Has anyone noticed the new "Simple - Positions Only" tracking method for investment accounts?

Chris_QPW

I was looking at the account details and noticed this new option.


The register is replaced with this page.

miklk

It's been in for a few revisions although hidden at 1st

Looks like a good option for beginners or IRAs where you don't need or want cost basis, performance tracking etc...

It solves placeholders because it just matches what broker sends

Jim_Harman

It was released as "Beta" a couple of versions ago. I have not tried it yet.

Chris_QPW

I'm hoping it works better than the "online loans"!  

I wonder if it will play well with 401K accounts.

Quicken Hugh

@Chris_QPW,
I switched my own 401K acct over to show the Simple tracking method (as it's a target-date fund and I don't, myself, buy or sell from within that acct; I just contribute to the acct and let the fund managers do their thing). The Simple tracking is much more graphic-based, rather than getting into text-based details. I find it to be more of a 'view from 20 thousand feet' - granted, it is different. It's been playing well with Fidelity thus far.

Ps56k2

Chris_QPW said:

I was looking at the account details and noticed this new option.

I played with it when I first discovered it.... now can't find it again.... R29.12

Where or how to find it again ?

BTW.... what version are you running.... @Chris_QPW

Chris_QPW

ps56k said:

Chris_QPW said:

I was looking at the account details and noticed this new option.

I played with it when I first discovered it.... now can't find it again.... R29.12
Where or how to find it again ?

R29.12 might be too old of a release to have it.  It is on the Account Details -> General tab.


I have played with it a bit and not found a problem, but I will point out that there is a thread from one user that said it changed the value of his account by 80%.

I do like the fact that you can switch back (unlike the close account function, or the downloading of loans, ...)

Chris_QPW

P.S. I'm wrong, looking through the release notes it was introduced in R29.9.

Ps56k2

I wonder if it was withdrawn..... as I don't see it now using  - R29.12 -

R29.9 -

Improvement: Added the ability to use the Simple Investing beta when adding investment accounts through the Add Account process.

Chris_QPW

ps56k said:

I wonder if it was withdrawn..... as I don't see it now using  - R29.12 -

It is in the the R29.22 version I'm using.

Jim_Harman

To enable Simple Investing, go to Edit > Preferences> Investment Transactions and check the Enable Simple Investing box. Then the Tracking Method box will appear in the Account Details for your investing accounts.

Ps56k2

Jim_Harman said:

To enable Simple Investing, go to Edit > Preferences> Investment Transactions and check the Enable Simple Investing box. Then the Tracking Method box will appear in the Account Details for your investing accounts.

ARRGHHH - thanks -

might have been reset to OFF between releases... or I forgot -

Chris_QPW

@Jim_Harman Thanks it either defaulted to on for me, or just forgot about that setting.

Chris_QPW

Above I posted that there was a complaint about this feature in another thread.  I see that the person posting that said that it was working for him now.  Thought might be that he didn't wait for Quicken to recalculate.

Jim_Harman

I experimented briefly with this using a test file and a manual account.

It seems to work nicely; the account's transaction list is replaced with a display that looks a lot like the new investing Dashboard. 

To update the share balances in a manual account, you click on the gear at the top right and select Update Share Balance. Be sure to select the security to update by using the down-arrow in this dialog and not by typing in the security name or you may end up creating a new security by mistake.

It is possible to switch back to "Complete" tracking but I noticed that any Placeholders in the original account are replaced with Added or Removed transactions when you switch back. This could make it more difficult to enter all the original transactions at some point in the future. 

I suppose a more likely scenario is that a user would start with simple tracking then switch to Complete for future transactions. This would require some effort to establish the correct cost basis and tax lots.

Boatnmaniac

Some odd behavior observed with Simple Investing enabled when downloading quotes from Fidelity that is not observed when Simple Investing is not enabled:  $1.00/share security prices being downloaded on a Saturday (markets are closed so there should be no securities prices being downloaded at all).  Here's a thread discussing this:  https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20126606#Comment_20126606.

t&bf3YP3

Ver R29.22: I just added several brokerage accounts and used the 'simple investing' option instead of 'complete investing' in the create account dialog box. But the accounts were created with complete transactions and it was necessary to use the 'edit account details' dialog box to convert to 'tracking method: simple - positions only'. However now the price for each position is $1.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Frankx

fganter said:

So I'm clear... Simple tracking does not provide a cost basis for investments? 

Yes, that is correct.

Frankx

Boatnmaniac

fganter said:

So I'm clear... Simple tracking does not provide a cost basis for investments? If so, the Investing tab becomes pretty much worthless for accounts set up for simple tracking.

You are correct.  Simple Investing is intended for people who are mostly interested in tracking account value and don't need or want to track cost basis.  IMO it's perhaps best suited for tax-deferred and tax exempt accounts (such as retirement, medical and education accounts where cap gains/losses and investment expenses have no tax implications) and for people who perhaps use Quicken mostly to manage spending and budgeting and have little interest in using it to track and review investment accounts transactions details.  When you set an investment account to show Simple you will get this popup with more information on this:

If you do switch an account over to Simple, your investment account register will go away and the screen will look like the Dashboard tab of Investments.

Chris_QPW

Boatnmaniac said:

Some odd behavior observed with Simple Investing enabled when downloading quotes from Fidelity that is not observed when Simple Investing is not enabled:  $1.00/share security prices being downloaded on a Saturday (markets are closed so there should be no securities prices being downloaded at all).  Here's a thread discussing this:  https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20126606#Comment_20126606.

Just so people know, the $1 problem is fixed in R31.12.

mscerutti

I am on the latest version and just switched a Fidelity IRA to Simple. I am still experiencing the $1 issue.

Boatnmaniac

I am still seeing the $1 share issue, too.  But I am observing it with MFs that are held in only my one Simple account.  Those MFs that are also held in Complete accounts show the correct share price.

I am running R31.12 so I'd expected to see this issue resolved but apparently it is not.

Chris_QPW

Well I don't know what to say because it is working for me for the one security (FSCRX) I hold at Fidelity that wasn't working in the past.
Data file with Fidelity account in Simple mode, note the extra price on the weekend, but at least it is right:


Data file with Fidelity account in Complete mode:


Are you switching between the two modes in the same data file?
My test is for two different data files that have this account in the two different modes.

@Boatnmaniac You might want to find the thread that @Quicken SangeethaS was posting in on this problem or send a private message.  I'm sure they are going to need more details/logs to figure out what is different about your use case.

Chris_QPW

I found that other thread (because people just posted on it):
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7886052/in-todays-update-multiple-securities-prices-have-been-reset-to-1-00-from-their-actual-price

Boatnmaniac

@Chris_QPW - I was surprised to see this $1 share price issue still existing for me because the issue was supposed to have been corrected with R31.12. 

I don't use Simple except once in a while in Test files so when I saw @mscerutti 's post above stating that the issue still exists I switched one Fidelity Roth IRA account in a Test file from Complete to Simple, then ran OSU and found the issue exists for me, too, for 3 Fidelity MFs that are not held in other accounts.  The other 2 MFs held in this one account are T Rowe Price and they are also held in other Complete accounts and they show correct share prices.The Edit Price History views showed nothing different from this.

I did notice that (as also is shown in in your own post) that the price update for Simple shows today's date (2/13) but for Complete, even after updating the prices today, shows the last price update was for yesterday (2/12).  Why are the share prices for Simple view and Complete view MFs not showing the same date for the last price update?

I just now converted another Complete view account to Simple view (in a different Test file) and then updated prices.  This account also has 3 MFs that are held only in this new Simple view account...and this time the correct prices for 2/13 are shown!  I did not expect to see that based upon the results with the Simple Roth IRA account.

I think before digging into this more I'd like to see what happens with share price updates on 2/14 and 2/15.

Chris_QPW

Boatnmaniac said:

I did notice that (as also is shown in in your own post) that the price update for Simple shows today's date (2/13) but for Complete, even after updating the prices today, shows the last price update was for yesterday (2/12).  Why are the share prices for Simple view and Complete view MFs not showing the same date for the last price update?

The price histories show the problems with Fidelity (and other financial institutions) and "workarounds" employed Quicken.

The fundamental problem that has surfaced from time to time is that Fidelity doesn't update its prices on mutual funds until early the next day, and they give it that day's date instead of the date of the closing price.

This came up before when the Quicken Windows developers optimized the downloading and switched the getting of quotes from the quote server before the getting of transactions, which have the financial institution's date/price in them.  Making the financial institution's date/price override the one from the quote server.

If you look at the prices in my post you will notice that the high/low/volume is zero for the 2/13/2021 price.  This is because that one came from Fidelity.  The prices in the OFX data don't have high/low/volume.

So on Monday, Fidelity doesn't send a new price.  On Tuesday they send the closing price for Monday, but with Tuesday's date.  And on until you get to Saturday with Friday's closing price, but Saturday's date.

So how do you deal with such bad data?
And why doesn't it show up for weekdays for complete, but does for simple?

1. Import price from financial institution.
2. Update price from quote server overriding old price from #1.

That takes care of the days that the market is open.  But you have a bad price to deal with on the first non trading day.

By the price history it is clear that two different approaches have been taken to try to have the right price for non trading days.

In the case of complete they are removing non trading days prices (I wonder if this works on holidays).

In the case of simple in the case of mine they are using the price from the financial institution.  In your case that didn't happen, and they are still getting the $1 price.
You should go into your OFX data and see what Fidelity sent for the prices for your securities that have $1 (both price and date).

One might wonder where this $1 came from, my answer would be "it had to be some number and $1 is just a default".  As in you start to get a quote, you set the quote to $1 and then you go through a process to get the quote, if that process fails, you end up with $1.  This is in fact a very good default for the most part.  Think of all the securities that are "money market" that are $1 equivalents.

ScottShaf

For what I track in Quicken, the simple method seemed nice. It worked for most account but for two 401K's, it worked with I switched to simple, but after I updated accounts, it only showed 'Cash' and a cash amount. Lost all the individual funds. When I switched back to Complete, it still only showed cash. Other accounts that I switched to simple seemed to work ok. Had to revert to a backup to get things working again.

Chris_QPW

ScottShaf said:

For what I track in Quicken, the simple method seemed nice. It worked for most account but for two 401K's, it worked with I switched to simple, but after I updated accounts, it only showed 'Cash' and a cash amount. Lost all the individual funds. When I switched back to Complete, it still only showed cash. Other accounts that I switched to simple seemed to work ok. Had to revert to a backup to get things working again.

That is very strange.  I would submit a problem report and maybe start another thread (Ask a Question) to make it more visible.  To submit a problem report: Help -> Report a Problem (no feedback, but this should go to the development team).

mscerutti

I am still seeing the $1 pricing for non-trading days in a few of the securities. Is there any word on a fix or is there something I need to do in order to get rid of that behavior?

DeCipher

> @ScottShaf said:
> For what I track in Quicken, the simple method seemed nice. It worked for most account but for two 401K's, it worked with I switched to simple, but after I updated accounts, it only showed 'Cash' and a cash amount. Lost all the individual funds. When I switched back to Complete, it still only showed cash. Other accounts that I switched to simple seemed to work ok. Had to revert to a backup to get things working again.

I'm having the same issue. I added two accounts from different institutions (one is a 401k and the other is a brokerage) and it puts everything in the cash balance for both accounts when using simple tracking.