Investment account and security setup - best practices

Katherine Jones

I have been using Quicken since 1993 and have tracked savings, checking, investments (mutual funds and CDs) in the tool.  Recently I updated from QW2009 to QW2017 and looked forward to stop recording investment transactions manually and leverage the ability to have Quicken login to my FI and grab recent transactions (One Step Update).

I now have troubles as the system has created some Placeholder records.  I realize that I don't quite understand certain concepts....

My FI is T Rowe Price (TRP). With TRP I have a single Investor Number.  Under that Investor Number I have a total of about 12 Retirement and Non-Retirement Accounts.  Each account has a unique account number with TRP and each account is for a particular TRP Fund (i.e., Science & Technology Fund or GNMA Fund or Health Sciences Fund).  I have multiple accounts with TRP for the same fund. For example, I may have an Account at TRP that is Non-Retirement+GNMA Fund, an Account at TRP that is a Roth IRA+GNMA Fund, and an Account at TRP that is a Rollover IRA+GNMA Fund. It is these series of accounts that are causing me angst.

In QW17 I have roughly 12 Accounts that are Investments and Account Type is Brokerage and Single Mutual Fund Account=Yes; The Tax Deferred value is set according to whether it's a Retirement account or a Non-Retirement Account. Each of these 12 Accounts in QW maps 1:1 with a particular TRP Account (each of which has a unique Account Number at TRP).

At this point, in QW, my Investment Account balances match the Account balances at the TRP site.  It's the Transactions/Placeholder things that are mess up.

I also have set up Securities in QW. My questions stem from wanting to download transactions from TRP and have them show up correctly in QW (One Step Update) and the relationships between Investment Accounts in QW vs. Securities in QW.  

In QW, when it comes to Transactions (whether made manually or via an automatic download), are Transactions (i.e, Reinvested LT Capital Gains or Reinvested Dividends, or a Buy of shares to add to an IRA) associated with an Account, or a Security, or both?

Within QW, I believe that each Security is unique according to it's Symbol (I.e., PRGMX for the TRP GNMA Fund). With this in mind, although I have 3 Accounts that I've named with the term TRP and GNMA in the name (one Non-Retirement, one Roth IRA and one IRA Rollover), there is a need for ONLY ONE Security for PRGMX.  Is this true????  Is it possible to map or relate 3 Accounts to 1 Security and have One Step Update work and not have these Placeholder things????

I realize this is somewhat complicated. If there are best practices or concepts white papers that I can be directed to, that would be appreciated too.

Unknown

Of course you can have different number of shares of a security (eg PRGMX) in several accounts.
When you downloaded your December Capital Gain distributions, if any, you should have found each account has its own reinvestment transactions.

Unknown

fanfare said:

Of course you can have different number of shares of a security (eg PRGMX) in several accounts.
When you downloaded your December Capital Gain distributions, if any, you should have found each account has its own reinvestment transactions.

If you have placeholders, it is recommended to get rid of them.

q_lurker

In QW, when it comes to Transactions (whether made manually or via an automatic download), are Transactions (i.e, Reinvested LT Capital Gains or Reinvested Dividends, or a Buy of shares to add to an IRA) associated with an Account, or a Security, or both?

Both.  The transaction is recorded to the account, but since a specific security is also involved that also applies.

TRP is (I believe) an FI that requires or expects a one-to-one relationship between account and security.  Thus if you have four funds in your IRA, you need four IRA accounts in Quicken to accept their downloads.  Repeat for spouses IRA, brokerage accounts, Roth IRAs, etc. and you will end up with a lot of accounts.  I consider that unfortunate and poor. It is not a policy mandated by Quicken and not all FIs operate that way.  

With that in mind, I would encourage you to name accounts distinct from the security held within the account.  For me it reinforces the fact that securities and accounts in Quicken are separate entities.  As an example, you can have an account "MyIRA-PRGMX" and in the security list the fund "TRP GNMA Fund" with ticker PRGMX.  

You will record the dividends in the account.  If you choose to look at the data for the security (TRP GNMA Fund), you will there see all the transactions involving that fund from all accounts (MyIRA-PRGMX, HisIRA-PRGMX, HerRoth-PRGMX).

(For the record, my preference is to have each applicable Quicken account hold several funds.  "MyIRA" accounts holds 5-6 different funds.  "SpousesIRA" holds some of those funds and some other funds.  "Investments" is an account at a brokerage that may hold stocks, bonds, and funds.  But the FIs involved support that model.)

Within QW, I believe that each Security is unique according to it's Symbol (I.e., PRGMX for the TRP GNMA Fund).  With this in mind, although I have 3 Accounts that I've named with the term TRP and GNMA in the name (one Non-Retirement, one Roth IRA and one IRA Rollover), there is a need for ONLY ONE Security for PRGMX.  Is this true????  

It is possible to have multiple securities share the same ticker, but I would say it is definitely not preferred, and it may well cause some issues downloading from an FI.  Your direct question is definitely true.  

Is it possible to map or relate 3 Accounts to 1 Security and have One Step Update work and not have these Placeholder things????

You are mapping one TRP account (and fund) to one Quicken account.  As it happens, because of TRP requirements, each only involves one fund.  

Now in reality, "best practices" becomes an individual choice within constraints from Quicken and from FIs.  While I do have my preferences, I recognize those may not apply to all other users.  

Now you also touched on placeholders.  As fanfare commented, getting rid of them is a good idea.  Placeholders get proposed by Quicken when the program detects a difference in shares in a specific account between the program's share count and the FI's share count.  They may be created automatically when downloaded information is first associated to a Quicken account.   Those can be deleted as you identify the real history of those holdings.

Other placeholders may be offered at various times for a variety of reasons.  In my opinion, the user is always better off to identify why the program has identified this discrepancy, and then proceed forward knowledgeably.  Maybe the FI is jumping ahead.  Maybe you have jumped ahead.  Maybe you have accidentally deleted a transaction.  Maybe some spinoff or merger has taken place and is not yet fully accounted for.  IMO, there is always a reason for the discrepancy and I will always find a better path to take that to rely on a placeholder.  

I appreciate your taking the time to reasonably explain your circumstances and ask you questions with context.  Hope this helps.

Jim_Harman

My experience with downloads from T Rowe Price, for 401k accounts at least, is that one user ID/Password can access multiple TRP accounts and each account can hold multiple securities. You set it up with one Quicken account per TRP account. A particular fund can be held in more than one account.

Everything downloads OK, except that I see an occasional round-off error in the number of shares reinvested. These must be fixed manually to avoid annoying placeholder transactions for .0012 shares or whatever. 

I do not see the "one fund per account" limitation that q.lurker mentions. 

Downloads from TRP's "Tradelink" self directed brokerage accounts are a little dicey however. The TradeLink account is treated as part of the corresponding 401k account. Buy, Sell, and Reinvest transactions are not downloaded, but the TradeLink share balances *are* included in the 401k account's shares. Thus you must enter these transactions manually. If you have done everything correctly, there are no errors when you do a Reconcile Shares for the account.

q_lurker

Jim Harman said:

My experience with downloads from T Rowe Price, for 401k accounts at least, is that one user ID/Password can access multiple TRP accounts and each account can hold multiple securities. You set it up with one Quicken account per TRP account. A particular fund can be held in more than one account.

Everything downloads OK, except that I see an occasional round-off error in the number of shares reinvested. These must be fixed manually to avoid annoying placeholder transactions for .0012 shares or whatever. 

I do not see the "one fund per account" limitation that q.lurker mentions. 

Downloads from TRP's "Tradelink" self directed brokerage accounts are a little dicey however. The TradeLink account is treated as part of the corresponding 401k account. Buy, Sell, and Reinvest transactions are not downloaded, but the TradeLink share balances *are* included in the 401k account's shares. Thus you must enter these transactions manually. If you have done everything correctly, there are no errors when you do a Reconcile Shares for the account.

If TRP downloads allow multiple funds per account, that would fit my best practice definition. Thanks for the valuable information, Jim.

Ronald Carlson

To Delete Placeholders - Click Reports Tab - Next Box Click Banking - Next Box Click Transaction - Select date range , select accounts , place holder s will show and can be deleted. I am active day trader and get 3 or 4 place holders daily for cash account balance in each of my 4 accounts - I then enter cash movement manually , brokerage and quicken never agree on cash balance because some is cash and some is in money market funds that pay interest. just delete all placeholders

Katherine Jones

Jim Harman said:

My experience with downloads from T Rowe Price, for 401k accounts at least, is that one user ID/Password can access multiple TRP accounts and each account can hold multiple securities. You set it up with one Quicken account per TRP account. A particular fund can be held in more than one account.

Everything downloads OK, except that I see an occasional round-off error in the number of shares reinvested. These must be fixed manually to avoid annoying placeholder transactions for .0012 shares or whatever. 

I do not see the "one fund per account" limitation that q.lurker mentions. 

Downloads from TRP's "Tradelink" self directed brokerage accounts are a little dicey however. The TradeLink account is treated as part of the corresponding 401k account. Buy, Sell, and Reinvest transactions are not downloaded, but the TradeLink share balances *are* included in the 401k account's shares. Thus you must enter these transactions manually. If you have done everything correctly, there are no errors when you do a Reconcile Shares for the account.

For others' knowledge, I want to confirm your statement "My experience with downloads from T Rowe Price, for 401k accounts at least, is that one user ID/Password can access multiple TRP accounts and each account can hold multiple securities. You set it up with one Quicken account per TRP account. A particular fund can be held in more than one account. ".  

I find this to be true, but also want to note that it is also possible to set this up in QW with two logins (one for each Investor Number - i.e., 'his' accounts and one for 'hers').