How to change the account a transaction is posted to in Quicken for Mac?

mtimkovich

Unlike credit card transactions where it is possible to edit the card a transaction is posted to, in Investing, when editing a transaction that I have entered to the wrong investment account, I can select a different account (just like with a cc transaction) but after pushing the [save] button the transaction reverts to the original account. I would assume it is a bug because the dropdown account list should not appear if the account could not be changed, but the dropdown appearing may be the bug. Any thoughts?

jacobs

mtimkovich said:

When you click on one of the categories on the left hand menu (All Transactions; Banking; Credit Cards; Investing; Property/Debt; Debt; etc.) and chose to display "Transactions" rather than "Income", "Portfolio", or another option, the last column displayed on my set up is the Quicken account that the transaction occurred in. 

The "Banking" accounts are different from the "Investment" accounts.

Just to clarify, in an individual account, there is no column showing the Account. When you click on one of the main groups (such as Investing or Banking) or sub-groups (such as Cash, Credit Card, Brokerage, or Retirement), Quicken adds an Account column so you can see which account each transaction belongs to in this register of multiple accounts.

In Quicken Mac, the normal way to move a transaction inadvertently made in the wrong account is to click on it in the register and drag the transaction to the desired account in the left sidebar -- and the transaction moves from the original to the destination account. It can also be done the way you describe: if you choose a multi-account main or sub-group to view, and you have the Account column showing, you can edit a transaction, change the Account, and it will move to the destination account.

But as @RickO explained above, this works for Banking transactions, not for Investment transactions. You could cause a host of problems in your holdings and all your investment performance calculations if you were able to simply move any transaction from one investment account to another the same way -- so the program doesn't' allow it.

And yes, now that I'm on the same page with understanding what you were trying to do, I think your original conclusion was correct: for an investment transaction, Quicken shouldn't even show the dropdown menu of accounts to suggest you could make a change there.

One of the new features in Quicken Mac this year allows users to transfer one security, or all securities, from one investment account to another. (Useful if one or all your securities at one brokerage move to another company.) But you can't just move individual transactions -- for that, you must use Add/Remove shares or Transfer Shares, as @RickO said.

jacobs

Just trying to understand: you entered a transaction in the wrong Quicken account, or you have a Payment/Deposit transaction with a Transfer to/from the wrong Quicken account?

The latter is the only place you see an account name in investment registers. If that's what you're describing, then what field are you editing the account name in: Description/Category or Transfer? 

mtimkovich

When you click on one of the categories on the left hand menu (All Transactions; Banking; Credit Cards; Investing; Property/Debt; Debt; etc.) and chose to display "Transactions" rather than "Income", "Portfolio", or another option, the last column displayed on my set up is the Quicken account that the transaction occurred in. Pressing [command][e] allows the editing of the highlighted transaction. I haven't tried all variants, but date, payee, amount, etc. will change when I save the edit. Under the credit card category I frequently need the change the card account, which works. Under Investing, the save key just reverts the Quicken account to the first entered account name.
There was an entirely different procedure that worked very well in the Windows version.

mtimkovich

The most frequent mistake I make is entering "Dividend Income" (the deposit/payment type of transaction in your answer) without double checking that I have pressed the track pad firmly enough to have moved to the correct account. In edit mode I can "correct" the account, eg. change "Brokerage" account to "Roth 401" but pressing the [save] button reverts the displayed account to the originally entered "Brokerage" account.

jacobs

mtimkovich said:

When you click on one of the categories on the left hand menu (All Transactions; Banking; Credit Cards; Investing; Property/Debt; Debt; etc.) and chose to display "Transactions" rather than "Income", "Portfolio", or another option, the last column displayed on my set up is the Quicken account that the transaction occurred in. 

The "Banking" accounts are different from the "Investment" accounts.

Just to clarify, in an individual account, there is no column showing the Account. When you click on one of the main groups (such as Investing or Banking) or sub-groups (such as Cash, Credit Card, Brokerage, or Retirement), Quicken adds an Account column so you can see which account each transaction belongs to in this register of multiple accounts.

In Quicken Mac, the normal way to move a transaction inadvertently made in the wrong account is to click on it in the register and drag the transaction to the desired account in the left sidebar -- and the transaction moves from the original to the destination account. It can also be done the way you describe: if you choose a multi-account main or sub-group to view, and you have the Account column showing, you can edit a transaction, change the Account, and it will move to the destination account.

But as @RickO explained above, this works for Banking transactions, not for Investment transactions. You could cause a host of problems in your holdings and all your investment performance calculations if you were able to simply move any transaction from one investment account to another the same way -- so the program doesn't' allow it.

And yes, now that I'm on the same page with understanding what you were trying to do, I think your original conclusion was correct: for an investment transaction, Quicken shouldn't even show the dropdown menu of accounts to suggest you could make a change there.

One of the new features in Quicken Mac this year allows users to transfer one security, or all securities, from one investment account to another. (Useful if one or all your securities at one brokerage move to another company.) But you can't just move individual transactions -- for that, you must use Add/Remove shares or Transfer Shares, as @RickO said.

mtimkovich

I was excited that your second paragraph description of the "normal" way to move a transaction in Quicken MAC was to click and drag the transaction was the answer I was looking for; it sounds like Windows file management at work. I tried the process as described; when I drag the transaction over to the sidebar a character, the O with a back slash, indicating an error appears. It sounds like I either need to pay more attention or get used to continue to delete and reenter transactions.

jacobs

Again, you can't move a transaction between investment accounts; you must move shares or funds. You can move transactions between Banking accounts.