Understanding investment funds in 2018 vs 2007 on Mac

I'm trying to move from Quicken 2007 for Mac to Quicken 2018 for Mac, and having problems understanding the new paradigm. 

With 2007, I had an memorized transaction for my paycheck. One component of the split was a transfer to two different mutual funds (with T. Rowe Price).

So, in Checking, there is a transaction with category [TRP Mutual], and value $150.
In the fund register, the transfer is a BUY, with a Transfer of [Checking], Cash Out of $150, Share Price based on the last download, and Shares In of $150/(Share Price). The last two were always incorrect, so once or twice a year I'd go through and correct the actual Share Price and number of Shares.

In 2018, for dates before 5/2017, each of those investments are showing up as two separate BUYS:
  1. Description: 150 shares @ 1.00, Transfer: Checking, Amount: -150, no Cash Out, no Cash In, an amount of -150, and a balance of 0.00 
  2. Description: the actual number of shares @ the actual price (e.g. 5.585@26.855864), Match Status: Downloaded, Share Balance: increased by actual number of shares, no Cash Out, no Cash In, an amount of -150, and a balance of 0.00. 
After 5/2017, the result  is still two transactions, but they show:
  1.  Match Status: Downloaded, Descripton: 5.5638@ 26.959991  with amount of -150.00, no change in Balance, no Cash In or Out, Share Balance: increased by 5.5638
  2.  Description: 5.563798 @ 26.960001 with amount of -150, Transfer: Checking, Share Balance: increased by 5.563798, Cash Out: 150.00, Balance: reduced by 150.00. 
The price and share numbers vary a little, but the two transactions with the same date vary like shown above.


My questions:
What's going on here?
How is it supposed to work for recording a purchase, using dollars in a different account?
What decides whether or not the Balance changes from a transaction?
Why is the Transfer column hidden by default? Is there really no way to create or change the transfer value from the register? Is the transfer transaction actually linked?

Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown Member
    edited March 2018
    Ah, and since I did the conversion, new paychecks result in a single entry. The one I did today looks like old times, but the one from two weeks ago have 150 Cash Out. It all seems very random.
  • Concordman
    Concordman Mac Beta Beta
    edited August 2018
    While not having experience with Q2007, others here have extensive experience & can best reply on the transition to QM18. Transfers to my knowledge cannot be brought over from Q2007; there may be some work arounds that hopefully others can offer.


    As far as moving forward make sure the transfer column is showing in the register if you desire having it in the register.
  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    edited March 2018

    While not having experience with Q2007, others here have extensive experience & can best reply on the transition to QM18. Transfers to my knowledge cannot be brought over from Q2007; there may be some work arounds that hopefully others can offer.


    As far as moving forward make sure the transfer column is showing in the register if you desire having it in the register.

    Transfers absolutely do come over from Quicken 2007.
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • Concordman
    Concordman Mac Beta Beta
    edited March 2018

    While not having experience with Q2007, others here have extensive experience & can best reply on the transition to QM18. Transfers to my knowledge cannot be brought over from Q2007; there may be some work arounds that hopefully others can offer.


    As far as moving forward make sure the transfer column is showing in the register if you desire having it in the register.

    So do splits come over from q2007.
  • smayer97
    smayer97 SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2018

    While not having experience with Q2007, others here have extensive experience & can best reply on the transition to QM18. Transfers to my knowledge cannot be brought over from Q2007; there may be some work arounds that hopefully others can offer.


    As far as moving forward make sure the transfer column is showing in the register if you desire having it in the register.

    Yes, they do too...

    Have Questions? Help Guide for Quicken for Mac
    FAQs: Quicken MacQuicken WindowsQuicken Mobile
    Add your VOTE to Quicken for Mac Product Ideas

    Object to Quicken's business model, using up 25% of your screen? Add your vote here:
    Quicken should eliminate the LARGE Ad space when a subscription expires

    (Now Archived, even with over 350 votes!)

    (Canadian user since '92, STILL using QM2007)

  • Unknown
    Unknown Member
    edited March 2018
    I was able to get the two big accounts with lots of this stuff at least adding to the right number of shares. And then I can adjust the cash balance to zero.

    But just to make sure I understand - If I create a "Sell" transaction in a mutual fund or other investment account, the money from the sell just goes "poof" and disappears. It's up to me to create it is some other place if I want to keep track. 

    But if I do a "Buy" from my checking account, I end up with a linked account. But the cash value of the investment account changes. 

    I'm struggling with the consistency of any of this.
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    edited March 2018
    Bryan said:

    I was able to get the two big accounts with lots of this stuff at least adding to the right number of shares. And then I can adjust the cash balance to zero.

    But just to make sure I understand - If I create a "Sell" transaction in a mutual fund or other investment account, the money from the sell just goes "poof" and disappears. It's up to me to create it is some other place if I want to keep track. 

    But if I do a "Buy" from my checking account, I end up with a linked account. But the cash value of the investment account changes. 

    I'm struggling with the consistency of any of this.

    Bryan,

    Things do sometimes get messed up in the conversion from QM07 to QM18. It sounds like you have the registers cleaned up now from a historical perspective, so probably best to leave well enough alone there.

    Going forward, for a Sell transaction in an investment account, the money does not "just go poof". You should see an increase in the cash balance in the account. If you need to show that the money got transferred to a checking account, then that needs to be a separate transaction of type Payment/Deposit that includes the transfer designation. It will end up looking something like this (in the brokerage account register):

    image

    Similarly, when you do a buy, you put the Buy transaction in the brokerage account and include a separate Payment/Deposit transaction to show the movement of the cash from checking to brokerage to cover the buy. Add a transaction to the above example, it would look like this:

    image

    Note that the cash balance in the brokerage account nets out to zero after each pair of transactions.

    In the checking account, the transactions look like this:

    image

    I hope that makes sense.

    BTW, rather than trying to describe your register verbally, a screenshot is worth a thousand words. Here's some instructions on how to do that:

    FAQ: Posting a Screenshot
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • Unknown
    Unknown Member
    edited March 2018
    Bryan said:

    I was able to get the two big accounts with lots of this stuff at least adding to the right number of shares. And then I can adjust the cash balance to zero.

    But just to make sure I understand - If I create a "Sell" transaction in a mutual fund or other investment account, the money from the sell just goes "poof" and disappears. It's up to me to create it is some other place if I want to keep track. 

    But if I do a "Buy" from my checking account, I end up with a linked account. But the cash value of the investment account changes. 

    I'm struggling with the consistency of any of this.

    Thanks! That does help. So the expected way of doing any buy or sell takes two separate entries, by design. I'm assuming that where it works with a single entry (e.g. when I do a transfer from checking, and buy), while it works, may be a bit risky, and may give odd results.

    I'm used to the Transfer being in the Category, and I'm not having that as a choice. But I see that a transfer is actually something that happens in the description, using Transfer:[]. I've still got some paradigm issues to deal with. 

    On just a regular transfer between, say, a banking and checking account. It looks like you can put a category on a transfer. Why would that be useful? 
     
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    edited March 2018
    Bryan said:

    I was able to get the two big accounts with lots of this stuff at least adding to the right number of shares. And then I can adjust the cash balance to zero.

    But just to make sure I understand - If I create a "Sell" transaction in a mutual fund or other investment account, the money from the sell just goes "poof" and disappears. It's up to me to create it is some other place if I want to keep track. 

    But if I do a "Buy" from my checking account, I end up with a linked account. But the cash value of the investment account changes. 

    I'm struggling with the consistency of any of this.

    For a payment/deposit transaction in an investment account, the Description and Category fields are the same. You can turn on the Category field in the investment register to see this.

    You can use the Transfer:[] notation in the Category field, or use the separate Transfer field. Just be cautious because if you use the former and then change the category to other than "Transfer", the actual transfer may still exist in the (hidden) Transfer field.

    You cannot edit the Description, Transfer or Category fields in a Buy or Sell transaction, and therefore you cannot move the proceeds in or out of the account in the single transaction. You must use a separate payment/deposit transaction.

    Yes, you can use a separate category name along with a transfer in the Transfer column. In theory, that should allow you do category reporting on transactions that also have transfers. In practice, it is somewhat limited by the way reports are currently structured. There's quite a bit of lively debate on this topic elsewhere in the forum.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
This discussion has been closed.