How to handle up-grade and stock entry errors

Question

I hope someone can offer me some guidance on how to tackle a multi-layered problem I am facing.
 I recently have taken over the book work for our family investments from my 90+ year old CPA father-in-law. My accounting skill and knowledge is no match to his over 70 years experience.
 He had been using the Quicken 2015 Premium program on an older (2011) laptop. I decided that I might be better off if I upgraded the Quicken program and use a new desktop. I have downloaded the new Quicken program to the desk top but have not transferred the data on the lap top Quicken yet.
 Technical service has assured me they could help me move the existing data from the older Quicken on the laptop to the new Quicken program on the new desktop.

At issue is, I have managed to make a mess out of the stock portfolio. Some of the recent stock swaps, spin offs  and mergers that have occurred were incorrectly entered by me. The more I try to adjust the problem... I’m not sure I’m able to “fix” my mess.
         1.      Should I simply transfer the data with the errors and hope to correct them.
         2.      Can I transfer the old Quicken data from a backup date that precedes my stock adjustment errors and simply re-enter all the following months data and hopefully get help with how to correct the stock errors? (The cash and income is correct. My problems are in the stock cost basis and values from mergers and complex splits)
         3.      If I link my stock portfolio account in the Quicken program, to my brokerage account, will it automatically keep up with and track the cost basis etc. from splits, mergers and spin-offs? My father-in-law never linked the accounts. He preferred to do the calculations himself.

Frankx · Accepted Answer

bwalker56,

Based on what you had said about your current situation, I'll give you my advice as a 60+ year old CPA who has used Quicken for about 30 years now.

First - it was a good idea to upgrade the Quicken program.

Regarding the errors that you have made on the swaps, spin-offs and mergers in the stock portfolio - those are not the easiest transactions to account for, so don't feel bad.  But if you believe they are not correct, I would suggest that you don't transfer the data with the errors.  I think it would be better to transfer from the backup prior to the errors to get a "clean" starting point.  You can then make sure that all the other data transfers properly before you tackle those more complex transactions, perhaps with some help & advice from folks here.

On the question of linking Quicken to your brokerage account - that's a good idea, but my experience has been that you will still need to make manual entries to properly account for more complex transactions like mergers, spin-offs and splits. However there is usually good and timely information and advice posted here in this community on how to handle most, if not all, of those transactions.  And whatever you do - make sure that you make a backup immediately before you try to make those types of entries, just in case things don't turn out correctly.

Good luck!

Frankx