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Move an IRA from one broker to another

WSC

I am moving my IRA from one brokerage house to another. I want to keep my stock history for the IRA, as I've had some of these stocks for many years. What’s the best way to do that? I'm assuming it would be to create a new IRA account
in Quicken and transfer each stock from the old IRA account to the new
one. Will my stock history go forward
with the new account?

Is there anything else i need to be aware of?

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q_lurker

Two possibilities
1) (My preference when possible) -- Rather than create a new account, I would prefer to keep using the same account. This is possible and reasonable if all the securities are being passed to the new trustee (brokerage) such that there is not a (significant) time when both accounts exist and both have some number of securities.

To make this happen in Quicken, the basics are

to stop downloading from 'old brokerage' especially not downloading or accepting any Remove Share transactions.
Deactivate the account in Quicken from the download process (Edit Account Details / Online Services
Change the Financial Institution
Enable the online access to the new brokerage.

As you begin with that new brokerage, if they start you off with several Add Share transactions, you will not need to accept those (delete them) as those shares are already in the account.

You may want to enter a "Reminder" transaction indicating you switched from A to B on that date.

That approach does the cleanest job of showing the maintained history in one place.

2) As you suggest, it is possible to create a new account and move (transfer) shares from one account to another. I would go this route if I wanted to start cleaner with a new, smaller account or if the transition from one to the other was going to take place over a longer period of time. You've got the basics on that process. In Quicken, you enter a Shares Transferred between Accounts for the applicable (or all) securities before you accept the comparable transactions from a brokerage download. When the 'transfer' transactions do come in from the brokerage downloads, you will not accept them because you already have better information in place.

That process will transfer each holding, lot by lot from old to new. Each transferred lot will carry forward with its original acquisition date and original cost basis. Any report on performance will need to include both accounts if crossing the transfer date.

HTH

Clayton200

q.lurker has the right idea with the #1 offer. I moved from Merrill Lynch to Morgan Stanley six years ago and that was how I did it. Maybe I just got lucky, but with a two day interim, I connected to Morgan and it was like I'd been there all along. Saved all my holdings and transaction history.

Good Luck WSC ...

Vetta

I also agree with idea #1. In addition to the Reminder transaction you may want to add a note to the account details about this.

WSC

When I tried to set up the new brokerage, I used the same Account Name which gives me an error that "Name is already in use." It shouldn't be since I deactivated the old one, so I'm assuming it went away. If I change the name, the next screen wants my statement date and cash balance. The requisite cash is already there. Do I just enter "0"? It's not going to remove the cash I have in the account now will it?

WSC

Oh, and this brokerage house just allows a file download which I manually execute to place the transactions into Quicken, so I'm not sure how much information I need to put in here. Make sense?

q_lurker

Deactivating the account only deals with Quicken connecting online with the brokerage. Deactivation breaks or stops the connection. Deactivation has nothing to do with removing the account from within Quicken. You could continue to manage that account with that name manually if you chose to. Bad assumption.

You seem to be headed down the path of creating a new account and transferring the holding from old to new rather than my Option 1 of continuing to use the existing account. On that path, Yes, I would enter the $0 for the starting cash and I would not enter any initial security holdings. But those selections are not because "the requisite cash is already there". The cash is not there yet - not in the account in Quicken.

Taking that option 2 path, you need to:

create a totally blank, empty, $0 account in Quicken. Since your old account is going to remain in Quicken with its history, the new account needs a new unique name.
transfer the securities from the old account to the new account (Shares Transferred,
Move, transfer, withdraw the cash from the old account to the new account,
THEN and ONLY THEN enable the online connectivity between this newly created account and your real-world new brokerage.
Accept or reject (delete) newly offered download transactions from the new brokerage as applicable.

Yes there are variations on that sequence, but that is what I would do (if number one option was rejected for some reason).

WSC

Hey Q.lurker: No, I'm not creating a new account. I'm following your idea # 1. I'm not transferring anything. When I change the name of my account to establish the on-line connection to get around that error message, I then get the prompt about the cash balance et. al. Make sense?

Sherlock

In idea #1, you do not need to change the name of the account. I suggest you open the register, press Ctrl + Shift + E, clear the old text that appears for the Financial Institution and Account Number on the General tab, select Set up now... in the Online Setup region on the Online Services tab and specify the new financial institution, etc.

WSC

Her Sherlock,

Yeah, I did that first. When I call my account the same name under the On-Line set-up is when I get the error message "Name used." If I use another name, I get the request to enter balance info. I can do that and step past it, but will that cause a problem? I'm hesitant to go to the next step....

q_lurker

I am not clear where you are in the On-line set-up. Is the program showing you the brokerage account number and asking you to associate that to your Quicken account? At that point, your options should be "Link", "Add", and "Ignore". You would want to "Link" the brokerage account to your existing Quicken account, not "Add" a new Quicken account.

WSC

Account Details:

I entered the financial institution name as it appears for
another account I have with the same firm, so I know that it’s the exact correct
description.

I entered the account number

I entered miscellaneous information on contact, etc.

On-Line services:

Click set up now

I name the account what I call it in Quicken and what it was
labeled when it connected to my former broker.

I get an error message “Name already in use.” (This shouldn’t happen.)

I change the name to make it unique and click next.

I get instructions to enter cash balance, statement ending
date, etc. I agree with you. I should get a “Link” option. I do not.

I'm reluctant to go further until I understand where I am.

I will add that at the bottom of the account transaction screen,
I do my brokerage firm listed and it’s correct contact phone number, so Quicken
has located that. I also see an option at the very bottom to “Download from web
site.”

q_lurker

What is the new brokerage you are trying to connect to?

I think I can now see where you are and where the problem prompt is coming in. I suspect the new brokerage is a web-connect rather than a direct-connect interface to Quicken and that is the issue.

It is starting to.

q_lurker

If this is so, then skip those steps about Online Setup from the Edit Security Details.

Go to File / File Import / Web Connect (QFX) File.
Point to the file you have downloaded from the new brokerage (a .QFX file) / Open
From there you should have a screen to either Add a new Account (not what you want), or to Link to an existing account (your proper selection).
Point to the right account, and click Import.

You should be good to go accepting or deleting downloaded transactions accordingly. You may also need to make sure securities and funds reported through your new brokerage are pointing to the right securities and funds in your Quicken file. The program will prompt you to match or add securities it does not find already matching.

Sorry about all the mis-direction.

WSC

The brokerage is Davenport & Company, LLC - new. I download a file manually from their website and open it for my existing account with them. The transactions appear in the section at the bottom just as if I did it electronically.

I will have to do the same thing with this new IRA account. I want to make sure that when I open the IRA transaction file from Davenport that the transactions ends up in the correct Quicken account.

q_lurker

The QFX file for the IRA should have references within the file that identify it as separate from the other account. When Quicken reads that account ID info, it will allow you to link those files the IRA account while the other QFX files get sent to the brokerage account.

Hope that is clear.

WSC

Will it compare the account # to determine which account to lay these transactions in? I'm not sure what you mean by "....it will allow you to link those files..." Now, it just executes and the transactions appear in the correct account. I am not offered any options and I don't think I ever was.

BTW: Davenport says that I will get two different files for the two accounts, so that helps.

My older Davenport account lists a "Customer ID" under the "General" tab for which there is no similar field on my IRA "General" tab, so I did something different to set it up which placed that field under "General", I would surmise. Under "On-Line Services," my older account says, "Davenport stock is set up for transaction download. Automatic entry is: Off." The institution is listed here, and the connection method is Web Connect, although I always download the file manually.

Does this help you?

WSC

"If this is so, then skip those steps about Online Setup from the Edit Security Details.

Go to File / File Import / Web Connect (QFX) File.
Point to the file you have downloaded from the new brokerage (a .QFX file) / Open
From
there you should have a screen to either Add a new Account (not what
you want), or to Link to an existing account (your proper selection).
Point to the right account, and click Import.

You
should be good to go accepting or deleting downloaded transactions
accordingly. You may also need to make sure securities and funds
reported through your new brokerage are pointing to the right securities
and funds in your Quicken file. The program will prompt you to match
or add securities it does not find already matching.

Sorry about all the mis-direction."

I don't know why I missed this post from you. So sorry. This may be enough, but I am curious as to what I did before...

q_lurker

The QFX files are simple text, so you can read them with any 'text editor' type of program. You can also see the information via Quicken through the Help Log files.

When you Import the file, Quicken will read the file, identify the Account information contained in the file (Brokerage and Acct numbers), and then make the association to an account in your Quicken file. If The program does not find an association already set up, it will prompt you for the association similar to what you just went through. If it finds the association already set up, it will send the new info to the right account.

As to the mis-direction, it was the difference between a direct-connect brokerage and the web-connect brokerage (Davenport), that sent me off the wrong way. With the direct-connect outfits, like Schwab, Scottrade, Vanguard, et al., the online setup through the Account Details works efficiently. But when you plug in a web-connect outfit along that path, Quicken takes you in an inappropriate path toward a new account. For those outfits, the direct File Import get you to the right spot.

HTH.

WSC

I will try this and see. Thanks so much. I'll let you know how it goes.

WSC

I followed your instructions and when i pulled in the file for the first time, the customer ID, etc. that were part of my other Davenport account were loaded into the Account Details tab. It now matches. I feel much better. Thanks so much for the great help.