Need to assign MiscExp to transaction but not available

Unknown

My
Vanguard statement containins 3 accounts, two are IRA and one taxable.  I am
past 70.5 years so I must do the RMD dance for the Feds every year.  I sell from
the two IRA accts, pay taxes on the sale and transfer any left over cash to the
regular taxable account.  In past years I have reflected the withheld Fed. tax
by categorizing it as a Miscellaneous Expense.  That caused the cash to
disappear from my account records so that they showed the correct balances. 
This year, Quicken 2019 downloaded all my data and loaded it to the accounts for
my review and import.  One account looked good so I okayed it and it worked
perfectly, it pre-assigned the taxes withheld as "MiscExp" and everything
balanced there.  All I had to do was transfer excess cash to the taxable account
and buy shares.  Then on the second IRA account the import was screwed up
royally.  It listed a Sell transaction as "Shares Removed" but showed no total
dollar amount.  To make a long story short, when I tried to square things away
by manually entering the transactions for sales, taxes and transfers I tried to
categorize the withholding transaction as a Miscellaneous Expense and found that
there is no longer any such choice for that account? My only choice seems to be
a WithdrawX action but I don't know how to show the IRS as a recipient?  I could
transfer it to a cash savings or checking account as a phony transaction but
that screws them up also.  I actually believed all the propaganda Quicken has
been spewing and thought, hopefully, that things were looking up.  This kind of
help is not what I wanted.  I'm using Quicken version R17.6 on a Windows 10
platform just updated to the latest updates this morning. 

Tom Young

Did you completely delete everything that was downloaded to that Account and simply try entering the transactions you need to make manually?  Or are you trying to "edit" something that's been downloaded?

Unknown

I am not trying to edit a downloaded record.  I only deleted the one downloaded record that showed a Sell transaction as Shares Removed.  The reason I deleted that one was because it was incomplete.  It showed X shares at Y price but nothing for the total transaction value.  I am now trying to manually enter a couple of MiscExp transactions to get rid of the cash balance created by withholding taxes.  That cash never comes to me via Vanguard but it is obviously reported for my record keeping.  

Tom Young

Cecil Britton said:

I am not trying to edit a downloaded record.  I only deleted the one downloaded record that showed a Sell transaction as Shares Removed.  The reason I deleted that one was because it was incomplete.  It showed X shares at Y price but nothing for the total transaction value.  I am now trying to manually enter a couple of MiscExp transactions to get rid of the cash balance created by withholding taxes.  That cash never comes to me via Vanguard but it is obviously reported for my record keeping.  

Very odd, as MiscExp is still available to me using Q2019 for Windows R16.14.

Did the two transactions occur on the same day or different days?  Was there an update between the two events if they occurred on different days?

In my version Miscellaneous Expense in the drop down menu slots in between Return of Capital and Margin Interest Expense.  Can you tell if any other Quicken actions are missing?

I suppose as a workaround you could transfer the cash to your checking Account and then create the expenses there.

Unknown

Yes it is odd and I can only attribute it to some bad line of code someplace in the Quicken software.  As I think I said earlier, in another account I have with Vanguard, Quicken handled this same type of transaction correctly and actually entered two MisExp transactions for taxes withheld.  The reason I can't send the withholding amounts to another account is that it would never actually be paid out/removed from the account so my true net worth would be incorrect.  The only way I see would be to create a phony receiving account and then hide it from the primary Quicken account.  If I have to do silly stuff like that to compensate for the inadequacy of software I paid good money for I definitely need to find some other software somewhere.

markus1957

Cecil Britton said:

Yes it is odd and I can only attribute it to some bad line of code someplace in the Quicken software.  As I think I said earlier, in another account I have with Vanguard, Quicken handled this same type of transaction correctly and actually entered two MisExp transactions for taxes withheld.  The reason I can't send the withholding amounts to another account is that it would never actually be paid out/removed from the account so my true net worth would be incorrect.  The only way I see would be to create a phony receiving account and then hide it from the primary Quicken account.  If I have to do silly stuff like that to compensate for the inadequacy of software I paid good money for I definitely need to find some other software somewhere.

With respect to the tax withheld amount, why not enter a regular withdrawal listing the IRS as payee and a category of fed taxes?  The remainder amount from the RMD sell transaction would be entered as the actual cash amount transferred to your checking account.

Jim_Harman

Is the problem account set up as a "single mutual fund" account? If it is, the MiscExp option will not be available because the account cannot hold cash. If so, you will have the option to change it to a regular brokerage on the Account Details page.

Unknown

Thanks JIm.  No it is not and never has been a "single mutual fund" account.  I have been using Quicken in this configuration ever since Microsoft stopped selling "Microsoft Money" and it has always worked correctly.  I am considering reinstalling an old backup file from before 12/14/2018 when the various fund distributions were made and taxes paid.  While it will involve a considerable amount of effort it will be worth it if the software works correctly the second time around.  It seems clear that the only thing the Quicken developers are any good at is taking your money every year.  If they are making any corrections to their software it is not visible to me.  Oh I'm sure I could get their attention if I want to pay more but I won't go that route.  Now that you mentioned it, I will double check the system configuration again to make sure one of the recent updates has not changed something I was unaware of.

Unknown

Cecil Britton said:

Yes it is odd and I can only attribute it to some bad line of code someplace in the Quicken software.  As I think I said earlier, in another account I have with Vanguard, Quicken handled this same type of transaction correctly and actually entered two MisExp transactions for taxes withheld.  The reason I can't send the withholding amounts to another account is that it would never actually be paid out/removed from the account so my true net worth would be incorrect.  The only way I see would be to create a phony receiving account and then hide it from the primary Quicken account.  If I have to do silly stuff like that to compensate for the inadequacy of software I paid good money for I definitely need to find some other software somewhere.

I am not sure what you mean.  Short of the Miscellaneous Expense transaction,  I am unaware of any means of removing a cash balance without moving it to some other account.  The problem is that just moves the non-existent cash from one place to another.  I'll look at the available options again in any case just to check out the possibility that i overlooked some new action available to me.

markus1957

Cecil Britton said:

Yes it is odd and I can only attribute it to some bad line of code someplace in the Quicken software.  As I think I said earlier, in another account I have with Vanguard, Quicken handled this same type of transaction correctly and actually entered two MisExp transactions for taxes withheld.  The reason I can't send the withholding amounts to another account is that it would never actually be paid out/removed from the account so my true net worth would be incorrect.  The only way I see would be to create a phony receiving account and then hide it from the primary Quicken account.  If I have to do silly stuff like that to compensate for the inadequacy of software I paid good money for I definitely need to find some other software somewhere.

The "Cash Transaction" options at the bottom of the pull-down window have been around as far back as I can remember. They do not require the funds to go to another Quicken account any more than when you write a check from your checking account to an outside party.

Tom Young

Cecil Britton said:

I am not trying to edit a downloaded record.  I only deleted the one downloaded record that showed a Sell transaction as Shares Removed.  The reason I deleted that one was because it was incomplete.  It showed X shares at Y price but nothing for the total transaction value.  I am now trying to manually enter a couple of MiscExp transactions to get rid of the cash balance created by withholding taxes.  That cash never comes to me via Vanguard but it is obviously reported for my record keeping.  

"The reason I can't send the withholding amounts to another account is
that it would never actually be paid out/removed from the account so my
true net worth would be incorrect."

No, that's an incorrect statement.  Even though the money would not cycle through your checking account "in the real world", by transferring the money there and then immediately "sending" the money to the taxing authorities would zero out the effect on the checking Account.  Presumable this would happen on the same day meaning that there's no chance of miss stating net worth. 

In fact this certainly is the best way of handling the transaction if you use TurboTax and import tax information into if from Quicken.  You are taxed on the gross amount of the distribution and it's the transfer of the gross amount from the IRA to checking that you assign as a distribution from the IRA as a taxable event.  From a tax and tax accounting standpoint you received the gross distribution and then wrote checks to the IRS and your state for taxes.

SimonSezSo

Cecil Britton, you wont see the Misc Exp transaction when you try to choose it from the investment register directly.  What you need to do is hit the "Edit" button (on the right) when you are on an empty transaction line at the bottom of your register:



Then you should see a transaction window.  Just choose "Miscellaneous Expense" from the transaction dropdown window:



Then you can fill out the rest of the transaction screen as appropriate.

Bob_L

I take RMDs from Vanguard monthly with no problem. I have an auto enter reminder that transfers the gross RMD amount to the destination non-IRA account as a deposit each month with the tax withholding as a split categorized to my tax withholding. Then Vanguard downloads a sell for the gross amount along with a second transaction labeled by them as misc exp for the tax withholding. I delete that downloaded misc exp tax payment transaction and the cash balance is then zero. (Note I also have transfers out of the iRA set to the tax schedule for IRA distributions so the tax reports work correctly).

BTW, I have also found that if you say exchange fron prime money market in one account to Prime money market in another account they will download it as remove and add shares transactions rather than sell and buy. Don’t know if that applies between an IRA and a non IRA.

Unknown

SimonSezSo said:

Cecil Britton, you wont see the Misc Exp transaction when you try to choose it from the investment register directly.  What you need to do is hit the "Edit" button (on the right) when you are on an empty transaction line at the bottom of your register:



Then you should see a transaction window.  Just choose "Miscellaneous Expense" from the transaction dropdown window:



Then you can fill out the rest of the transaction screen as appropriate.

I was aware of that.  That is the reason for the thread.  On my computer, in one of several accounts, when I attempted to manually enter a correcting transaction, that transaction and all the cash transactions at the bottom of the scroll down menu were missing.  In another account everything worked normally and correctly.

MDTerp66

SimonSezSo said:

Cecil Britton, you wont see the Misc Exp transaction when you try to choose it from the investment register directly.  What you need to do is hit the "Edit" button (on the right) when you are on an empty transaction line at the bottom of your register:



Then you should see a transaction window.  Just choose "Miscellaneous Expense" from the transaction dropdown window:



Then you can fill out the rest of the transaction screen as appropriate.

The WithdrawX is available from within the register on Quicken 2017. 

Unknown

Problem Resolved by accident!  Because of a faulty downloaded transaction from Vanguard, I was trying to manually enter a correcting Miscellaneous Expense (MiscExp) transaction but could not.  My habit has always been to enter new transactions directly in the account register by clicking on the last date in the date column, correcting the date if necessary and then clicking on the edit button to bring up the transaction data input form.  At the top of that form is a scroll bar box that lists all possible transactions to enter on the form and in the register.  I clicked on that scroll bar but the MiscExp action was missing and so were all the Cash transactions at the bottom of list of options.  That's when I contacted the forum hoping for assistance.  This morning, out of curiosity, I chose to click on the "Enter Transactions" button at the upper left corner of the transaction register to see if it acted differently.  I found that it brought up the same data input form as I had found by clicking on the edit button for a new transaction.  To my surprise when I clicked that scroll bar it listed my items that were missing before; I could now choose MiscExp and I could choose from the Cash transaction categories once again.  I got out of that window, went back to the bottom of the register and tried it again.  Now I can find all the transaction categories that had been missing!!!  The only explanation I can imagine is that by clicking on the Enter Transactions it reset something in the software that was somehow hung up on that account page.  I'm just happy to be operational.

SimonSezSo

Cecil Britton said:

Problem Resolved by accident!  Because of a faulty downloaded transaction from Vanguard, I was trying to manually enter a correcting Miscellaneous Expense (MiscExp) transaction but could not.  My habit has always been to enter new transactions directly in the account register by clicking on the last date in the date column, correcting the date if necessary and then clicking on the edit button to bring up the transaction data input form.  At the top of that form is a scroll bar box that lists all possible transactions to enter on the form and in the register.  I clicked on that scroll bar but the MiscExp action was missing and so were all the Cash transactions at the bottom of list of options.  That's when I contacted the forum hoping for assistance.  This morning, out of curiosity, I chose to click on the "Enter Transactions" button at the upper left corner of the transaction register to see if it acted differently.  I found that it brought up the same data input form as I had found by clicking on the edit button for a new transaction.  To my surprise when I clicked that scroll bar it listed my items that were missing before; I could now choose MiscExp and I could choose from the Cash transaction categories once again.  I got out of that window, went back to the bottom of the register and tried it again.  Now I can find all the transaction categories that had been missing!!!  The only explanation I can imagine is that by clicking on the Enter Transactions it reset something in the software that was somehow hung up on that account page.  I'm just happy to be operational.

Glad you got it to work.  That is very interesting though how the two methods reacted differently.  Thank you.  I learned something new today.

AFToothDoc

Bob L said:

I take RMDs from Vanguard monthly with no problem. I have an auto enter reminder that transfers the gross RMD amount to the destination non-IRA account as a deposit each month with the tax withholding as a split categorized to my tax withholding. Then Vanguard downloads a sell for the gross amount along with a second transaction labeled by them as misc exp for the tax withholding. I delete that downloaded misc exp tax payment transaction and the cash balance is then zero. (Note I also have transfers out of the iRA set to the tax schedule for IRA distributions so the tax reports work correctly).

BTW, I have also found that if you say exchange fron prime money market in one account to Prime money market in another account they will download it as remove and add shares transactions rather than sell and buy. Don’t know if that applies between an IRA and a non IRA.

Bob, I remember a discussion we had a couple of years back about problems with downloads with Vanguard brokerage account settlement funds. This sounds familiar and may be related. You had a technical contact at Vanguard that you were working with to resolve these download problems. Did they ever get the download issues worked out? I have a mixture of Vanguard mutual funds and brokerage accounts and perhaps Cecil has the same setup so some accounts download as expected and others do not. Vanguard is opening all new accounts as brokerage accounts by default. It gets really confusing tracking all this when there is a mixture of different account types.

Bob_L

Bob L said:

I take RMDs from Vanguard monthly with no problem. I have an auto enter reminder that transfers the gross RMD amount to the destination non-IRA account as a deposit each month with the tax withholding as a split categorized to my tax withholding. Then Vanguard downloads a sell for the gross amount along with a second transaction labeled by them as misc exp for the tax withholding. I delete that downloaded misc exp tax payment transaction and the cash balance is then zero. (Note I also have transfers out of the iRA set to the tax schedule for IRA distributions so the tax reports work correctly).

BTW, I have also found that if you say exchange fron prime money market in one account to Prime money market in another account they will download it as remove and add shares transactions rather than sell and buy. Don’t know if that applies between an IRA and a non IRA.

That was a way back! I think they corrected what was going on then regarding the interaction between the clearing account. I haven’t had any problems with them for a long time, though I have minimized the number of accounts subject to their “upgrade” to brokerage accounts. I will avoid that “upgrade” for as long they will permit it!