Superannuation - what type of account

Posted by Andreas Boehmer on February 9, 2007, 8:45 pm

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Hi all,

I have recently started paying self-employed superannuation and want to
record it in Quickbooks. I am not quite sure though what kind of account I
should set this up as. Is it an Expense? Or an Equity?

Thanks for the help.

Posted by TomYoung on February 9, 2007, 10:11 pm

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> Hi all,

> I have recently started paying self-employed superannuation and want to

> record it in Quickbooks. I am not quite sure though what kind of account I

> should set this up as. Is it an Expense? Or an Equity?

>From a quick Google search of "self-employed superannuation" it looks

like this is a creature of Australian tax law. Maybe someone here can
answer your question but the group tends to be U.S.-centric and I
doubt if many here have any understanding of self-employed
superannuation.

If you can explain in reasonable detail how Australian self-employed
superannuation works I'm sure you can get some responses to your
question but you might be better off asking the question to a group
involved with Australian tax law.

If the self-employed superannuation concept is similar to a
traditional IRA in the U.S. - contributions to your IRA result in a
tax deduction for U.S. Income Tax purposes but the money remains as
your asset to be invested and grow until you retire - then I'd hope
the Australian version has the capability of handling these
contributions as part of its programming. In the case of an IRA
contribution one does a transfer (e.g., from a checking account to an
IRA (Asset) account) and Quicken "knows" what line this entry -
recorded as a deduction in computing taxable income - should appear on
in the tax return. From a mechanical accounting perspective (ignoring
taxes) the IRA contribution is nothing more than a transfer from one
asset account to another.

Tom Young

Posted by Andreas Boehmer on February 10, 2007, 2:22 am

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>> Hi all,

>> I have recently started paying self-employed superannuation and want to

>> record it in Quickbooks. I am not quite sure though what kind of account

>> I

>> should set this up as. Is it an Expense? Or an Equity?

>>From a quick Google search of "self-employed superannuation" it looks

> like this is a creature of Australian tax law. Maybe someone here can

> answer your question but the group tends to be U.S.-centric and I

> doubt if many here have any understanding of self-employed

> superannuation.

> If you can explain in reasonable detail how Australian self-employed

> superannuation works I'm sure you can get some responses to your

> question but you might be better off asking the question to a group

> involved with Australian tax law.

> If the self-employed superannuation concept is similar to a

> traditional IRA in the U.S. - contributions to your IRA result in a

> tax deduction for U.S. Income Tax purposes but the money remains as

> your asset to be invested and grow until you retire - then I'd hope

> the Australian version has the capability of handling these

> contributions as part of its programming. In the case of an IRA

> contribution one does a transfer (e.g., from a checking account to an

> IRA (Asset) account) and Quicken "knows" what line this entry -

> recorded as a deduction in computing taxable income - should appear on

> in the tax return. From a mechanical accounting perspective (ignoring

> taxes) the IRA contribution is nothing more than a transfer from one

> asset account to another.

I understand. Yes, that sounds very similar to the Australian
superannuation. So the IRA is treated as an asset account. That gives me a
starting point. I will look further into it here in Australia.

Thanks for your help.

Andreas.

Posted by Rick on February 10, 2007, 6:55 pm

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>>> Hi all,

>>>

>>> I have recently started paying self-employed superannuation and want to

>>> record it in Quickbooks. I am not quite sure though what kind of account

>>> I

>>> should set this up as. Is it an Expense? Or an Equity?

>>>

>>>From a quick Google search of "self-employed superannuation" it looks

>> like this is a creature of Australian tax law. Maybe someone here can

>> answer your question but the group tends to be U.S.-centric and I

>> doubt if many here have any understanding of self-employed

>> superannuation.

>> If you can explain in reasonable detail how Australian self-employed

>> superannuation works I'm sure you can get some responses to your

>> question but you might be better off asking the question to a group

>> involved with Australian tax law.

>> If the self-employed superannuation concept is similar to a

>> traditional IRA in the U.S. - contributions to your IRA result in a

>> tax deduction for U.S. Income Tax purposes but the money remains as

>> your asset to be invested and grow until you retire - then I'd hope

>> the Australian version has the capability of handling these

>> contributions as part of its programming. In the case of an IRA

>> contribution one does a transfer (e.g., from a checking account to an

>> IRA (Asset) account) and Quicken "knows" what line this entry -

>> recorded as a deduction in computing taxable income - should appear on

>> in the tax return. From a mechanical accounting perspective (ignoring

>> taxes) the IRA contribution is nothing more than a transfer from one

>> asset account to another.

> I understand. Yes, that sounds very similar to the Australian

> superannuation. So the IRA is treated as an asset account. That gives me a

> starting point. I will look further into it here in Australia.

> Thanks for your help.

> Andreas.

As I understand it it is like a 401K US style account. Apart form tax
treatment? In Aus most self employed funds are set up through financial
institutions and they take care of all the accouting and tax. Wht you
probably want to do is record your contributions, for tax purpose as these
will be deductible and track your asset values.
I don't have Quickbooks but in quicken personal plus it has a
"superannuation Accouint" for tracking this.

Posted by R. C. White on May 11, 2007, 9:37 am

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Hi, Andreas.

Sorry to pop in late on a 3-month-old thread, but if you are still dealing
with this problem in QuickBooks, you might want to try that OTHER Usenet
newsgroup:
alt.comp.software.financial.quickbooks

Most of us in this NG deal only with Quicken, not QuickBooks.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Vista Ultimate x64)

> Hi all,

> I have recently started paying self-employed superannuation and want to

> record it in Quickbooks. I am not quite sure though what kind of account I

> should set this up as. Is it an Expense? Or an Equity?

> Thanks for the help.