Why not a Year End Roll Function for closed out Stock positions for Investment Accounts?

Reysanp

I've been a long time Quicken user. I just learned about the archive transaction function but it's not the answer I'm looking for. I do like keeping records for a long while but I think 10 years is all I prefer. I have investment accounts with transactions dated in the year 2000.

I would like quicken to delete investment transactions with closed out positions prior to a certain date that I specify with the year end roll.

As it is, I think the only way I can accomplish this is to go to the archive account with the transactions of closed out positions and delete each transaction related to each security to keep the balances correct while deleting the old transactions. Is my thinking correct? Is there an easier method that someone has figured out?

q_lurker

I've got transactions in my file dating back 30 years.  

What is your bigger objective?  Why the need to "delete transactions"?

I do find as the transaction count in a given account does get 'large', performance can decay.  "Large" is as defined by the user based on the performance decay and related computer hardware and software setups.

When I find the decay excessive (per my standards), I open a new account, use Shares Transferred to move existing holdings to the new account leaving all historical in the older account for later review, and possibly correction if needed.  I do not bother with 'closing' the older account.  Though the option to archive has been available for a while, that also is a tool I have not used.  I don't see the need, in my usage.   

Reysanp

My bigger objective is to limit my file to a rolling 10 years for both regular accounts and investment accounts. I already did the “open new accounts and transfer shares” back in 2017. I had to do that because there was an error that I couldn’t resolve even with Quicken customer support. My earliest transactions go back to only 2000 because my file got corrupted in one of the upgrades otherwise it’d longer than 30 years. I’ve got securities that I’d like to delete but I can’t because I have transactions with those securities. I have accounts I’d like to delete. 10 years is pretty liberal considering an IRS audit can go back only 7 years. There’s no reason to keep track of investment positions that have been closed out over ten years ago. An argument can be made for even less than ten.

q_lurker

I understand the "may not need" viewpoint.  What I am trying to ask is what do you expect to gain by doing so? 

1. Easier navigation within the program? 
2. Better performance (program responsiveness)? 
3. Less chance of corruption? 
4. Less clutter for you to sift through?
5. Something else?  

Reysanp

1) Less chance of corruption and avoiding the two problems I previously encountered that I had to resolve by creating a whole new quicken file or creating new accounts.
2) Less clutter for me to sift through with fewer accounts and fewer securities. Yes, they're hidden but they're still there.
3) Smaller size files in both main and backups that take up space and bandwidth when I sync them to cloud directories.
4) More closer starting dates for all the accounts instead of year 2000 for investment accounts and 2010 for all others. I have transfer transactions in my investment accounts to regular accounts that still exist that those transactions don't exist in the regular accounts anymore because they've been rolled over.
5) Quicken investing and account balance reports are being affected by the old investment transaction records.
6) I've already rolled over the non-investment accounts and now the periods covered by the investment accounts and non-investment accounts are not matching.

Frankx

Hi @Reysanp,

While your preferences (at least that's what they appear to be in my view) are to limit the years of data in your datafile, those are not necessarily the preferences of all Quicken users.  To go a bit further, I suspect that most users want, and even need, to have a complete record of their transactions, and I would fall into that group.  We don't live by the IRS's audit limitations of 7 years.

The "benefits" you cite above are clearly yours, but I doubt that you are in the majority. There is absolutely nothing preventing you to starting a new file every x number of years, and the consequences of your "roll-over" (#5 and #6 above) are of your own doing.

Frankx

Reysanp

Frankx, you say you doubt that I am in the majority in what I want but do you really have any statistics or reference to back that up other than it's not your preference or a few of the users you've known?

The consequences of my roll-overs are not my own doing. First, Quicken provides that feature and provides literature for it. Second, I've had to truncate or roll-over my Quicken files when it wouldn't fit in a single Iomega zip drive. I've been using Quicken for that long and even before that.

q_lurker

@Reysanp Thanks for the clarifications.  My reason to push farther on that was to get those aspects on the table for developers to consider.  Yes, those may be your 'likes' or preferences.  We (as other users) are not in a position to evaluate how many users share those opinions. 

I happen to be in the camp that would not use that feature, but that does not mean it should not be developed further (beyond the current 'archive' option).  Whether any of those 'gains' (your 1 through 6) balance against the development 'costs' is for others to decide. 

I'll suggest a moderator (@Quicken Sarah) move this discussion to the Ideas area to be voted on.  

Bob_L

Wow, I have one of those omega Zip drives up in my attic along with my TRS-80.

Reysanp

> @Bob_L said:
> Wow, I have one of those omega Zip drives up in my attic along with my TRS-80. :p

Yep. I moved from that set up to having my Quicken folder and backups folder in an encrypted volume in my drive synced regularly to encrypted volumes in two separate cloud services (in case one goes kaput) backed up to local USB drives and a third cloud backup service.

Reysanp

@Quicken Sarah Yes, if you can move this discussion where it might get traction, I'd appreciate it.

To add to my post, Quicken already has the logic to figure out which positions have been closed in order to move the transactions to an "archive" account and make adjustments to the original account. The next step remaining would be to delete transactions related to stock positions closed out before a specified date and add any necessary adjustments to the cash balance.

q_lurker

The Idea post
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7885050/equivalent-year-end-copy-truncate-function-for-closed-out-stock-positions-in-investment-accounts
Just to close out the cross-linking for those interested.