

Ah, the Spending tab with Income selected. There is an inconsistency with this tab when it comes to Investment Accounts.

Expenses (like management fees) are included when viewing Expense transactions, regardless of whether the account is a taxable brokerage, tax deferred or tax exempt account.
But income transactions (like dividends and interest and realized gains) are not included.

Personally, I think the Spending tab should only include transactions that impact Spending Accounts (i.e., checking, savings, credit card, etc.) Investment Accounts transactions should not be included unless they are actual cash distributions (transfers to Spending Accounts), payments (to an external Payee) or there is a deposit made from any external Payee.

But IMO if this Spending tab is going to include Investment Accounts expenses there should be consistency to also include Investment Accounts income. At least make it optional to do this. However, currently this cannot be done….at least, I have not found a way to do that.

If you wish for this capability to be added to Income of the Spending tab, you can submit it as a Product Idea at https://community.quicken.com/categories/quicken-product-ideas . Once posted, be sure to cast your vote for it. Others will then be able see and comment on the Product Idea and to cast their votes for it. The more people who vote for an idea the more likely it will be that at some time perhaps Quicken will add it to their Development Plan.

Cindi Anderson

Thanks. Yes, I see your perspective that they are unrealized income. But when you get older and a large portion of your income is earned in retirement accounts, you like to see how your spending compares to your overall "earnings", whether you actually pull them out of the retirement account to spend them or not. Hopefully I can do it with a report.

Boatnmaniac

If you want to see the detail behind any of the numbers shown, just double click on that number to drill down to the transactions level.

Also, if you want to see this graphed out, click on the Show Graph button.

Do you think this will meet what you are looking for?

Boatnmaniac

Another report you might want to take a look at: Reports > Banking > Cash Flow. Like with the Income and Expense by Category report mentioned above, you will need to customize it to check the Investment Accounts you want included. The 2 reports are rather similar to each other but the Cash Flow report does not have a graph option.

NotACPA

I wouldn't consider_UnRLZD Gains OR Losses to be proper for inclusion in Income & Expense reports. Net Worth reports, sure, but you haven't actually received the UnRlzd items.

Divs, CapGns, Int (and perhaps others) where the security actually pays something, sure. But the UnRlzd items don't represent money actually received until you sell something … and then they'd be RlzdGn or Loss.

Boatnmaniac

@NotACPA -

I wouldn't consider_UnRLZD Gains OR Losses to be proper for inclusion in Income & Expense reports. Net Worth reports, sure, but you haven't actually received the UnRlzd items.

Agreed. The reports I suggested above do not include UnRlzd Gains/Losses.

Cindi Anderson

So do any?

Really they are only unrealized while they are in holdings (stocks, bonds, CD's, etc.) Once those distribute cash income or are sold, that cash can be pulled from a Roth at any time with no penalty (if you are old enough and fit the other criteria). So they really should be able to be considered income if someone wants to. I realized I have been underspending because this type of income isn't on my income reports and I assumed it was.

Cindi Anderson

I see I can add the to the reports, so that is good. I ended up with some negative unrealized gains. Any idea how that happens? The largest ones were at times T-Bills reached maturity. Is that just the increase in value changing from unrealized to realized gain? So it nets out when those are combined?

NotACPA

@Cindi Anderson When you sell the security, that UnRLzd becomes RLzd … THEN it's income, not before. For the UnRlzd, you haven't actually received anything.

volvogirl

I wouldn't consider unrealized gains as "income". They can go down in value or change to unrealized losses the next day. And you can't spend it until you actually get the cash or distribution. If you want to see how much you have you need to look at a Net Worth report.

Cindi Anderson

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20439181#Comment_20439181

I agree. But my point is that once it's realized, it's realized whether it's in a retirement account or not. And my newer question is why the report is showing a negative unrealized, but I suspect it debiting unrealized and crediting realized in accounting terms.

Boatnmaniac

A negative unrealized number means that the security(ies) in question have a lower market value than what you paid for them. So, you have a paper loss. It is not a real loss unless and until you sell the security(ies) that are worth less at the time you sell them than what you originally paid for them.

Boatnmaniac

If you are seeing an Unrealized Gain or Loss in that report that I had suggest to you, then you might want to customize that report so that they are not included: Open the report > upper right Gear icon > Advanced tab > uncheck the box for Include unrealized gains > OK > save the report.