Simple Portfolio Tracking - flipping back and forth - issues ?

Ps56k2

Has anyone noticed any anomolies using the new Simple Portfolio Tracking (beta) feature when turning it ON and then reverting back to "register mode" - and then turning it ON again.

I happen to have a series of Vanguard mutual fund exchanges, and had clicked the Vanguard account to use the Simple Portfolio feature.... and the balance share amounts were way off.  I then reverted back to "register mode" to see the transactions - and found that Quicken had not only recorded the Exchange transaction, but had also entered an ADDED share transaction - thus duplicating the actual number of shares manipulated.

I basically deleted all the ADDED transactions, and the Quicken register now matched the Vanguard website share amounts.

With too many moving parts for this event - didn't know who the bad guy was....

Jim_Harman

@ps56k

I have only tried simple investing with a manual account, but I found that Please see this discussion.
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7882085/has-anyone-noticed-the-new-simple-positions-only-tracking-method-for-investment-accounts#latest

I have only tried simple investing with a manual account, but I found that switching to Simple investing converts any Placeholders in the account to Adds or Removes. Also manual transactions entered while in Simple mode will not have the correct cost basis and purchase dates.

Chris_QPW

Well I have tried it with my vanguard account and it seemed to work okay but you are looking at changing one that has all the transactions to one that in the future will not record all the transactions.

So it seems to me that going from simple to full transactions implies that you're going to have a gap of transactions.

Put another way when flipping back and forth with a account that started with full transactions it works fine from what I can see because switching to simple doesn't remove transactions. So when you switch back it's just like where you left it. But that isn't going to happen if you're downloading using the simple case where doesn't record all the transactions.

Note that I have made a little bit of assumptions here since I have very few transactions downloaded each month I have not actually downloaded transactions in simple mode.  But I can't see any way that in simple mode they would be recording the full transactions in the background. Because who trusts Quicken to fill in all the transactions 100% correct all the time?

Ps56k2

Chris_QPW said:  Put another way when flipping back and forth with a account that started with full transactions it works fine from what I can see because switching to simple doesn't remove transactions. So when you switch back it's just like where you left it. But that isn't going to happen if you're downloading using the simple case where doesn't record all the transactions.

Interesting points.... I'll have to keep that in mind and play a little next time when some monthly bond transactions are pending

Dennis Mahoney

So I'm inferring from these comments that the best practice would be to keep all accounts in Complete view and only shift to Simple view briefly to look at the summary information (which I like) but then go back to Complete view before downloading your investment accounts?
There are a couple of display features that would make the account balance graph in the lower right quadrant more useful: 1. Allow different time units e.g. week or quarter for looking at a shorter or longer time period; 2. Allow viewer to click on one of column values and have its color change to red while having program set its value as 100% and show other account values as a percent of total. Here is what I mean (from an unrelated program).

Chris_QPW

@Dennis Mahoney I would say that is true, but watch out, some people are reporting a bug in it where when you changed to simple investing they are getting security quotes of $1.  And if you like this view, you might like looking at the Dashboard on the investing tab.

BTW since I posted this comment, I have confirmed that while in simple mode if you download transactions you will get Add/Remove kinds of transactions, not the "complete" transactions.

BK

Dennis Mahoney said:

So I'm inferring from these comments that the best practice would be to keep all accounts in Complete view and only shift to Simple view briefly to look at the summary information (which I like) but then go back to Complete view before downloading your investment accounts?

Chris_QPW said:

@Dennis Mahoney I would say that is true, but watch out, some people are reporting a bug in it where when you changed to simple investing they are getting security quotes of $1.  And if you like this view, you might like looking at the Dashboard on the investing tab.

BTW since I posted this comment, I have confirmed that while in simple mode if you download transactions you will get Add/Remove kinds of transactions, not the "complete" transactions.

Thanks to these comments, this is more than just a view.  If this is by design where Quicken's intention is to not download the complete detailed transactions [hidden in the background] in Simple method, then they should post a clear pop-up warning message that reverting back to the Complete method after a while results in some transaction gaps.  And educate new users to make an informed selection.  Just an opinion given what I have learned so far.

Chris_QPW

They do have a very lengthy message on it when you switch, but totally agree that there needs to be a warning in that message of the ramifications of switching back and forth.

Dennis Mahoney

Thanks for the comments. I did experience $1 share price on some accounts and went into price history to delete them