I am starting new Quicken, not my investment accounts. Do I really have to enter the cost of every s

Unknown

I am starting new with Quicken, not my investment accounts. Do I really have to enter the cost of every mutual fund I've purchased (over 15+ years)?!?

GeoffG

If you want accurate capital gains data, then yes.  Why are you starting a new file?  And how are you starting it? 

mshiggins

Assuming you still have those mutual funds, adding the costs or entering all the transaction history enables you to do more accurate and comprehensive investment performance reporting. It can also be helpful at tax time if you sell any of those mutual funds.

Tom Young

You don't have to enter each and every purchase you've ever made, though that's the "most correct" way to do this.  That should give you absolutely correct "current" information which means that all future transaction, especially sales, will be properly reported.

If the investment accounts allow for downloading into Quicken then you can do that, though typically the detail transactions available for download only go back a relatively short period of time - certainly not 15 years - meaning you would need to back fill some information to get your holding, i.e., number of shares, properly stated.

Have you been maintaining your own records of purchases, sales, dividends, reinvestments and so forth so that, in theory, you could enter all the historical detail?  If that happened to be the case then you could do a download, look to when the record of transactions downloaded began in each Quicken Account, and then simply add one piece of summary information for each stock, (the "Add" action), for all all the "missing" stock transactions.

If you simply want go "go forward" from here you can use the one Add action for each stock, entering the number of shares and a cost basis - maybe just an estimate - to establish your opening positions, and move forward from there.

splasher

Capital gains is either long or short term, right?  If you agree with that, you could lump all of the long term CG transactions into a single transaction for each mutual fund nd then only enter the detail for short term CG.  In other words, lump the transactions over a year old into a single transaction.

Your networth over time will not be correct until the most recent history and the performance figures will be off in past years.

Unknown

Slightly OT, but a question to those folks that suggested doing the complete adding of all the old transactions (for example from one post above: "That should give you absolutely correct 'current' information which
means that all future transaction, especially sales, will be properly
reported.".)

Since most of the FIs are mandated to report cost basis and long and short terms sale information now on sales if they have that information (and this might be the key...a big 'IF'), how necessary is it that you make Q as accurate as you can for reporting capital gains/losses?   Since the values I (and my accountant) use are what are contained on the 1099s, whatever QUICKEN deems 'accurate' has little to do with what I'd be using on my Sch D.

Comments?

Eddy Gil

YES IF YOU WANT ACCURATE INFO

q_lurker

Slightly OT, but a question to those folks that suggested doing the complete adding of all the old transactions (for example from one post above: "That should give you absolutely correct 'current' information which
means that all future transaction, especially sales, will be properly
reported.".)

Since most of the FIs are mandated to report cost basis and long and short terms sale information now on sales if they have that information (and this might be the key...a big 'IF'), how necessary is it that you make Q as accurate as you can for reporting capital gains/losses?   Since the values I (and my accountant) use are what are contained on the 1099s, whatever QUICKEN deems 'accurate' has little to do with what I'd be using on my Sch D.

Comments?

Valid point.  But going back 15 years predates the 'covered' / 'uncovered' definitions.  I believe for Vanguard, if the fund was initially uncovered (not reported in detail for 1099s) then it remains uncovered since, even subsequent purchases and reinvestments.  

For myself, I like having a Quicken as an aggregation of assets across multiple brokerages.  Each brokerage individually can tell me cap gains status at any point.  Quicken tells me my status for all of them.  I don't demand that it be 100% precise, but I want to be close enough for end-of-year decision making (and any other time).  

Finally, I also want Quicken as a 'cross-check' on the other sources.  Differences are becoming less, but I have over the years spotted errors on the brokerages part.  

The original question all comes down to: How does the user want Quicken to work for them?  Taxes, history, investment performance, future projection, other?

mshiggins

Slightly OT, but a question to those folks that suggested doing the complete adding of all the old transactions (for example from one post above: "That should give you absolutely correct 'current' information which
means that all future transaction, especially sales, will be properly
reported.".)

Since most of the FIs are mandated to report cost basis and long and short terms sale information now on sales if they have that information (and this might be the key...a big 'IF'), how necessary is it that you make Q as accurate as you can for reporting capital gains/losses?   Since the values I (and my accountant) use are what are contained on the 1099s, whatever QUICKEN deems 'accurate' has little to do with what I'd be using on my Sch D.

Comments?

Agreed on all of q.lurker's points. Especially re: the brokerages not always getting it right.

Unknown

Slightly OT, but a question to those folks that suggested doing the complete adding of all the old transactions (for example from one post above: "That should give you absolutely correct 'current' information which
means that all future transaction, especially sales, will be properly
reported.".)

Since most of the FIs are mandated to report cost basis and long and short terms sale information now on sales if they have that information (and this might be the key...a big 'IF'), how necessary is it that you make Q as accurate as you can for reporting capital gains/losses?   Since the values I (and my accountant) use are what are contained on the 1099s, whatever QUICKEN deems 'accurate' has little to do with what I'd be using on my Sch D.

Comments?

And yes, valid point on the 15 years you cite as well.  I have also entered all my information as accurately as possible over the years, but on certain change of share classes, return of capital, etc., I haven't always gotten it correct I'm sure.