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Posted by TomYoung on February 20, 2007, 12:12 pm
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> > Keith wrote:
> > >> Ok, I do see how you do that. But that wasn't really the point. I
> > >> need a more efficient way of entering a paycheck rather than having
> > >> to manually type in each of the different parts of the paycheck. What
> > >> I'm trying to understand is how the granular information is
> > >> maintained inside Quicken. Which parts are meaningful and get
> > >> propagated to other parts of Quicken, such as tax planning, and which
> > >> parts are just collapsed into a subtotal somewhere. And once I
> > >> understand that, can these same entries be simulated by parsing the
> > >> paycheck into a QIF file and importing via QIF?
>
> > You'd probably waste a hellofa lot less time simply typing in each
> > different part of the paycheck!
> > --
> > Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
> > I went for a walk last night and my kids asked me how long I'd be gone.
> > I said, "The whole time."
>
> Well, this is the point. Imagine...base pay is the only number that
> stays put. Then, there's commission, ESPP, 401K, federal tax, state
> tax, etc. These numbers all change based on the total gross amount,
> which is affected by the commission. I can easily parse out the PDF
> file into a QIF file, if someone could just help me understand all the
> components that need to be in the QIF to be equivalent to what I get
> when I do a paycheck as a scheduled transaction.
>
> Does anyone know the answer to my question...where does Quicken put
> all the information that I enter in a paycheck scheduled transaction?
> I know that the net amount goes into my checking acount. It looks
> like the ESPP and 401K go to investments, and the taxes probably go in
> taxes. Can all of these things be reproduced by importing from QIF?
> Are there any surprises - does Quicken do anything with my paycheck
> that might not be obvious?
>
> I'm certain that once I know this information, it will be a 5-minute
> exercise to programatically parse my paycheck PDF file from ADP into a
> QIF file, if I can just be sure that I'm accounting for all the
> components of the paycheck.
At its heart, Quicken is a simple accounting program. That is, it
takes the dollars associated with a balanced entry (you've probably
heard the terms "double entry accounting" and "debits have to equal
credits") and puts these amounts into Accounts (assets and
liabilities) and Categories (income and expense). I'm 99.999% certain
- without having examined the code behind Quicken - that any sort of
information you pull out of Quicken - Planning, Tax, Reports, etc.,
etc. - looks at the numbers in the relevant Accounts and Categories.
That's certainly been my experience having dealt with dozens of
various accounting programs over the years.
A Scheduled Transaction looks to be similar to what an Accountant
would call a Standard Journal Entry. That is, you know that
periodically you'll be making a routine entry debiting and crediting
the same accounts/categories each time, though the dollar figures
probably will be different each time you make the entry. So, you have
a stack of your Standard Journal Entry all printed up, accounts and
categories all listed out, but with the dollar figures blank. When it
comes time to make the entry you grab one of your pre-printed sheets,
fill in the numbers, and then post the Journal to the General Ledger.
If you want to use a QIF file to input information into Quicken, this
QIF file eliminates the need to use the Scheduled Transaction at all.
That is, the QIF file "knows" what accounts/categories need to be
affected and "knows" the amounts of each entry. So, if you really
want to do this, find one of your paychecks that's most
"comprehensive" in terms of its entries. That is, find the paycheck
that affects the *most* accounts/categories, even the oddball, once-in-
a-blue-moon entry and use that to set up the QIF with your extraction
program filling in the amounts (even $0) from the PDF of your
paycheck.
>From experience, I know that these "extraction/coversion" things don't
always work very well and, frankly, it's easier and keeps you closer
to what's going on to simply memorize a paycheck and change the
numbers each time you get paid.
Tom Young
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