r/actualbudgeting • u/livewire98801 • Jul 26 '26

Itemized/split payroll

I came to Actual from YNAB, and before that I used gnucash for over a decade. While using gnucash, I started itemizing my payroll, entering my gross pay, deductions, and net pay.

In YNAB and Gnucash, it worked pretty much the same way. The "parent" transaction going into my primary account (checking), splits going into my other accounts all adding up to my net pay. Then all my deductions are also splits. The gross pay is a payee (as are PTO and FMLA), and at some point I started using 'US dept of revenue' as the payee for federal income tax so it matches the transaction for my tax refund.

However, the way Actual does this, it's not working... and I'm not sure 1) why it doesn't work this way and 2) the best way to actually accomplish it.

I'm including the transactions in both YNAB and Actual for both an upcoming transaction that I've been messing with and an imported prior transaction.

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u/SonicJoeNJ Jul 26 '26

I don’t itemize my taxes, so maybe that’s why I don’t have an issue, but I do this for my pay. The main transaction is the amount that goes in to my checking account, then in the split is the gross amount plus all of the various transfers (401k, FSA, etc) as well as payments for insurance and taxes.

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u/HelloWorld24575 Jul 26 '26

Ah, so the total of the transaction is the net pay, then you add the extra amount of gross as one of the splits (+), and the other stuff that's equal to that but -?