Advice on transferring assets between investment accounts

Ken264

Greetings Quicken users, 

Using Quicken 2017 H&B Windows R15.13. I'm dealing with two difficult situations: (1) My dear wife passed away recently. (2) Accounting and Quicken were much more in her bailiwick than they are in mine. 

In the real world (but not yet in Quicken), I've managed to transfer assets from various investment accounts that were in her name and SSN into mine. When I held a comparable account with the investor, the assets in her account were transferred into mine. When I did not hold a comparable account with the investor, a new account was created in my name and SSN, and the assets were transferred into my new account. 

So far, so good. But, now I'm not sure how to set up Quicken with the new and changed investments. I'm not crazy about simply deleting the old accounts in Quicken (now at zero balance in the real world), because I don't want to lose the accounts' histories. 

But, if I simply leave the old accounts in Quicken, so as to preserve history, and create the new accounts, my overall balance would be incorrectly inflated. 

Complicating matters, the old accounts have been de-activated with the investors, so I am not able to use Quicken's Update function to download both the from- and to-transactions. So, if I leave the old accounts in Quicken, any zeroing out that I do would have to be with manual transactions of some sort. 

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Apologies for the accounting-for-dummies level of my request. As I said, accounting and Quicken are not my strengths. 

Rick Gumpertz

Given that you would have a basis adjustment upon the death of your spouse, a TRANSFER between her account and yours is probably not appropriate.  I would suggest just add "Remove - Shares Removed" transactions to your wife's account to get the balance to 0.  If cash was transferred, you can add a "Miscellaneous Expense" transaction to your wife's old account.
You might also consider doing "Edit Account Details"  on your wife's old account, go to the "Display Options" tab, and check "Keep this account separate..."  followed by OK.  This will keep the account from being included in overall balances such as Net Worth.

Tom Young

"If cash was transferred, you can add a "Miscellaneous Expense" transaction to your wife's old account."

No, do a simple XOut transaction from the old Account to the New Account.  There's no adjustment to basis for cash.

"I would suggest just add "Remove - Shares Removed" transactions to your wife's account to get the balance to 0."

Followed by an ADD action in your receiving Account to get the basis for the incoming shares correctly stated.  You can use a Date Acquired of 1 year before the death of your wife and the shares will now be considered "long term" no matter how long you hold them before selling.

Unknown

Hi, Ken:

The correct way to represent what you have done in the real world in Quicken is as follows (assuming your wife's "old" account is already set up in Quicken):

1. Back up your Quicken data file.
2. Create a new account in Quicken to represent the "new" account at the brokerage firm you have set up in your name. You can do this by clicking the plus button at the top of the accounts list on the left side of the Quicken window. Don't link the account to your broker's online services yet, though.
3. Create a new transaction in your wife's "old" account of the type "Shares Transferred Between Accounts." In the dialog box. set the "Transaction Date" to the date that the shares appeared in your "new" account. Set the "Transfer account" to the new account you just created. Click the "All securities" radio button. Then click "Enter/Done". All of the holdings in the "old" account (together with their tax lots) have just been transferred into your "new" account. The balance in the "old" account should now be zero.
4. In the "new" account, you can now link to your broker's online service (if available) and synchronize. If you are lucky, the "shares added" transactions received from your broker will match to the transactions that were created in the "new" account when your transferred the holdings. It's more likely they won't match exactly, and you'll have to do some manual reconciliation. If so, don't accept the "broken" transactions from your broker into the register, delete them from the "Downloaded Transactions" pane, and create any transactions you need to reconcile manually.

Although this process is somewhat tedious, you'll only have to do it once, and it will preserve all the transaction history in the "old" account, while moving all the correct tax lot information into the "new" account. Once the holdings in the "new" Quicken account agree with your broker, you can use the One Step Update in Quicken to download future transactions.

Good luck,

Gib

NotACPA

First off, Ken, condolences on your loss.  My 1st wife died in 2011 ... so I had to go thru this myself.                                                                                                                                           
One issue that hasn't been specifically addressed above is Retirement accounts.  If any of her accounts were Retirement/tax-advantaged you can simply "Move Securities Between Accounts" to move them, in Q, into your counterpart accounts.  There's no tax consequences of this action.  And no "step up in basis", because of the tax-advantaged status.
SO, I combined my wife's IRA into mine, her SEP IRA into mine, her Rollover IRA into mine, etc.  The exception to this was her Roth account ... which was left separately as a "Beneficiary Distribution Account" ... I just changed the name on it.  In a BDA, you can withdraw all of the funds (or any portion) immediately and without tax consequences ... just as if she had reached full retirement age.
Also, follow Tom Young's advice, rather than Gibv's.  Gibv doesn't take the "step up in basis" into account ... which Tom does.

Ken264

Boy, I knew I didn't know much, but reading your very helpful replies, I didn't realize how much I didn't know. Thank you all so very much. 

Rick Gumpertz, I appreciate not only your Quicken advice, but also the spam notification. When I read Bills NC post, I didn't know it was spam, but I thought it lame. Who, when asked a rather specific question, says "Call me for an answer"? 

Rick and Tom Young, the light of understanding isn't awfully bright, but is flickering. Your suggestions make much sense. Thank you. 

Gibv, I couldn't have asked for a clearer procedure. Thank you for taking the time to lay it out so neatly. 

NotACPA, thank you for your condolences, and for pointing out this aspect of retirement accounts. What you did is exactly what I did with various flavors of our IRA accounts (SEP, Rollover, etc.).

I've been slow to catch on to the "Step up in basis" aspect of these transfers, but have managed to adjust the valuation date to the date of my wife's death on our non-retirement accounts. Although, Tom Young, I don't think I understand the pros and cons of setting the date to a year prior for "long term" benefit. 

Thank you all so much. I feel like I've got enough to go forward. <Insert gif of deeply grateful, bowing figure here.> I do have another question, but I don't want to dilute my gratitude for all your help by posting in this reply. I'll do so separately. 

Ken

Ken264

A related question, having to do with the original set of accounts in Quicken and the new set. While I have been keeping up to date in Quicken as far as paying bills, reconciling checking accounts, etc., the status of investments is not up to date.

As my wife's accounts were closed, naturally, this broke Quicken's update function for those accounts. Consequently, there will have been a period of a few months between the time of the last update and the time when I, with the help of your kind and generous suggestions above, accomplish the set up of new accounts in Quicken. Needless to say, the values of accounts have changed during these months. 

So, it won't be a simple matter of transferring equals from one account to another. Or, will it? Should I (A) Do the transfers in Quicken as though I had done them immediately, and let Quicken do its online Update to bring the new account setup to date? Or, (B), manually update the old account set up to bring these accounts up to date, and then do the transfers? Or, (C) other? 

Honestly, I may be over-thinking this, but from all I've learned thus far, it would not seem so. As before, a hearty thank you for any thoughts and guidance. 



 

NotACPA

Ken said:

A related question, having to do with the original set of accounts in Quicken and the new set. While I have been keeping up to date in Quicken as far as paying bills, reconciling checking accounts, etc., the status of investments is not up to date.

As my wife's accounts were closed, naturally, this broke Quicken's update function for those accounts. Consequently, there will have been a period of a few months between the time of the last update and the time when I, with the help of your kind and generous suggestions above, accomplish the set up of new accounts in Quicken. Needless to say, the values of accounts have changed during these months. 

So, it won't be a simple matter of transferring equals from one account to another. Or, will it? Should I (A) Do the transfers in Quicken as though I had done them immediately, and let Quicken do its online Update to bring the new account setup to date? Or, (B), manually update the old account set up to bring these accounts up to date, and then do the transfers? Or, (C) other? 

Honestly, I may be over-thinking this, but from all I've learned thus far, it would not seem so. As before, a hearty thank you for any thoughts and guidance. 



 

It kinda depends upon  how long that delay is.  Most banks/brokers/etc limit the length of the download period to 30-90 days.  It's the bank/etc's choice ...  not Q's.
IF you can't get all of the data via a Q-originated download, you might try going to the particular website and seeing if you can initiate the download from there.
NOTE, that  for  either of  these options,  you will  need to  have set  up YOUR  accounts in Q before initiating the download.  Once you do so, it's entirely possible that your first download will completely catch-you-up.

Tom Young

Ken said:

A related question, having to do with the original set of accounts in Quicken and the new set. While I have been keeping up to date in Quicken as far as paying bills, reconciling checking accounts, etc., the status of investments is not up to date.

As my wife's accounts were closed, naturally, this broke Quicken's update function for those accounts. Consequently, there will have been a period of a few months between the time of the last update and the time when I, with the help of your kind and generous suggestions above, accomplish the set up of new accounts in Quicken. Needless to say, the values of accounts have changed during these months. 

So, it won't be a simple matter of transferring equals from one account to another. Or, will it? Should I (A) Do the transfers in Quicken as though I had done them immediately, and let Quicken do its online Update to bring the new account setup to date? Or, (B), manually update the old account set up to bring these accounts up to date, and then do the transfers? Or, (C) other? 

Honestly, I may be over-thinking this, but from all I've learned thus far, it would not seem so. As before, a hearty thank you for any thoughts and guidance. 



 

As to setting the Date Acquired back to one year before your wife's death




when you use the Add Action to enter your AFTER TAX securities in your new Accounts, as a matter of tax law an inherited security is considered a long term holding irrespective of how long you or your wife actually owned the security.  This will ensure that any sales of the inherited securities will be coded as "long term" by Quicken.

mshiggins

Ken said:

A related question, having to do with the original set of accounts in Quicken and the new set. While I have been keeping up to date in Quicken as far as paying bills, reconciling checking accounts, etc., the status of investments is not up to date.

As my wife's accounts were closed, naturally, this broke Quicken's update function for those accounts. Consequently, there will have been a period of a few months between the time of the last update and the time when I, with the help of your kind and generous suggestions above, accomplish the set up of new accounts in Quicken. Needless to say, the values of accounts have changed during these months. 

So, it won't be a simple matter of transferring equals from one account to another. Or, will it? Should I (A) Do the transfers in Quicken as though I had done them immediately, and let Quicken do its online Update to bring the new account setup to date? Or, (B), manually update the old account set up to bring these accounts up to date, and then do the transfers? Or, (C) other? 

Honestly, I may be over-thinking this, but from all I've learned thus far, it would not seem so. As before, a hearty thank you for any thoughts and guidance. 



 

I'd go with option A.

Vetta

Ken said:

A related question, having to do with the original set of accounts in Quicken and the new set. While I have been keeping up to date in Quicken as far as paying bills, reconciling checking accounts, etc., the status of investments is not up to date.

As my wife's accounts were closed, naturally, this broke Quicken's update function for those accounts. Consequently, there will have been a period of a few months between the time of the last update and the time when I, with the help of your kind and generous suggestions above, accomplish the set up of new accounts in Quicken. Needless to say, the values of accounts have changed during these months. 

So, it won't be a simple matter of transferring equals from one account to another. Or, will it? Should I (A) Do the transfers in Quicken as though I had done them immediately, and let Quicken do its online Update to bring the new account setup to date? Or, (B), manually update the old account set up to bring these accounts up to date, and then do the transfers? Or, (C) other? 

Honestly, I may be over-thinking this, but from all I've learned thus far, it would not seem so. As before, a hearty thank you for any thoughts and guidance. 



 

Choice A would be the simplest, but as NotACPA mentioned it is the institution's decision as to how far back they will download. If her passing was more than their download period covers be prepared to manually fill in any missing transactions per the paper statements.
Condolences for your loss. I've also been through it.

Ken264

Ken said:

A related question, having to do with the original set of accounts in Quicken and the new set. While I have been keeping up to date in Quicken as far as paying bills, reconciling checking accounts, etc., the status of investments is not up to date.

As my wife's accounts were closed, naturally, this broke Quicken's update function for those accounts. Consequently, there will have been a period of a few months between the time of the last update and the time when I, with the help of your kind and generous suggestions above, accomplish the set up of new accounts in Quicken. Needless to say, the values of accounts have changed during these months. 

So, it won't be a simple matter of transferring equals from one account to another. Or, will it? Should I (A) Do the transfers in Quicken as though I had done them immediately, and let Quicken do its online Update to bring the new account setup to date? Or, (B), manually update the old account set up to bring these accounts up to date, and then do the transfers? Or, (C) other? 

Honestly, I may be over-thinking this, but from all I've learned thus far, it would not seem so. As before, a hearty thank you for any thoughts and guidance. 



 

I guess I know what I'll be doing for the next several days. Thank you all for your suggestions and condolences. When (and if?) I get things squared away, I will post a summary of my experience for the potential benefit of others.