Entering paycheck with 401k employer contribution

[Phil Frost]

On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 12:56:00PM -0800, spinsheet wrote:
> 
> I'm using GNUcash 2.2.9 and am trying to enter a paycheck with both an
> employee and employer 401k contribution and I'm not sure how to set it up.
> [...]
> 
> Once this is figured out, how do I then adjust for an 'change in account
> value' for the  Mutual Fund that are on my monthly statement? [...]

Create another income account for your company's 401k matching. You want
to keep them separate because they likely have different tax
consequences.

There are many ways to account for the investments you own, but I prefer
to track the number of shares of each security I own, rather than their
value. This section of the concept guide will show you the features you
can use:

http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_invest.html

If your 401k plan is like mine, you don't really know how many shares of
each security your contribution bought until you get the statement some
time later. I have an asset account for my 401k, and under it subacounts
for each security I've elected to purchase. When I enter the paycheck
transactions, I add USD to the top-level 401k account. When I receive
the statements, I enter a transaction that moves the USD from the
top-level account into the sub-accounts. If I haven't received any
paychecks since the closing date of the statement, that should bring the
balance of the top-level account to 0.