how do you set up an HSA?

beckers

I have an hsa (health equity) and I can dl transactions to it and quicken set it up as a savings account. I don't see how I can keep track of the investments in the account as well though. How do I do that? thanks

NotACPA

My wife's HSA is with HealthEquity also.  It downloads the deposit and spending transactions into a savings type account in Q via Express Web Connect ... and seems to do a reasonable job of doing so.

We, however (I manage her finances) don't keep enough money in the HSA to qualify for investments there.  Instead, we keep in enough to cover anticipated expenses, and put the rest into her retirement accounts (a 403b that offers Fidelity funds, among others, as investment choices).

Do some research into that VIGIX fund (and the other).  Is it the EXACT same fund as the Fidelity  Vanguard [Edit] Fund company corrected [/Edit] offering?  I've run into several circumstances where the same fund name is used ... but the actual offering is "units" rather than shares of the named funds ...  and the units don't have the same NAV (cost) or performance as the named fund.

Frankx

Okay, so it actually does include investments. But is only has a description "Investment in VIGIX" and just an amount (but not the number of shares being purchased).  That's interesting. 

BTW - VIGIX is a Vanguard fund - the full name is "Vanguard Growth index Fund Institutional Shares".  Those are shares that institutional investors can buy however aren't available to retail investors.

While technically you have an "investment" type account, I still would suggest that you just set up a "savings" type HSA in Quicken and here's why:

a) if you use an investment type account, you'll need to try to interpolate the number of shares that are owned with each purchase.  And while that can be done, the real question is whether it is worth the time and effort.

b) it will be easy enough for you to periodically record the change in account balance due to the "investment performance" by simply adding an "interest income" entry when you receive your periodic statements.  That will keep the account's balance correct and will clearly be the less complicated approach.

Hope this helps.  Feel free to post back with any questions on the above.

Frankx

Frankx

Hi @beckers,

There isn't an "HSA" type of account as part of Quicken's menu, so most folks that track their HSA in Quicken use the "savings account" type (which is what you have now).  But since you've indicated that your HSA has investments - and because you cannot hold investments in a Quicken "savings account"- you may want to set your HSA account up as either a "brokerage" or an "IRA" type account.  You should be able to then setup the account for download.

Let us know if you have any followup questions or issues as you go through the setup process.

Frankx

beckers

setting it up as "savings" ignores the investment part. Setting it up as brokerage, it tells me via express web connect, it can't download the same transactions that it downloaded as savings (the buys of mutual funds and dividends being paid). I tried adding as IRA and got the same thing, that there are 0 transactions. i guess i could manually enter it until there is an HSA type of account. Is there something else I can try?

NotACPA

You MIGHT need 2 accounts. A brokerage type account AND a Savings type account.  With periodic BuyX, SellX transaction to move money between the 2.

beckers

that's kind of what i was thinking though it's only a few xactions per month, it might just be worth entering manually as a brokerage account and not downloading at all. We just got moved from BNY Mellon to healthequity so it's only from May, 2020

Frankx

Hi again @beckers,

You are on the right track.

Using a brokerage account and entering transactions manually, especially since you won't be able to download from healthequity anyway, is the way to go.

Frankx

beckers

doesn't seem like they give individual xactions, like "you put in $400, you bought X shares of Y". bah. but thanks

Frankx

Hi @beckers,

Maybe I read into your initial post above.  You said "I don't see how I can keep track of the investments in the account as well though." which led me to believe that there were investments in the account, rather than just a cash balance.

So if it really has no "investments", which is how many HSA's are setup, you'll actually be better off just going with a "savings" account rather than a brokerage account.  Again, sorry if there was any confusion...

Frankx

beckers

no, there are investments, two mutual funds, and then cash. so when i dl as savings, it lists the investments as just "investment VIGIX" but doesn't actually say how many shares or keep a running total. it just considers the xactions as a payment but to no one.

NotACPA

My wife's HSA is with HealthEquity also.  It downloads the deposit and spending transactions into a savings type account in Q via Express Web Connect ... and seems to do a reasonable job of doing so.

We, however (I manage her finances) don't keep enough money in the HSA to qualify for investments there.  Instead, we keep in enough to cover anticipated expenses, and put the rest into her retirement accounts (a 403b that offers Fidelity funds, among others, as investment choices).

Do some research into that VIGIX fund (and the other).  Is it the EXACT same fund as the Fidelity  Vanguard [Edit] Fund company corrected [/Edit] offering?  I've run into several circumstances where the same fund name is used ... but the actual offering is "units" rather than shares of the named funds ...  and the units don't have the same NAV (cost) or performance as the named fund.

Frankx

Okay, so it actually does include investments. But is only has a description "Investment in VIGIX" and just an amount (but not the number of shares being purchased).  That's interesting. 

BTW - VIGIX is a Vanguard fund - the full name is "Vanguard Growth index Fund Institutional Shares".  Those are shares that institutional investors can buy however aren't available to retail investors.

While technically you have an "investment" type account, I still would suggest that you just set up a "savings" type HSA in Quicken and here's why:

a) if you use an investment type account, you'll need to try to interpolate the number of shares that are owned with each purchase.  And while that can be done, the real question is whether it is worth the time and effort.

b) it will be easy enough for you to periodically record the change in account balance due to the "investment performance" by simply adding an "interest income" entry when you receive your periodic statements.  That will keep the account's balance correct and will clearly be the less complicated approach.

Hope this helps.  Feel free to post back with any questions on the above.

Frankx

beckers

yeah, i think that is the right way to go, leave it as savings.

and notacpa, vigix and fidelity have nothing to do with each so i'm confused as to the question

NotACPA

beckers said:

yeah, i think that is the right way to go, leave it as savings.

and notacpa, vigix and fidelity have nothing to do with each so i'm confused as to the question

See my correction.

beckers

thanks. i'll see what health equity says about giving me actual transactions.

beckers

in the interest of anyone else, if you want to see individual purchases and how many shares of each mutual fund you bought, goto investment desktop->portfolio performance_> enter a date, then you can download all investments and manually enter them into quicken. that's how to get each buy since they do not show up on the statements