|
Posted by TomYoung on March 16, 2008, 12:45 am
Please log in for more thread options
> Quicken provides all kinds of facilities for those people that invest
> directly in the share market.
>
> However my super and I imagine most others is managed by the fund. If
> there's shares to be invested in, the Fund makes those decisions based on
> your risk factor.
>
> Each month from my pay slip comes my superannuation deductions and by the
> time they make their way into the fund, the amount is taxed.
>
> I want to be able to show my payments into the fund less the taxes and make
> capital adjustments to match the statements I receive each month.
>
> From what I can see, the investments structure provided within Quicken don't
> allow for this very common situation.
>
> What's the best means of accounting within Quicken for super in this way ie
> what are others doing??
>
> Any help appreciated. Using Quicken Personal Plus 2008.
Despite all the wizards and things designed to shield you from the
notion of accounting, Quicken *is* an accounting program and you make
entries - one way or the other - into Asset, Liability, Revenue, and
Expense accounts (the last two items are considered "categories" in
Quicken-speak) as appropriate; the final result is pretty much what
any green-eyeshade accountant from the days of manual general ledgers
would recognize as "accounting." So, Quicken can account for your
superannuation deductions (retirement plan deductions over here) and
changes in the balance of your retirement account just fine because:
it's just accounting.
However, if you want explicit help in setting up this accounting
you'll need to provide some more details. For example, you say "by
the time they (the superannuation deduction) make their way into the
fund, the amount is taxed." Are you saying the income taxes deducted
from your paycheck are simply figured on your gross wages (x number of
hours times $y per hour) such that the superannuation deduction is
considered a coming from your after-tax income, OR, are the income
taxes deducted from your paycheck calculated on your gross less the
superannuation deduction, but the superannuation deduction somehow
gets taxed in a separate transaction before it ends up in the
retirement fund? Either way the accounting is the same but the
mechanics of making the entry(s) could differ.
In the same vein, knowing how the "fund" is setup and presented to you
in the statements you receive is relevant to how you make the entries
of fund activity. Is it simply a single mutual fund with all the
buying and selling of specific securities pretty much invisible to
you, or is the fund manager buying and selling specific securities
(transactions that you see in the statements you receive) based on
risk and other guidelines?
If I take what you say and generalize it into the *simplest* U.S.
equivalent, you're just making a paycheck contribution into a non-
deductible IRA and the money goes to buy a single mutual fund with the
fund value changing periodically based on the value of the securities
inside the fund. That's easy to account for in U.S. Quicken, so I
can't believe it isn't just as simple in Australia.
Tom Young
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap