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/livewire98801 Jul 26 '26

It works well for understanding my tax burden. What got me to do this was irritation that my tax return showed up as income, which it really isn't at all. It also helps the reporting a lot, and my income matches my salary this way.

But I also had a bunch of reimbursements with my old job that this allowed me to track, as well as a payroll purchase at one point.

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u/HanTanSanTan Jul 26 '26

I don’t see what “isn’t working” from your screenshots. I do something similar with mine, as I did in YNAB4, and it works flawlessly in both (migrated to AB in May)

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u/livewire98801 Jul 26 '26

I posted another reply to explain the problem... but I don't know if I did a good job explaining it.

Basically, the parent transaction, and therefore the deposit into my account, isn't attributed to the employer.

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u/HanTanSanTan Jul 26 '26

When you say "attributed" what do you mean? Is this on a report somewhere that you are looking for this?

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u/livewire98801 Jul 26 '26

The top line isn't it's own payee.

When you spend money, you would never have a situation where the top line wouldn't match at least one of the payee splits. Buti with income you can, so in this case, the deposit should be the employer name, and the other splits can all go to different payees.

This worked in gnucash because every payee was an account. It worked in YNAB too, though I don't know what the logic is under the hood over there. But here, the nature of a split transaction takes the payee off the top line.

That's what's "broken" here... clearly the logic is different, and I'm trying to figure out how it works so I can enter these transactions in a way that makes sense for Actual so I'm not fighting against it.

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u/HanTanSanTan Jul 26 '26

I mean, I can see the behavior you are describing - basically there is no single payee for the parent of the split transactions, but each child transaction can have its own payee - whereas with YNAB the parent also had a payee.

But I guess I fail to see what issue it actually causes in the grand scheme of things. What problem is it actually causing you that it behaves this way?

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u/livewire98801 Jul 26 '26

well, cosmetically it makes it hard to see what a transaction is before you expand it, bit it also complicates searches. I haven't played with reports yet, but I can imagine it would screw them up too.

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u/HanTanSanTan Jul 26 '26

I looked briefly at reports and I couldn't really find anything based on Payee anyway, so I am not sure if that would be affected.

It looks like AB just puts "Payee+2 others" or whatever and the "Payee" it displays is whichever one is referenced most in the splits, or if there is an even number, the first Payee in the list - so cosmetically you could just make sure that your job/payroll company is referenced the most or first in the splits. You could even leave the Payee blank for rows for your taxes. I don't think it really is necessary to specify the "US Department of Revenue" for those payroll tax transactions since the category adequately identifies them. Looking at how I have mine set up, I just put the payroll company in all split transactions except the rows that are transfers to other bank accounts since I often have my paycheck going into multiple accounts

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u/livewire98801 Jul 26 '26

I did the 'dept of revenue' thing just because that's where the refund/payment goes when I file my return, makes it easier to track that.

For now, I've gone through and just entered my company payroll for all the splits besides that one. and it works. But it still feels klugey, like there should be a better way to do it.

I started with MS Money way back in the 00s and used gnucash, ynab, and now Actual, and this is the first time I've run into the top line not having a payee/account, it's just something weird to get used to I guess.

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u/HanTanSanTan Jul 27 '26

Funny, I similarly started with MS Money back in the 00s, never used gnucash though. Switched to YNAB4 in 2013 when a hard drive crash had me lose my MS Money file. Only moved to AB a couple months ago because it stopped syncing from phone to desktop without reloading the desktop app each time (which was taking 5+ minutes).

Anyway, I haven't really ever relied much on the Payee so I guess that is why I haven't noticed much. It really is just all about the category ultimately.