How do I manually update a 401K that doent have an online ability with the quartely statements?

vandalinda

How do I manually update a 401K that doent have an online ability with the quartely statement?

Jim_Harman

It depends on what information is provided in the statement and how you have been recording your contributions. It also depends on how much detail you want to record for performance tracking purposes.

Have you been recording all the deductions from your paychecks and employer matches if any as transfers to the 401k account, so the cash balance has been building up?

Does the statement say how many shares of each security you held at the end of the period?

Does it detail all the distributions (dividends and capital gains) and how many shares were bought when the distributions were reinvested?

Does it have each purchase broken out with the dollar amount and number of shares?

If there are fees, does it say how many shares of each security were sold to pay the fees?

 

GeoffG

For any account or investment that does not provide online downloads, you can enter the transactions directly into the register. This is how Quicken had worked for decades. If you are looking for more direction, you need to provide more specifics about your issue.

mshiggins

There is a wizard for recording quarterly statements for a manual 401(k) account. Check the Actions gear in the 401(k) account register.

If I recall correctly, the action is Update 401(k). 

Edit: the Official Guide says the action is Update 401(k) Holdings. 

vandalinda

Jim,

I just started using Quicken. Seems to be a lot of problems But for my work 401K all I get is a quarterly statement. no real online access other than my work HR website. The statement DOES tell me the shares I own and their last amount. Yes to the dividends. No to details on what was bought. No fees and I haven't sold anything. I would think I can literally just update it with the info from the statement?

Thanks for your help

Jim_Harman

@mshiggins is correct that the 401(k) wizard is a simple way to update a manual account. The option is called "Update 401(k) holdings"

However it works by creating Placeholders and cash balance adjustments in your account, which force the balances to be correct but can be a mess to resolve later on if you want to track the account more accurately.

In the end it is up to you. 

mshiggins

Personally, I have always entered my 401(k) transactions manually even when I have had online transaction downloading capability available. I never liked how I couldn't track the contribution source to the downloaded transactions. 

Depending on the number of 401(k) transactions per month, I use either Memorized Investment Transactions with a scheduled transaction group or QIF imports. Currently I have about 10 transactions per month and the Memorized Investment Transactions with a scheduled transaction group works great. When I had around 20 transactions per month, QIF import was a better solution.