Vanguard converting from mutual fund to brokerage platform - any Quicken issues ?

Greg_the_Geek

Why create new accounts when you can link to the old accounts?

Peggy Sanders

> @Greg_the_Geek said:
> Why create new accounts when you can link to the old accounts?

Because it's not letting me link to old accounts. Tried it, didn't work. Seriously I am at my wits end with this whole thing.

Peggy Sanders

> @Tom Young said:
> "Ok, I may have to go back to my 30 Oct backup and start again."@Peggy Sanders
> I'd avoid that if I could as that would lose 11 days of activity in all your other Accounts.Back up, then delete the Removed actions in the old Accounts and delete the Adds in the new Account. 
> (You can do multiple "deletes" by clicking Reports > Banking > Transactions and customizing the report to only look at the one Account.  Then you can select multiple transactions in the same fashion you can do that in Windows, right click on your selection and delete the transactions.)At this point you might as well delete everything in that new Account; you'll have to manually enter any buys that got deleted, but that's a small number of transactions and easy to do.Then go to the old Accounts an select "Shares transferred between accounts" and move everything to the new Account.  That should get you to the right starting point."

Ok, before I go back to 30 Oct, I will try this. I have a feeling I'll be going back either way, because nothing is working with this conversion.

q_lurker

I have skimmed over the last day-and-a-half of comments but I think I have the right picture.  I'll try to get to a concise summary and my suggestions.

You had a set of single mutual fund (SMF) accounts set up in Quicken that mirrored funds you had with Vanguard Mutual Fund services.  Four of those SMF accounts made up your Roth IRA; a difference set of four husband's IRA account, and so on. 

Vanguard asked (or pressured) you to consolidate the four holdings in which they knew constituted Peggy's Roth IRA into one account through Vanguard Brokerage Services. Similar with the other family accounts.

Within Quicken, what you need to do for this event is make use of the Shares Transferred between accounts macro-transaction.  That transactions gets applied in each of the original Quicken SMF accounts to transfer all the shares held in that account to the new account.

First and foremost - CREATE A GOOD BACKUP.  If problems develop along the way, Restore the Backup.  Work the following one step at a time, carefully reviewing and understanding what is taking place.  It all should make sense as you are working along.  If it doesn't, stop and restore and try again, or stop and ask.
 
For each of the larger accounts (i.e. Peggy's Roth IRA), I would:
a)  Create the new account with no shares and no cash balance. At creation, I would NOT link it or associate it with any financial institution.  (You may have effectively done this already.  If you already have this account set up and enabled for downloads from Vanguard Brokerage Services - VBS - continue with that account.) 
b)  Go to each of the SMF accounts in Quicken that tie to that new larger account. 
c)  If the current share count for that fund is 0, delete the transactions that created that state.  You are getting that account back to the state it was in just before all this started.
d) In that account transactions list, select the Enter Transactions button and the Shares Transferred function. 
e)  Select All Shares and specify the new larger account as the receiving account.  Click Enter/Done
f)  Repeat b through e for the other funds for that larger account. 

As each transfer is completed, the shares in the prior SMF accounts should go to 0 as a Removed Shares transactions is created.  Over in the new larger account, a series of Add Shares should appear that reflect each lot of the original fund that had been in the SMF account -- up to twenty years worth if I recall correctly.

Depending on the starting state of that new account you may now have duplication shares brought in by this process, and by your earlier attempts or by a VBS Download.  If so, leave these newly generated transactions (all Add Shares) and delete the others.  Does that bring you to the right share count for that larger account?  If not, why not?  What is missing?  What is extra?

To repeat, do this a step at a time, one account at a time.

Personally, I think by the time this is all done, you will find this account structure (Peggy's Roth IRA) with multiple funds in it to be a better setup than the SMF style setup you had been using.  I find this type of setup easier to manage long term. 

Hope this helps get you back on track.  I do expect it is somewhat redundant with advice from others but O hope it serves to consolidate and maybe clarify the picture.   

Ps56k2

Greg_the_Geek said:

ps56k said:

How can I tell - if I log into my Vanguard online account -
that I have the legacy mutual fund account platform -
or the newly migrated brokerage account platform ?

@ps56k

If it says "Transition this account" below the account title
it's still a Mutual Fund Account and not a Vanguard Brokerage Account.

Tnx - got it - yup - I'm still there....
--> Summary --> Holdings --> "Transition this account"

Jim_Harman

@ps56k,

Hold on to those mutual fund only accounts as long as Vanguard will let you, unless you want to be able to buy ETFs, individual stocks, and non-Vanguard mutual funds in the same account as your Vanguard funds.

In my experience the VBS accounts are getting better, but the mutual fund accounts integrate more smoothly with Quicken and have some features that are still not available in VBS accounts.

Ps56k2

Jim_Harman said:

@ps56k,

Hold on to those mutual fund only accounts as long as Vanguard will let you...

I've had Vanguard forever - just for a handful of mutual funds. 
I've had Schwab forever - just for stocks.  and now a few ETFs.

Peggy Sanders

@q_lurker, Thank you for your assistance and reading into what I was trying to say. I did have to restore back to 30 Oct, when this madness began. I'm still working on getting my registers back to where they should be (checking, savings, credit cards, etc). Then I will work on these steps and see what happens. I will get back to you on this.

Peggy Sanders

To anyone reading this, do NOT convert your Vanguard to the brokerage platform unless you absolutely have to. This is a freaking mess.

I spent all day yesterday getting everything back from 30 Oct to date. I had to revert to this back up because it's the last good one before I did this conversion.

Today I spent all day moving the transactions from my single mutual funds into this brokerage platform. Everything moved fine. I can see the accounts. I can download my transactions from Vanguard to my mutual funds just fine. I still have to go in and edit it so that it is buying the new funds from a transfer from my checking account.

And now here we are...I can download the transactions for the Roth IRA's however it doesn't allow me to select my checking account as the account that's providing the money to purchase the new funds. I would normally edit the transaction to a "Buy", then I would get a pulldown option of where the cash is coming from. That pulldown isn't there. (I did figure out a work around in the meantime, I have to put the entry in my checking register and tie to to my Roth IRA, which then puts it in my Vanguard register as a "ContribX" but no option to put in share, price, etc. So I have to take that ContribX and edit that to a "buy" which then allows me to add the shares and cost.)

If anyone knows a better way to make this happen, let me know.

What's so frustrating about this whole thing is I've been with Vanguard for almost 20 years and I've been using Quicken for probably 16 of those years and this is the first time I've ever had this much issue with the two functioning correctly from the beginning.

Jim_Harman

There should be no need to edit the ContribX. That transaction puts cash in your Vanguard account. If you then enter or download a Buy for the appropriate number of shares and total amount using the "From this account's cash balance" as the source for the cash, the cash balance will go to zero.  

Peggy Sanders

@Jim_Harman said:
> There should be no need to edit the ContribX. That transaction puts cash in your Vanguard account. If you then enter or download a Buy for the appropriate number of shares and total amount using the "From this account's cash balance" as the source for the cash, the cash balance will go to zero.  

But then it's not taking the cash from my checking either to tie those transactions together. Nothing is working the way it has for years. I'll have to wait for some new transactions to post before I can figure it out again.

Jim_Harman

Previously you had "Single Mutual Fund" accounts. Because these accounts cannot hold cash, every Buy has to be a BoughtX and you have to (or get to) specify the account where the cash originated. 

In a brokerage account with downloaded transactions, you will see an Xin or a Deposit or in this case a ContribX which puts the cash in the account followed by a Bought when securities are purchased. 

Tom Young

"To anyone reading this, do NOT convert your Vanguard to the brokerage platform unless you absolutely have to. This is a freaking mess."

I think you are over-generalizing from your experience here.  I converted my Vanguard IRA to the brokerage side of the house some time ago and didn't have a lick of trouble.  It seems like you were operating in the "passive" mode with respect to your accounting - simply letting downloads from Vanguard "make entries" in your Vanguard Accounts, and something went wrong.  When you took control - remember Quicken doesn't "do your accounting for you", it's more along the lines of "Quicken helps you do your accounting " - you had a successful conversion. 

"And now here we are...I can download the transactions for the Roth IRA's however it doesn't allow me to select my checking account as the account that's providing the money to purchase the new funds. I would normally edit the transaction to a "Buy", then I would get a pulldown option of where the cash is coming from. That pulldown isn't there. (I did figure out a work around in the meantime, I have to put the entry in my checking register and tie to to my Roth IRA, which then puts it in my Vanguard register as a "ContribX" but no option to put in share, price, etc. So I have to take that ContribX and edit that to a "buy" which then allows me to add the shares and cost.)

If anyone knows a better way to make this happen, let me know."

I believe what you are seeing here is a difference in behavior between the group of  "single mutual fund Accounts" that you used to have and the one "brokerage" Account that you now have. 

The single mutual fund Accounts have quite a few "X" actions available to them - BoughtX, CGLongX, CGMidX, CGShortX, DivX, RtrnCapX, etc., etc. etc. - and that was necessary because a single mutual fund Account can only have one security in it, it can't have cash in it.  This requires that anything having to do with "cash" has to be handled with an "X" action.

On the other hand a brokerage Account certainly can have cash in it so the "need" for all the "X" actions is diminished. 

In any case the use of "X" actions is, generally, a dangerous contrivance.  I expect many people still write a check when they intend to make a contribution to their IRA.  They stick the check in an envelope and mail it to the fund manger, and a few days later the check arrives in Boston or wherever, the fund manager deposits the check and buys some security on the day the funds are received.  If you wait until the fund manager informs you of the purchase to do a "BoughtX" in the Quicken Account, you've overstated your bank balance from the time you mailed the check until the mutual fund tells you about your purchase.

Jim_Harman

BTW one advantage of the Brokerage type account for an IRA is that with the ContribX transaction, Quicken can keep track of your IRA contributions and show them on tax reports. I don't believe this works with single mutual fund accounts.

You do need to edit the account details, click on Tax Schedule, and set the tax line item for transfers in to Form 1040:IRA Contribution, self or spouse as appropriate.

Ps56k2

Just thought I would bump this a little...

Received an email from Vanguard
regarding my existing legacy mutual fund only acct.
As yet, I have not transitioned any of my Vanguard accounts...

----

We're working toward the retirement of our old investment platform, which supports accounts that only hold Vanguard mutual funds. We'll continue to support clients on this old platform until it's retired from use in 2022 or earlier. But know that some of the features you've used in the past may not be available as we make updates and changes in the future.

We encourage you to transition to the new platform now because, going forward, all of our improvements and enhancements will be focused on the new platform only. So transitioning today will let you enjoy updates to the new brokerage platform, avoid any service disruptions on the old one, and give you access to some of our lowest-cost investments. If you choose to remain on the old platform, we'll notify you when we implement any service changes.

volvogirl

Does new platform mean switching to brokerage accounts or just the way we access current old mutual fund accounts like on the internet?

Jim_Harman

Vanguard currently has two platforms: legacy mutual fund only accounts and newer Vanguard Brokerage Service (VBS) accounts. They have been phasing out the legacy accounts for the past several years, and only support the VBS platform for new accounts. The VBS accounts have new account numbers and let you buy stocks, ETFs, non-Vanguard mutual funds, etc. in addition to Vanguard mutual funds.

Vanguard's support for the VBS accounts in Quicken has improved over the years, but there are still subtle differences in how downloads from the different platforms are handled.  In general the legacy accounts are still handled more smoothly, so unless you are forced to convert, I would stick with the legacy accounts as long as possible. 

taterheart

I just "upgraded" two of my Vanguard mutual fund accounts to Brokerage accounts. In Quicken, it wanted to remove the shares from my old accounts and add them to my new accounts. I did not want to lose 20 years of history from the old accounts and didn't want to transfer the transactions to the new one. So here's what I did:

I deactivated the online services for those old accounts. Then I reactivated them. Quicken connected to Vanguard, and showed me the old account numbers and the new account numbers. I set the old account numbers to "ignore", and linked the new account numbers to my existing Quicken accounts. Then, when it download the "add shares" transactions, I deleted those.

So far, so good. We will see if Quicken tries to re-download those "add shares" transactions tomorrow. I'm hoping it will be smart enough to not do that.

Jim_Harman

Good luck.

If you have any of your mutual funds pay dividends in cash (not reinvest) and send the cash to something other than the Federal Money Market settlement fund, be prepared to have to edit the downloaded transactions.

Bob_L

@taterheart  you should probably also now want to transfer all the shares from your old account into the new one. That way when quicken compares the register to the online balances it will be correct.  Backup first.

q_lurker

@taterheart. I think you took the best path. I did similarly with my wife’s account several years ago. No issues at all, but to that I’ll add — it is not a highly active account and I am very hands-on managing Quicken data. YMMV. Other users do develop issues. 

taterheart

@Bob_L, I don't need to do that, since I didn't create a new Quicken account. I just linked the downloads from the new Vanguard account to my existing Quicken account.

Bob_L

Sounds good!