How to fix missing data in investment accounts

Dianalytical

This is my own fault for being lazy. I have 7+ years of unentered transactions for some brokerage and IRA accounts. I'd just like to update the bottom line balance to have an idea of net worth (but haven't figured out how to do this), and then start dowloading/entering transactions again. I don't want to delete the historical data I have in there already. Would it be better just to add duplicate accounts (if that is even possible) and start over adding transactions at the beginning of the year? I currently have Quicken 2013 Premier for Windows, but will probably update soon to 2020.

Tom Young

I don't think that keeping historical data that's 7+ years old will necessarily do much good at this point and it probably would be easier to start with a clean slate, i.e., a new Quicken file, but that's up to you.

If all you really want to do is to monitor your net worth then it's probably easiest to simply enter balances as of 12/31/2019 per the various brokerage and IRA account.  For example, if your Quicken file states that you have 27 shares of Company X stock in your Schwab account, but your Schwab account statement tells you that you have 172 shares of that stock at 12/31/2019, then a 12/31/2019 "Add" entry of 145 shares (if you make the entry in your current file, 172 in a new file) would bring you "up to date" for that stock in that Account.  If it happens that the financial institutions have accurate cost information for your holdings then within that "Add" entry you could enter a "per share cost" for the added shares that brings Quicken's cost basis in line with the financial institution.

Jim_Harman

Or, if you want to preserve some record of your investment performance and net worth over time, you could do a 12/31 Add or Remove as described above for each of the missing years, to match your year end statements.

For taxable accounts, there is some benefit in recording all the transactions for securities you still hold or sold in 2019, because that gives you an accurate record of your capital gains and losses.    

rarandles

I have a very similar situation with 6+ accounts at Schwab that are out of date. But I also have several other accounts in Quicken that are up to date that I do not want to lose. So starting with a new Quicken file is not an option. I'm considering the following steps to archive my old account data and then loading in the institution's existing records and transactions for my current accounts.

1) Make a copy of my existing QDF file to save my historical records and create a backup QDF file should I ever need it if this process does not work.

2) Open and use Quicken, do a Quicken backup. Steps 1 and 2 give me 2 backups to fall back on if the following steps to do not produce the results I'm expecting.

3) After the successful backups, delete the 6+ Schwab accounts using my existing Quicken [QDF] file.

4) Using Quicken, do another backup [to fall back on if necessary].

5) Add a new [Charles Schwab] account in Quicken and create the link between Quicken and Charles Schwab to do Updates and download transactions. I believe that in Quicken this will create all the accounts and download as many transactions that Schwab has on record for these accounts.

6) Then I can go to the 1st entry in each account to adjust (if necessary) my beginning "opening" account balance if necessary.

If these are the right steps, I have a question.
I am really only interested in existing securities in these Schwab accounts. I'm not interested in any of the securities that were in these accounts some years back. Should I go in and "clean out" my Schwab securities so I get a clean fresh start on these "new" accounts and securities in Quicken?

Thanks in advance.

Jim_Harman

If you are running a current version of Quicken you may want to use the Archiving process. This will move the transactions for securities you no longer own to an archive account in your current data file.

You are right to back up first in case you do not like the results.