I have managed to create a report. Thanks again

"April" <noreply[at]mail.com> wrote in message
news:uYH0uQ7%23HHA.1212[at]TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
- quote -

just one further question....I'm reposting.. hope you can assist

When I arrived at this step:
- quote -

"Yes".

After clicking OK, Money states "The category you have selected for this
deposit is not currently part of your budget. Do you want Money to add to
the category...." I clicked "No".

Would you please let me know how to create a simple report based on your
steps below so I can check my contributions?

Thanks again.
Kind regards

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:OhIjVeL%23HHA.3916[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Hi

When I arrived at this step:
- quote -

"Yes".

After clicking OK, Money states "The category you have selected for this
deposit is not currently part of your budget. Do you want Money to add to
the category...." I clicked "No".

Would you please let me know how to create a simple report based on your
steps below so I can check my contributions?

Thanks again.
Kind regards


"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:OhIjVeL%23HHA.3916[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Gee, I've almost forgotten the conversation.

To do what I suggested:

Assumes pre-defined Income Category "Wages : Employer Pension Funding" and
Expense Category "Pension Contribution".

Create a new scheduled Bill as follows:

Pay to: "BigCo Pension Fund"
Pay from: [pick whatever account suits you--suggest the one where you
deposit your pay]
Next payment date: [date of your next pay deposit]
Payment method: Other
Frequency: [frequency of your paychecks]
[click on Split]
Category: Wages : Employer Pension Funding, Memo: "recognize the income",
Amount: -£100
Category: Pension Contribution, Memo: "and recognize where that money went",
Amount £100
[click on Done]
Memo: "tracking transaction to allow reporting on employer pension
contributions without tracking Gross Paycheck entries"
[click on OK]

Note this adds up to a £0 entry--why you can put it in any account--but
allows you to report on Income Category Wages : Employer Pension Funding or
Expense Category Pension Contribution or Payee BigCo Pension Fund.

Some other comments inline.

"April" <noreply[at]mail.com> wrote in message
news:OxAgBaI%23HHA.1168[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

My point here is that the money that goes to the pension is money you've
never received as income in your Money file, so expensing it has some
problems since you are, in effect, spending money you've never deposited.
See above for my thoughts as to how I'd handle this.

- quote -

See below.

- quote -

Since you are only accounting for the £450, not all of the expenses and/or
transfers (as in your pension) that are taken out of the £1000 we are having
this discussion. Best practice for many of us id to account for every pence
between the £1000 gross and the £450 net. You are just accounting for the
net. This isn't "wrong" though it may not reflect best practices. But it
does complicate accounting for that £100 for the Pension.

- quote -

That's what I'd recommend. See above.

- quote -

Yup.

- quote -

See above. Hopefully this will then make more sense.

- quote -

Yup.

- quote -

See above.

Sorry I took so long to reply. As this is a long conversation and I have
got slightly confused...I have moved one of your comments to the top of this
message and put a few comments inline. Would it be possible for you to
given me thebasic steps as to how to setup this in Money (your comments
below) ? I would appreciate it as I am a bit confused with the explanation.
Thanking you very much for your patience in adavace.

- quote -

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:ODAR0VR6HHA.5212[at]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I pay tax on the remaining amount and left with my net salary.
- quote -

difficult to get it (sorry but I think I'm nearly there).
- quote -

just enter a 'Deposit' when I get paid into my Cheque Account. The Pension
was taken off before tax (so the scenario is I get paid £1000 then deduct
£100 for the Pension. From £900, I then pay tax and I am left with £450.

- quote -

So I should setup the category as a categorised Expense.

- quote -

I agree, this sounds like an Expense as you have described.

- quote -

Sorry, dont' follow this...

- quote -

Yes, I don't want this account to reflected in my net worth.

- quote -

Would it be possible for you to given me some basic steps as to how to setup
this in Money? I would appreciate it as I am a bit confused with the
explanation.

Thanking you very much for your patience in adanvce.

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply...I will review your comments and get
back to you.

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:ODAR0VR6HHA.5212[at]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
- quote -

"April" <noreply[at]mail.com> wrote in message
news:eo9RtsM6HHA.3900[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Right. But now you have this money coming into a transaction that came from
where?

- quote -

Right again. But you want to track this "deduction" without tracking what
it's deducted from. And that creates unique issues. That's all I'm trying to
advise you to beware of here.

- quote -

Let's get back to the original question: are you trying to track the pension
**account** or your **contributions** to this account? Note also that the
whole situation involves both Income and Expense and you've already said you
don't want to track the income (the gross pay in your paycheck and all of
the deductions, not just this one). The Income portion is that you got paid
the amount of this expense and you are not accounting for that by using
Deposits of net amount rather than Paychecks that account for all Income and
Expense (or Transfer) of that money before getting to the net amount you are
just depositing now.

My recollection of the whole setup here was that you really wanted to track
how much you were contributing and we'd agreed that collecting this as a
categorized Expense that you could then report on would meet the need.
(Reporting all transactions of category Pension Contributions, say.) See
below for more...

Now, is the pension contribution an Expense or a Transfer? It could be
either. As noted previously, IIRC, if the plan were something like a 401(k)
a Transfer seems in order. To the extent it's not, just calling it an
Expense for your current purposes in Money seems more appropriate. It's
kinda like a term life insurance deduction in that regard. You pay the money
now in hopes of seeing something in return someday. That sure sounds like an
Expense in the here and now to me.

As to a subcategory that mixes Payee with Income/Expense categorization, I'd
not do this. (I don't recall suggesting a subcategory for Pension
Contribution, but it's been a long thread.) Perhaps that's an item of
personal preference, but my rationale is this: say your employer changes the
pension plan provider ten times. Does it add any value to have to add the
next ten subcategories? No. It's still the exact same kind of expense.

- quote -

1) As to account name for the account where you are entering this
transaction ("Pay From"), again, it depends. My recommendation, given the
other requirements you've identified chief among which is using a net
Deposit rather than Paycheck, would be to use a transaction with splits that
totaled to $0 but had both an Income (Wages:Pension Contrib or similar, say,
for $123.45 of Income, say) and an offsetting Expense (Pension Contribution
or similar, say, for -$123.45 of Expense) portion. Put the transaction in
any account that's convenient. (It's a $0 transaction, so it doesn't matter
where you put it because it doesn't change the balance of the account it's
in). If you wanted to put this in an account dedicated solely to these
transactions, that's perfectly OK. But read on:

2) Beyond a collection place for the $0 tracking purposes only transactions,
I wouldn't use an account for the Pension since it doesn't have a current
cash value to you and is not relevant to your net worth--or at least not in
any way directly relatable to the amounts you are trying to deposit there.
Say you contribute $20,000 to the plan this year. Does having this account
in Money with a $20,000 balance make your financial picture depicted by
Money more or less clear? I'd argue the latter by a long shot.

Perhaps this has been confusing so let me recap what I think my
recommendation is here, given that you don't want to track gross paychecks:

Create a recurring bill to collect the pension contribution expense with,
somehow, somewhere, corresponding income transactions to offset this expense
in the account where the transactions are to be entered. Virtually all else
has been details about how to accomplish this.

pse see below:

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:uEC90SK6HHA.2752[at]TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
- quote -

that my pension contribution is taken from my pay before it reach my
'Checking' account.

- quote -

reaches my 'Checking' account.

- quote -

unique Payee and also a top level Category called 'Pension Contrubtion' and
a sub-category. I set this up a sub-category called "ABC Pension Company".
Is it correct to setup the contribution as an income or should it be an
expense?

When setting up the recurring bill, I am unsure as to what to enter in the
'Pay from ' box? Should I enter the "ABC Pension Company" account name
there? I have setup an account for the Pension.

See inline...

"April" <noreply[at]mail.com> wrote in message
news:%23VoVyUH6HHA.2752[at]TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
- quote -

What I was cautioning you about is this scenario:

Deposit $500 from net deposit of paycheck to "Checking" Money Account but
don't track the gross income and all of the other deductions via the
"Paycheck" "special category" and all of its tabs and entries.

Add a $100 Pension Contributions Expense into "Checking" to account for the
"before the net" deduction from your paycheck. Since you didn't track the
gross income in the original deposit, now your checking balance is off by
this $100.

If, on the other hand, you split the net deposit of your paycheck into a
$600 Wages Net and a ($100) Pension Contributions this would make a $500 net
deposit and all would be good. Using Paycheck special category and all of
the other entries would probably be better.

Sorry for not reply sooner ... I hope that this trail is still being read.

My comment is inline below:

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:es0ubUg0HHA.4916[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

<<be careful adding
- quote -

account? It's a little 'messy' as I'd preer to keep a minimum of
accounts.....

Or is it possible just to have one account, but you did say that this would
"increase" my total amount.... Thanks again.

Thanks... I'm going to try this out and then I will reply back to you
shortly..........

Kind regards.

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:es0ubUg0HHA.4916[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Thanks... I'm going to try this out and then I will reply back to you
shortly..........

Kind regards.

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:es0ubUg0HHA.4916[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

You know the drill...

"April" <noreply[at]mail.com> wrote in message
news:u77P$sf0HHA.4816[at]TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
- quote -

OK.

- quote -

I'd probably setup the monthly recurring bill with both a unique Payee and a
unique Category. I'd use a Payee so I recognize the name and a Category so
that I got better reporting and so forth. Maybe a new top level expense
category like Pension Contributions or something similar. If you type the
name you want into the category field, Money will prompt to make sure you
want to create it if it doesn't already exist. Oh, and noting that you
aren't using Paychecks but assuming this comes out of one, be careful adding
this expense as the net deposit you made somewhere will need to be
"increased" by the amount of this new Expense transaction you are going to
enter in the same account or you will never get the account balance to
reconcile.

Thanks you for help. Please see me my comments inline.

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:uXY1iJ4zHHA.4652[at]TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I decided a few months ago not to use Paycheck method as I have another
method setup in Excel.

- quote -

Yes, I think it's a cash balance plan. I just contribution a fixed amount
every month and then it goes towards my pension account and they reinvest
it. This pension cannot be touched until retirement. I would very much
like to track the contrubtions anyway, and your suggestion of treating it as
an expense sounds good to me.

With regards to setting it up, please can you confirm the process for
treating this an an expense. Would you recomend setting up a monthly
Recurring Bill and enter the Payee Details as "ABC Pension company" (as an
example). Then just check the balance under the "Payees" section. Or would
it be possible to setup this under the "Categories" section as an
alternative?

- quote -

Yes, I am familiar with the basics of setting up Bills but I just wanted to
clarify if I have the correct steps. Please check my answer above.

Thanks and kind regards.
- quote -

Note also that my previous answer assumes that you are somewhat familiar
with scheduling recurring Expenses and Paychecks in Bills & Deposits, so it
skips the "click here, click there" details. If that's a bad assumption, let
us know.

"April" <noreply[at]mail.com> wrote in message
news:eMx$yp0zHHA.4928[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

For the first plan, I'm thinking maybe you just want some kind of cash or
asset account and you'd just adjust its balance when you see statements. But
see caveat #1 below.

For the second, you could also use a cash or asset account. But see caveat
#1 below.

As to tracking the contributions with recurring transactions, I'm guessing
that these contributions come from a payroll deduction. If so, and you track
the gross and deductions in Paycheck transactions, just use an additional
deduction (before or after tax, as appropriate) and set it up as
Transfer:[name of the account you created]. If this comes out of every nth
paycheck, this gets a harder since Money doesn't allow negative
paychecks--to schedule it as a separate Paycheck on a different frequency
since the normal recurring one will be the same for every recurrence. You
could use just a recurring Transfer from the account where your Paycheck
deposits on the theory that the real deposit will not be lower than the
Money Paycheck by the amount of the transfer you setup on the alternate
frequency. But, if these are Before Tax contributions, this strategy will
hose up Tax Estimator. Again, you haven't quite given enough details to give
an exact answer. But see caveat #2 below.

As to having the account balance show up but not totaled into the total at
the bottom: you just can't do it. Which brings me to caveat #1: if these
plans are not part of your net worth--and I think few of them consider them
that way and they usually are not just a cash amount but are factored
through all kinds of annuity factors and payout formulas and so forth before
you ever see a dime--maybe tracking them in Money at all is not really
worthwhile. Some accounts are best tracked outside of Money or in that
famous add-in to Money for all of the things money doesn't do well:
Microsoft Excel. Back to the contributory one. Assuming it's just some kind
of "cash balance plan", there is little you can gain in day-to-day personal
financial management--or even the using, say, Money's Lifetime Planner--by
modeling the account in Money. For most purposes in Money you could just
treat your contributions as an expense--just like you do, say,
insurance--and move on.

When I got traded to a new employer earlier this year, I became the
less-than-thrilled recipient of a new "cash balance" pension. It has all
this "feel good" "deposit" of "credit" amounts and so forth. But the formula
for payout is so many layer removed from that cash balance that I've decided
not to track it at all in Money. I'll put in some estimate of its monthly
payout in Lifetime Planner and check the statements--maybe even create a
spreadsheet in Excel to cross check with the company's "Pension Estimator"
tool. But after I read the details I quickly decided that setting it up as a
Money account was just a whole lot more trouble than it would ever be worth.

Caveat #2: answers re. setting up recurring transactions assume you are
using M04 or less or M05/6 with Advanced Bills or M07 Deluxe or above with
Advanced Bills and not MEss (Money Essential).

"April" <noreply[at]mail.com> wrote in message
news:eMx$yp0zHHA.4928[at]TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I have 2 pensions which are: The first one which is non-contributory so I
just want to track the increase in value every 6 months when receiving the
statement. The second pension is the one I contribute monthly - for this
one I would like to track the payments when they send me a statement every
month.

Please can you advise the best account to setup these Pensions plans, and
also track the recurring transactions.

When I mentioned "Total Account Balance", I was refering to the value at the
bottom right corner under "Account List".

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:%236ZNkeIzHHA.2484[at]TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I'm not sure Investment Account is the best bet for a pension, but there are
infinite varieties of pension accounts, so maybe it is appropriate for your
case. Are we talking a 401(k)/403(b) type of account? A defined contribution
account of some other flavor?

What's the difference you want to see between "Account Value" and "Total
Account Balance"? Future Value as a pension? Probably no way to get there
from here since your plan's formula for conversion to annuity, et., can't be
taught to Money.

Yes, you could track monthly contributions via some account register and
some recurring transaction setup in Bills & Deposits. Exactly what kinds
depends 110% on the nature of your plan and contributions.

I wish I could give you narrower answers.

"April" <noreply[at]mail.com> wrote in message
news:eBc3ENHzHHA.4184[at]TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Hi

I'm trying to setup a Pension Account and find this quite confusing. I hope
that you can assist me.

I want to track the "Account Value" but do not want this to be reflected in
the "Total Account Balance". Is this possible?
I would just like to track the monthly contributions - is this done via
"Bills and Desposits"?

Thank you