You can automate most of the steps, but maybe not all of them.

The basic steps, assuming you already have 1) a 401k Investment Account and
an associated Cash Account setup in Money, 2) have already worked out
Investments for the 401k and how to value them, and 3) have a scheduled
paycheck transaction setup in Money:

1) Add a Transfer:[name of 401k Cash Account] split to the before and/or
after tax tabs of the scheduled paycheck in the amount of your contribution.

2) Depending on the plan, you should also recognize the employer deferred
income for their contribution and transfer it to the 401k cash account as
well. See http://umpmfaq.info/faqdb.php?q=14 for more on this step. You can
do this in the Paycheck (see the FAQ for caveats) or in separate
transactions.

3) Now that all of the contribution money has made it to the cash account,
you need to buy investments. This can also be a scheduled transaction, but
there are some caveats: a) if you are buying more that one investment with
each set of contributions, do not use a Scheduled Investment Purchase. Use a
Scheduled Bill. For each investment, in the splits of the Scheduled Bill,
enter "buy investment/cd" as the category. Money will not offer this in the
pull down, but will be glad to take it. Then Money will let you pick the
investment. Set the value equal to the fraction of your total investment in
this investment for this cycle. You create as many "buy investment/cd"
splits as there are ways you are investing the contributions. The final rub
is what share price to use--this depends on the plan and the investment and
how you are having Money do all this.

Whatever you do should be dictated by the way the plan works and when your
employer makes contributions and when the contributions all actually get
invested.

I know this is a lot to swallow. Handling 401ks and mortgage refis are two
of the most complicated things in Money. Both are complicated, in part, by
the huge range of different circumstances for individual users--in the case
of 401ks, the plans and investments and so forth vary for everybody--making
it hard to write one-size-fits-all answers.

Mess with it and come back with more specific questions and we'll take a
swing at those as well.

"Brian Flanagan" <briancflanagan[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:28c2bbb6.0404260727.670690b9[at]posting.google.com...
- quote -

Is there any way to setup Money 2004 so that when my paycheck gets
automaticly deposited, it will take a set amount of money and use that
value to update my 401k listing? In my case what I have is, a set
amount each paycheck that goes into a 401k that is setup in the
investing screens. I take that $ and split it up among 5 different
funds (10% to one, 20% to another etc) Because my 401k does not
support MS Money automaticly, I have to stay on top of it and update
my listings evey paycheck.. Is there a way I can automate this?


Thanks