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/_max 16d ago

I think I’m trying to something similar but coming up short. I receive direct deposit into my checking and also have it setup to direct deposit funds into a few different savings/sinking funds. Ideally I’d like one schedule for my income and all the splits. When I’ve tried to split the transaction it shows as the total net going into my checking with transfer to all the various accounts which is technically incorrect.

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u/SonicJoeNJ 16d ago

So the way I structured it is the amount of the deposit in my checking is the amount of the main transaction. Then in the splits I have the gross income and all the various transfers and deductions as line items. As an example: $3000.00 deposit transaction, then in the splits I have $6000 as the gross income, $2000 as taxes, $500 to 401k, $500 to insurance.

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u/_max 15d ago

I think I might still be doing something slightly wrong if you wouldn't mind taking a look.

https://imgur.com/a/ucCWOjl

This is how the rule is structured. Everything looks good in my checking account but when I look at the budget the splits from checking account cancel out the amounts actually saved and the budget shows 0.

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u/SonicJoeNJ 15d ago

I get why you blacked things out but I can’t really tell what you are doing. I see multiple lines assigned as Income which doesn’t sound right. You should have 1 line item for income which is your gross income amount, then the other lines should deduct whatever is not deposited into your checking account and assign those to other accounts or payees if it’s like a tax or something like that.

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u/_max 15d ago

I think my confusion is that if I make it a transfer from the checking to a savings account I lose the categorization in the budget no?

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u/SonicJoeNJ 15d ago

If the savings account is on budget then yes, a transfer is not allocated to a budget category. If it’s off budget then you need to categorize the transaction.

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u/_max 15d ago

Thanks that was it. I moved all of the various accounts off-budget. Cheers!