Reconciling splits and displaying pre-tax and post-tax items.

Asked by Staten

First I would like to thank Maxime DOYEN for this free piece of software that quite well done for what it is.

My question is I'm trying to figure out the best way to display what I am looking for. I used to use Quickbooks with the help of a bookkeeper when I had my own business, but now that I'm just managing my personal finances I'm trying to figure out how to use this software to the best of my advantage. I want to be able to take the information I put in and create something like similar to a Profit & Loss for my tax accountant as that is what I'm familiar with.

So I receive a paystub and the net pay hits my bank account which is what I imported into Homebank, however that amount has several things withheld from the gross like long-term disability which is considered post-tax and short-term disability which is pre-tax as well as 401 (k) which is post tax and Roth 401 (k) which is pre-tax as well as Health Savings Account (HSA). So I see I could click on the Net Pay balance in my bank account and add those things in, but from what I am able to understand about this software so-far is that if I want pre- and post-tax taken into account I'd need something like a [-] category 1/2 that reads "Insurance Pre-tax: Short-term disability" and "Insurance Post-tax: Long-term disability," but the part that I'm a bit concerned about how it will reconcile later is the investment and HSA accounts as if I use a [+] category 1 as "Health Savings Account," but then have that number as a negative number will that not affect how it is displayed elsewhere.

Example:
Date|Memo|Category|Income
7/9/22 | External Deposit| -split-| $200
--> Split:
Gross Pay: $1000
HSA: -$100
401 (k): -$100
Roth 401 (k): -$200
Medical: -$200
Taxes: -$200

So in another account I'd have "Health Savings Account"
Date|Memo|Category|Income
7/9/22 | External Deposit| Income | $100

Is doing it this way going to create an issue? If so should I create an account called "Paystub" and not include [+] categories as part of the deduction (I'm thinking that will be a lot more tedious and difficult to parse out from my paystubs when verifying correct information).

And what is the best way to get a P&L like spreadsheet? I'm thinking it is to copy the data from Reports>Statistics into excel and then sort and export to PDF?

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Staten
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Staten (statenjm) said :
#1

So I ended up creating a new "bank"-type account adding all the taxes and investments that come from my account as well as gross and net pay. I transferred out the net pay and the investments to their other respective account types. I made two category types as well one for "pre-tax" and another for "post-tax". I believe that sets me up for having proper book keeping .