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From: thefourthwall on 30 Jun 2010 11:21
On Jun 24, 4:39 am, "Mr.Jan" <jan.hertz...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 23, 2:37 pm,thefourthwall<lawrence.borde...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hello,
>
> > Being relatively new to Quicken, I am challenged to understand
> > something and welcome all constructive feedback.
>
> > My goal, using Quicken Premier 2009, is to create spending reports
> > that track net income and spending:  at this point I am not yet
> > interested in tracking payroll deductions.  Eventually, yes, but small
> > steps first, I think.  As I understand it, if I want to easily see
> > just 'net' information, the straightforward way to do that is track
> > net pay only.
>
> > But it seems that tracking payroll deductions (esp. 401(k) deductions
> > & contributions) will give me a more complete picture of where money
> > is going.
>
> > So, how should I create spending accounts that do not include payroll
> > deductions?  I am having trouble with this and perhaps I am just
> > complicating things ... thanks for your help.
>
> I completely agree on starting at the high level and then drilling
> down later. I find that many people try to get to the point where they
> have an expense account for toothpaste (for example). Once they finish
> with the fun part of setting up all the expense categories, the
> drudgery of entering the data keeps them from using the product.
>
> My suggestion is to record your paycheck as INCOME and leave
> everything else alone. You can go back and fix it later and there are
> some tricks you can use that will make it easy to change.  Having the
> 401K is nice but your goal is to determine what you are doing with the
> money you have when you cash the check.
>
> Next, set up a AMOUNT AVAILABLE  report that has the balance of your
> checking account(s) and the credit card accounts you pay off every
> month (not the ones on which you carry a balance and stop charging to
> those). This tells you how much money you can really spend at any
> point in time.
>
> Next, I download all my transactions and most of the vendors send a
> code that automatically posts to the proper expense account. Manually
> assign any charges that are uncategorized.  Use the Quicken default
> accounts for a while. There are enough of them to see where your
> spending is going.
>
> After you have a month's data in there, run a spending report by
> vendor. This will show you where your money is going in broad terms
> and you can think about being more granular. So, if you are spending
> most of your money at GIANT FOODS using your debit card and realize
> you extract cash with your food order, you can break that out as a
> split transaction to CASH and GROCERIES.

Mr. Jan:
Great ideas! That seems much easier that what I've been doing ... You
referred to
some tricks for going back and fixing paycheck information later ...
I'm curioius about
what those are. Am grateful for your reply, please forgive my
response time: I've been
sick and off computers the past several days. Thank you again.
From: thefourthwall on 30 Jun 2010 11:22
On Jun 24, 3:42 pm, Laura <inva...(a)sample.invalid> wrote:
> thefourthwallwrote:
> > Hello,
>
> > Being relatively new to Quicken, I am challenged to understand
> > something and welcome all constructive feedback.
>
> > My goal, using Quicken Premier 2009, is to create spending reports
> > that track net income and spending:  at this point I am not yet
> > interested in tracking payroll deductions.  Eventually, yes, but small
> > steps first, I think.  As I understand it, if I want to easily see
> > just 'net' information, the straightforward way to do that is track
> > net pay only.
>
> > But it seems that tracking payroll deductions (esp. 401(k) deductions
> > & contributions) will give me a more complete picture of where money
> > is going.
>
> > So, how should I create spending accounts that do not include payroll
> > deductions?  I am having trouble with this and perhaps I am just
> > complicating things ... thanks for your help.
>
> Start by figuring out what expenses that you want/need to track. One
> place to start is your tax return. What deduction, if any, do you report
> each year? Set up categories for each of these items. These will
> typically be medical, taxes paid, Gross wages (to match your w-2). Add
> categories for your day-to-day expenses like groceries, meals, household
> and anything else you might want to track. Start small and add new
> categories as you need to.

Thank you, Laura. Do you typically look at spending reports that
include
taxes and other paycheck deductions, or do you filter them out? If
so, how?
From: thefourthwall on 30 Jun 2010 11:24
On Jun 26, 10:03 am, "Andrew" <and...(a)jkl.com> wrote:
> thefourthwallwrote:
> > Hello,
>
> > Being relatively new to Quicken, I am challenged to understand
> > something and welcome all constructive feedback.
>
> > My goal, using Quicken Premier 2009, is to create spending reports
> > that track net income and spending:  at this point I am not yet
> > interested in tracking payroll deductions.  Eventually, yes, but small
> > steps first, I think.  As I understand it, if I want to easily see
> > just 'net' information, the straightforward way to do that is track
> > net pay only.
>
> > But it seems that tracking payroll deductions (esp. 401(k) deductions
> > & contributions) will give me a more complete picture of where money
> > is going.
>
> > So, how should I create spending accounts that do not include payroll
> > deductions?  I am having trouble with this and perhaps I am just
> > complicating things ... thanks for your help.
>
> I try to keep a simple approach to things with Quicken.  I *do* track all my
> payroll deductions by categories such as Federal Taxes, Medicare, etc.  I do
> this because I like to ensure that the YTD deductions on my paystub as well
> as end of year W2s sync with what I have been doing.  I also keep a separate
> category for 401K deductions.  I do NOT use the 401K category as any kind of
> 'transfer' to another account for purchasing securities there.  It is simply
> another category.
>
> What I do NOT do is try to manage company contributions in their own right.
> Since my company's 401k plan is downloadable, I have a separate Q account
> for those securities.   So all the purchases, regardless of whether they are
> from my deductions or the company's matching funds simply appear as a single
> buy transaction every 2 weeks when they are made.  If I care to see how pays
> what for who, I can always log on to the 401k plan website and view the gory
> details.
>
> As someone else pointed out, Q allows to record minutiae, but at the end, is
> that really helping you vs. the time it takes to do the recording?
>
> Everyone's use of Q is different, of course, but this works for me.
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Regards -
>
> - Andrew

Your approach sure does make sense. I have indeed been trying to
track
details like 401(k) contributions, etc., and it has really has taken
the joy out
of the whole process ... Thank you.
From: Mr.Jan on 1 Jul 2010 07:12
On Jun 30, 11:21 am, thefourthwall <lawrence.borde...(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Jun 24, 4:39 am, "Mr.Jan" <jan.hertz...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jun 23, 2:37 pm,thefourthwall<lawrence.borde...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Hello,
>
> > > Being relatively new to Quicken, I am challenged to understand
> > > something and welcome all constructive feedback.
>
> > > My goal, using Quicken Premier 2009, is to create spending reports
> > > that track net income and spending:  at this point I am not yet
> > > interested in tracking payroll deductions.  Eventually, yes, but small
> > > steps first, I think.  As I understand it, if I want to easily see
> > > just 'net' information, the straightforward way to do that is track
> > > net pay only.
>
> > > But it seems that tracking payroll deductions (esp. 401(k) deductions
> > > & contributions) will give me a more complete picture of where money
> > > is going.
>
> > > So, how should I create spending accounts that do not include payroll
> > > deductions?  I am having trouble with this and perhaps I am just
> > > complicating things ... thanks for your help.
>
> > I completely agree on starting at the high level and then drilling
> > down later. I find that many people try to get to the point where they
> > have an expense account for toothpaste (for example). Once they finish
> > with the fun part of setting up all the expense categories, the
> > drudgery of entering the data keeps them from using the product.
>
> > My suggestion is to record your paycheck as INCOME and leave
> > everything else alone. You can go back and fix it later and there are
> > some tricks you can use that will make it easy to change.  Having the
> > 401K is nice but your goal is to determine what you are doing with the
> > money you have when you cash the check.
>
> > Next, set up a AMOUNT AVAILABLE  report that has the balance of your
> > checking account(s) and the credit card accounts you pay off every
> > month (not the ones on which you carry a balance and stop charging to
> > those). This tells you how much money you can really spend at any
> > point in time.
>
> > Next, I download all my transactions and most of the vendors send a
> > code that automatically posts to the proper expense account. Manually
> > assign any charges that are uncategorized.  Use the Quicken default
> > accounts for a while. There are enough of them to see where your
> > spending is going.
>
> > After you have a month's data in there, run a spending report by
> > vendor. This will show you where your money is going in broad terms
> > and you can think about being more granular. So, if you are spending
> > most of your money at GIANT FOODS using your debit card and realize
> > you extract cash with your food order, you can break that out as a
> > split transaction to CASH and GROCERIES.
>
> Mr. Jan:
> Great ideas!  That seems much easier that what I've been doing ... You
> referred to
> some tricks for going back and fixing paycheck information later ...
> I'm curioius about
> what those are.  Am grateful for your reply, please forgive my
> response time: I've been
> sick and off computers the past several days.  Thank you again.

Hi. Sorry you were not feeling well.

I went about six months of just posting my entire paycheck to "income"
and then decided I wanted to break it down into the appropriate
categories. I tried a couple of things but this seemed to work the
best.
1. Create a copy of your file and work with that. I must have started
this three times before I liked the result. Make sure you reconcile
your checking account before you go on.
2. Use the enter paycheck feature to enter your latest paycheck by
category. It is really just a nice input form for a split transaction.
Make the name of your paycheck slightly different than the other
paychecks you have already posted (the old way).
3. Schedule the paycheck transaction to input automatically. Put the
first start date as the first paycheck of the year.
4. Close and open the file (you are still in your copy). All the
paychecks will have posted from the beginning of the year.
5. Run a register report for all your old paychecks (this is why you
named the new one slightly differently). Delete all the old
paychecks.
6. Reconcile your account again. It should come back to the same
number.

I did find that I had to make sure there were not rounding or other
differences in some of my paychecks. They are not 100% consistent. If
you don't get paid the same amount every paycheck, let me know and I
will give you tips for that.
From: Laura on 1 Jul 2010 09:10
thefourthwall wrote:
> On Jun 24, 3:42 pm, Laura <inva...(a)sample.invalid> wrote:
>> thefourthwallwrote:
>>> Hello,
>>> Being relatively new to Quicken, I am challenged to understand
>>> something and welcome all constructive feedback.
>>> My goal, using Quicken Premier 2009, is to create spending reports
>>> that track net income and spending: at this point I am not yet
>>> interested in tracking payroll deductions. Eventually, yes, but small
>>> steps first, I think. As I understand it, if I want to easily see
>>> just 'net' information, the straightforward way to do that is track
>>> net pay only.
>>> But it seems that tracking payroll deductions (esp. 401(k) deductions
>>> & contributions) will give me a more complete picture of where money
>>> is going.
>>> So, how should I create spending accounts that do not include payroll
>>> deductions? I am having trouble with this and perhaps I am just
>>> complicating things ... thanks for your help.
>> Start by figuring out what expenses that you want/need to track. One
>> place to start is your tax return. What deduction, if any, do you report
>> each year? Set up categories for each of these items. These will
>> typically be medical, taxes paid, Gross wages (to match your w-2). Add
>> categories for your day-to-day expenses like groceries, meals, household
>> and anything else you might want to track. Start small and add new
>> categories as you need to.
>
> Thank you, Laura. Do you typically look at spending reports that
> include
> taxes and other paycheck deductions, or do you filter them out? If
> so, how?

I probably do it incorrectly but I only record my Net check. I rely on
my year-end W2 to report the taxes on my tax return (I do validate it
against the last check stub).

You can't spend your gross amount so you really need to either record
the net check or record the gross amount + all of the deductions as part
of your expense stream.

If you need to filter out a category then just customize the report and
uncheck those categories. Memorize/save the report for future use.
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