Add ability to create scheduled Investment transactions (Q Mac)

Tom Bonner

This is a feature that seems to be available in Quicken Windows. Especially for those in retirement it would be very helpful in anticipating income. The simplest implementation for the user would be to enable "Schedule selected transaction" for investment transactions. It would be nice if it showed up in the income summary under "bills and Income" but I would be happy to just be able to schedule dividends and see the anticipated income in the investment account transactions window. This has been discussed in previous posts: https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/scheduling-dividend-transactions and https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/schedule-dividend-transactions-in-qm18?topic-rep...

Tom Bonner

Main problem is that one has to create a lot of new payees duplicating the securities list and then after posting edit the the transaction type to the correct investment transaction type. It would be so much easier using "schedule selected transaction" function.

Larry G Krause

I find that cash management well into the future is so much easier with scheduled transactions. However, scheduled loan payments and investment activity are not handled properly in Quicken MAC.

I entered my entire amortization table as future transactions since Quicken and my bank disagree a bit on the interest amounts from time to time. As a result, Quicken thinks most of those future transactions already happened! I should have 29 payments to go, but Quicken says 3.

I draw my retirement income mostly from monthly CD ladder maturities. I tried entering these as future sell transactions to keep track of the future cash balance. And again, Quicken thinks those transactions have already occurred and includes neither the value of currently unsold CDs nor their maturation cash in my net worth.

Quicken Anja

Hello All,

The Community Support team regularly reviews long-standing posts and Ideas for relevancy and current interest. This Idea seems to have stalled and we would like to gauge the current interest in this request. 

If you would like to see this idea implemented, please add your vote and a comment explaining how this idea would be beneficial for you. More information, including steps to vote and how to submit your own Ideas for future product features/improvements, is also available here.

Thank you,

Quicken Community Support Team

smayer97

I use this all the time in QM2007... VERY MUCH needed.

ScottS

I totally support this change to allow one to pre-schedule things like security sells to support RMDs. At my age I have to take RMDs, so have a number of transactions every month in investment accounts. Fund payment to IRS and me from the cash balance can be scheduled, but sale of securities to support those withdrawals cannot.

Lakegal

This is a much needed feature for the reasons stated above. I could not figure out how to "vote" for this.

garysmith87

I'm curious.  How could you schedule an actual investment transaction (Buy, Sell or Reinv)?

The reason I ask is because these actions are dependent upon the actual share price the day of the transaction...and not something you could predict into the future.

As to Payment/Deposit investment transactions, I have scheduled transactions for those.  I initiate them through my checking account and have the transfer linked to the investment account.  Then I manually create the Buy or Sell transaction in the investment register, use the cash balance that's there and thus "zero" out the transaction.

But if you have actual securities holding your investment that change on a daily basis, there is NO way you'd know how many shares to buy or sell.  Sometimes I don't get the trade details for even a few days after the actual transaction. 

So, setting up a scheduled transaction for those would be futile.  

jacobs

garysmith87 said:

I'm curious.  How could you schedule an actual investment transaction (Buy, Sell or Reinv)?

I don't see how it could work for a reinvestment, for the reasons you cite. But a scheduled sell or buy seems plausible. If I can set them up with my brokerage, why shouldn't I be able to set them up with Quicken?

For instance, let's say someone has an IRA and plans to take a $40,000 Required Minimum Distribution in four quarterly transactions of $10,000 apiece. With my brokerage, I could schedule the sales of $10,000 of a security on the first day of each quarter, with the proceeds transferred to my bank account. In Quicken, if one could schedule a all transaction, you'd enter the sale amount and the date schedule, and Quicken would create the transaction. For mutual funds, it could happen after each appointed day, in order for Quicken to obtain the price for that day. But for ETFs and individual securities, that wouldn't work, because even armed with the closing price, Quicken wouldn't know the actual sale price or number of shares. So Quicken would likely need to create these transactions as placeholder-like transactions (perhaps using the prior day's closing price) , which would get replaced when the actual transaction is downloaded or when the user manually updates the number of shares. I would think Quicken might enter the transaction temporarily using the closing price or the prior day's closing price, and then when the transaction downloads from the financial institution, Quicken could update the transaction with the exact price and number of shares to match the financial institution. 

The same would work for a Buy transaction. I can set up with my brokerage to purchase $1,000 of a security on first day of each month. If Quicken allowed scheduled investment transactions, it would work the same as described above.

This is definitely not simple to implement, because of the need to capture the actual buy or sell price to finalize each transaction, but I can see why it would be useful, and perhaps a path to getting there. 

garysmith87

I didn't say it wouldn't be useful.  I said it's impossible to implement.

I, too, have scheduled retirement withdrawals (not RMD's because I'm not old enough, but still monthly retirement withdrawals nonetheless).

In Quicken Mac, I DO have scheduled transaction withdrawals, which are initiated from my checking account with transfers from the retirement account.

But that just gives me a negative cash balance in the retirement account...because I need to sell some shares to account for the actual cash.

And because the number of shares is dependent on the price per share, there is NO way anyone can schedule a BUY or SELL (or even a REINV DIV) transaction type.  

Now, if a BUY or SELL is based on a fixed security price (I have some that are just cash balances and thus I have set to a share price of $1 per share), then you could schedule that BUY or SELL if that feature for scheduled transactions was available.

And...you say Quicken Mac can't "schedule" a purchase of $1,000 of a security the first of the month...well, it can get the cash into the account via a scheduled transactions, but how could it actually make the BUY transaction of a security or harder yet more than one security?

Personally, I don't like the idea of placeholder transactions entered into the register.  They would be akin to pending transactions...and are unrealistic trades until you actually go back and put in the actual number of shares and share price...or somehow have Quicken do that for you.  Which, in my opinion, would be a huge undertaking for Quicken to even try to implement.  

Now, this MIGHT work if you can download transactions...as sells and buys will then be downloaded into the register. I know Vanguard and Fidelity will download shares sold...so there really is no need for scheduled SELL transactions.  Not sure about the other major brokerage firms that download transactions into Quicken.  

But to be honest, almost all my retirement investments are non-traditional securities that not only can't download security prices and require me to manually enter that data...but also don't even connect with Quicken which requires manual entry for any transaction type.  So, in those accounts, scheduled investment type transactions would never work for me as the number of shares sold and their share per price varies each and every month.  

Here's an example of the withdrawal from one of my retirement accounts with the corresponding transfer "in" that is a scheduled transaction in my checking account register.  Now, all I have to do is transact the proper SELLs in that retirement account to account for the cash.  If this would have been Vanguard or Fidelity, the SELLs would be downloaded after the transaction occurs.  In my case, I have to manually initiate those transactions.  But it's only once a month, so it's not that much of a burden.  

jacobs

garysmith87 said:

And because the number of shares is dependent on the price per share, there is NO way anyone can schedule a BUY or SELL (or even a REINV DIV) transaction type.  

All I was suggesting was that the scheduled transaction could be a scheduled dollar amount to buy or sell, or  a scheduled share amount to buy or sell. The other value (price or shares) would have to wait until the transaction is changed from scheduled to be "paid/deposited", at which time the missing price or share amount would be downloaded from the FI or manually entered by the user.

garysmith87

And I'm suggesting while well intentioned, that would be next to an impossibility for ANY personal finance software to implement.  

One of the superusers is prone to using the "crystal ball" image in this forum to denote missing information.  In this case, Quicken would need a crystal ball to somehow predict those sold or bought shares and their accompanying price per share.  

The dollar amount IS available to be in a scheduled transaction.  I showed you how that occurs in my screenshot.  But it will still be up to the user to account for that dollar amount by a BUY or SELL transaction...which cannot be scheduled due to the variables involved.  So, on December 1, 2021 I'll have the withdrawal from the retirement account and I'll have the correct value of the account...but what I won't have is the actual SELL transactions for a couple of days.  

If I have to "wait" for the FI to download the shares and price per share, why would I even want to have that info in my register if it's actually just plain wrong?

And can you imagine the disparity in a scheduled transaction SELL you set up the first of the year, from Jan 1 to Dec 1 with the crazy way the market moves?  That wouldn't be even close to accurate...not even a bad guess.  Just look back at your withdrawals from that time period and compare how many shares were sold and their price then compared to tomorrow's withdrawal. 

I'd rather have no information rather than have bad information.   

jacobs

I'm not saying it's a great idea, but I believe it could be doable. It might be useful for people to see as a remind of upcoming activity in their account(s).

garysmith87 said:

The dollar amount IS available to be in a scheduled transaction.  I showed you how that occurs in my screenshot.  But it will still be up to the user to account for that dollar amount by a BUY or SELL transaction

Your screen shot shows a banking transaction with a transfer. I'm talking about the potential ability to schedule an actual Buy or Sell transaction. The scheduled transaction would be incomplete, because it could specify either the dollar amount or a share amount, but not both. If it was for a set dollar amount, it might help users insure that they schedule something else to pout the money in place or take it away as needed. If it was for a set share amount, it could not reflect in the register cash total, since the cash amount would be unknown. 

If people are looking for such scheduled buy or sell transactions to be reflected in Quicken in the future net worth, I agree with you that would be impossible because the price on a future date is unknown. 

But if people want the transaction in place so they could simply mark it "Deposited" -- just as we do today with bank transactions -- why not? Just as with bank transactions, it would serve as a reminder, and then would save the time of manually entering the transaction. The difference would be that when you mark it "Deposited", Quicken would prompt you for the missing value (transaction amount or number of shares) needed to complete entering a real Buy or Sell transaction. For those who download transactions, this step could perhaps be automated by Quicken matching the downloaded transaction to the scheduled transaction. 

garysmith87

Excuse me, but isn't the point of Scheduled Transactions to be able to predict cash flow and balances in the future?  Especially in Quicken Mac, where registers have the ability to show future scheduled transactions within the register?

So...what would the point be of having a scheduled transaction that ISN'T a future date?  

Once again...you don't need a scheduled transaction if all you're going to get is the dollar amount.  The actual scheduled transaction recorded in the checking account I showed already shows you that dollar amount.  It's the cash balance in the investment account as a result of the transfer.  

Here is the investment/retirement account register.  Notice the 11/1/2021 transfer amount.  Then notice the three SELL transactions I needed for the cash proceeds for the withdrawal.

Now notice the 12/1/2021 Scheduled Transaction transfer.  It appears as a negative cash balance in the account.  

So...now tell me how you can't track the outstanding amount?  The amount is there.  If I wanted to show 90 days worth of Scheduled Transactions, there would be register entries for 12/1/2021, 1/1/2022 and 2/1/2022.  The SELLS will eventually equal the cash balance required, so that you "get back to zero".  But the amount is still $2861.11 less in the retirement account and $2861.11 more in my checking account.  




I understand your point of view.  And having Quicken "fill in the numbers" would be a nice feature.  But I personally think it's an impossibility because it adds in all sorts of untold variables that Quicken just isn't prepared to handle or can actually handle.  And I don't see ANY personal finance software that can accommodate that.

And for that reason, I think it's an unreasonable request to ask from the Quicken programmers.  

[Deleted User]

It would be great to have scheduled investment transactions. For example, an automatic monthly mutual fund purchase.

UKR

And where, might I ask, should Quicken pull all the correct information from that only the brokerage could know? Purchase price, number of shares, commission?

Downloading and accepting executed Buy transactions from the brokerage would cover what you are asking for ... but it might not be 100% automagic. But the process already exists.

[Deleted User]

Quicken could just download the correct info when it pulls in the transaction later.

[Deleted User]

@dot.how - There is already a way to schedule Dividend and Interest transactions through "Bills & Income".  When the selected account is an investment account, Quicken then allows you to choose the appropriate security and create a recurring investment transaction.  I have dividends and interest for all of my investment accounts set up as recurring transactions, and it works very well.  The recurring transactions post first in Quicken and then get matched when the actual transaction downloads from the financial institution, and the buys are posted at the same time.  IMO, the buys and sells don't need to be scheduled, just the cash transaction that creates the buy or sell.

[Deleted User]

I'm on Q-Mac.

And I hear you @Damian, I'm just making a software suggestion. I would like to set up scheduled **investment** transactions for regular purchases which would be matched during download.

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @dot.how,
 
Thank you for reaching out to the Community with your request.

I went ahead and merged your Idea to this active Idea thread regarding this topic.

Ideas are reviewed by our Development and Product teams to see what features people would like to have available in the future. Please, be sure to add your own vote as well by clicking the up arrow (see example below).

Thank you!

[Deleted User]

@dot.how  - sorry I did not notice that you were on QMac.

Chuck_H

Being able to schedule investment buy/sell transactions would be a huge time saver for me. My wife contributes to her employers 401(k) account every two weeks. Each bi-weekly contribution is six separate investment BUY transactions of the same six equities with the same dollar amounts each pay period. The only difference between pay periods is the number of shares purchased due to the price per share changing. Unfortunately, her 401(k) plan does not offer a Quicken download, so manual entry is the only option.

Unknown

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Gorpus

I don't care if the dollar or share amounts are correct. What I want is that my transaction register have entries on the anticipated dates of (for example) dividend distributions. That will remind me to look for the transactions when they are expected to occur. I don't care if they are prefilled with zeros. I'll edit them.

This feature would b trivial for Quicken to add to the existing functionality.

Gorpus

People don't seem to understand what is being requested. I'm not asking for an automatic download of the transaction details, only a placeholder (filled with zeros) in the transaction register so that I remember to look for the dividend (or other transaction) on the expected date.

I never use automatic transaction download/syncronization. I find that I catch more errors wht=en I use my own eyeballs to verfy transactions.

Shannon M M

Yes! This seems like something that programming could do faster an better than a user with multiple accounts containing several holdings. It would be a huge time-saver.