What does "YTD Contributed" mean?

YTD Contributed is the total amount of fresh money that's been deposited into the kid's account since January 1 of this year. It does NOT include investment growth, dividends, or transfers between accounts the kid already owned.

Why this number matters

It answers the question "how much did we actually put in this year?" That's different from how much the account grew (which is mostly about market performance).

A kid's account can be up $400 for the year even if YTD Contributed is only $200 — because the existing investments grew. The $400 total gain is contributions plus growth. The $200 YTD Contributed is just the contributions.

How we count contributions

A deposit is anything that came IN to the account from outside:

• A parent transferring cash into the UTMA from their checking account.
• A relative gifting money.
• A kid depositing earned income into their Roth IRA.

We don't count as contributions:

• Dividends paid by holdings inside the account.
• Stock splits or other corporate actions.
• Reinvested earnings.
• Movements between accounts the kid already owns.

Where this number comes from

For connected brokerages, contributions are pulled from your bank's transaction history. The reading is usually accurate to within a day or two, since some brokerages take 1-3 business days to settle deposits.

For manual accounts (entered in /dashboard/accounts), contributions are inferred from the running value changes you record. To be precise, log the deposit explicitly in the contribution field rather than letting the manual entry do the math.

YTD vs. Total Gain

• YTD Contributed = money in this year only.
• Total Gain = (current value) minus (everything ever contributed). This is gain since the account opened, not just this year.

People often confuse the two. A kid with a long-running UTMA might have a small YTD Contributed but a huge Total Gain — that's normal and good. The opposite (large YTD, small Total Gain) usually means the account is brand new.

Tax implications (parent surface only)

For a Roth IRA for Kids, YTD Contributed matters because the IRS has an annual limit (the lesser of the kid's earned income or the IRS cap). For UTMA accounts, there's no contribution limit but gifts above the annual exclusion may matter for the giver's gift-tax situation. For specifics, talk to a CPA.