Single Mutual Fund Account (Yes/No)

Gary Ellsworth

I have quite a few mutual funds and I have been tracking them for years setting up each fund as a single mutual fund account. I am thinking about changing this to NOT having them set up as single mutual fund accounts. My reason is to make it easier to track non-qualified, Traditional IRA, and ROTH IRA investments.

Are there pitfalls to making this change in Quicken? I know there is a simple switch on each funds edit window. I don't know the ramifications of changing this setting. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The brokerage issues a different account number for non-qualified, Traditional IRA, and Roth IRA funds. Within each of these accounts, they use a fund #, i.e. 1, 2, 3, ....27, 28 etc., to designate the individual funds within the account.

q_lurker

Have you ben managing these manually or through downloads from the Financial Institutions (FI)? 

Some FIs require one account per fund; some will do it either way.  If you have been using downloads, you will need to check with the FI and coordinate with them.  If they are flexible on the issue, they may need to change some of your account numbers.  (They would currently have unique account numbers for each fund account even within the Trad IRA, Roth IRA accounts, etc.  noting your reference to #s 1, 2, 3, ... 28).  Vanguard I understand to be flexible.  T Rowe Price and American Funds are not as far as I know.  

If you have been managing all this separately and manually, there should be no big deal to the change.  January 1 would make a great transition date (IMO).  I would:
a) BACKUP your data file -- just in case
b)  Set up a new Quicken account for each real-world account (Trad IRA, Roth IRA, non-retirement, his, hers, ours, etc.)
c)  Use the Shares Transferred (Enter Transactions button) to transfer all shares from existing accounts to composite account.
d)  After a while, you might choose to hide the old accounts.  That might be a few weeks, months, or years down the line.  (I am not a fan of 'closing' such accounts, but that too is an option.        

q_lurker

Have you ben managing these manually or through downloads from the Financial Institutions (FI)? 

Some FIs require one account per fund; some will do it either way.  If you have been using downloads, you will need to check with the FI and coordinate with them.  If they are flexible on the issue, they may need to change some of your account numbers.  (They would currently have unique account numbers for each fund account even within the Trad IRA, Roth IRA accounts, etc.  noting your reference to #s 1, 2, 3, ... 28).  Vanguard I understand to be flexible.  T Rowe Price and American Funds are not as far as I know.  

If you have been managing all this separately and manually, there should be no big deal to the change.  January 1 would make a great transition date (IMO).  I would:
a) BACKUP your data file -- just in case
b)  Set up a new Quicken account for each real-world account (Trad IRA, Roth IRA, non-retirement, his, hers, ours, etc.)
c)  Use the Shares Transferred (Enter Transactions button) to transfer all shares from existing accounts to composite account.
d)  After a while, you might choose to hide the old accounts.  That might be a few weeks, months, or years down the line.  (I am not a fan of 'closing' such accounts, but that too is an option.        

Gary Ellsworth

Thank you for the response. I manage by download, hence being nervous about making significant changes. I backed up earlier, and will see what happens. I also may just see if I can get the look I want using reports. Thanks again!

KellyB3

:) This was so helpful! I have American Funds (2 new inherited accounts with 9 funds) and they downloaded as single funds which really cluttered up my account bar. I first created and named two new (non-single fund) accounts and then transferred shares (per suggestion above) to these accounts. Now, instead of 9 single funds I have 2 composite accounts (IRA and Non-IRA). Very pleased, thank you.

Jim_Harman

@KellyB3,

If you are downloading transactions for these accounts, a change may be required at the American end to send the downloads to the combined accounts.

q_lurker

Jim_Harman said:

@KellyB3,

If you are downloading transactions for these accounts, a change may be required at the American end to send the downloads to the combined accounts.

I believe American Funds only supports the one fund / one account setup. With @KellyB3 taking the different approach I do not believe he will have a download option. 

MJH113

I'm new to this topic. I need to have metrics going back to the first entry (28 years ago). Will using the Shares Transferred button still allow me to have results that are all encompassing? I don't want to start new metrics.

Jim_Harman

@MJH113

What metrics are you using?

With Shares transferred between accounts, the Investment Performance Report and the corresponding Avg. Annual Return (%) columns in the Portfolio views will be correct if you include both the old and new accounts in the analysis. Other Portfolio View columns may not carry over, because the Amount Invested will be reset.

MJH113

Jim Harman,

Thanks for your reply.

For 28 years I have been using Single Mutual Fund accounts for six different funds. My report includes custom %ROI, %Gain/Loss off the Portfolio View page as well as their AARs. Four of the Vanguard mutual funds have had conversions, one of them twice. Two of the early conversions had no price/share change and I just use the last ticker symbol for the entire investment from day one. One fund had a very small two cent/share change. The fourth one has had a significant price change. I have used the Shares Transferred on the last two funds mentioned. The overall portfolio has had significant funds sold for a major project 10 years ago and will grow for another project in 65 years.

I have noted that the Portfolio View metrics %ROI and %Gain/Loss appear to be triggered by the ticker symbol and therefore "reset" when a conversion takes place even though all the investment remains the same, i.e. I lose those two metrics from the initial investment. The AARs are still accurate as all the appropriate ticker symbols and data are included in the report setup.

Is there a way to recover the %ROI and %Gain/Loss metrics from the initial purchases?

Jim_Harman

@MJH113

You are certainly doing long term planning if you next major project is 65 years from now!

If you transfer shares between accounts, Quicken's Amount Invested is reset and thus the initial investment amount will not carry over to the new account. This will affect both the ROI % and the Gain/Loss.

I don't use those measures, but if they are important to you, one approach if you are consolidating accounts and transferring the shares in kind would be to move the transactions from the old account to the new one. With that approach it would be as if the holdings were all in one account all along.

This is a major change to you data file, so you should always have a fresh backup handy in case the result is not what you wanted.

We can discuss that further if you want.

Ps56k2

TROWE is still the Single Account - I have 3 mutual funds and therefore 3 TRowe accounts and 3 Quicken defined accounts -

MJH113

Jim Harman,

Thank you again for your reply. I am the committee chain for our private island HOA; the investments are for the island's bridge replacement in 2089, the last replacement was 2014. Given my age I will obviously have to pass the baton in the near future.

It sounds like the most efficient would be to do away with the %ROI and %Gain/Loss and just use the AAR. I consider it the most useful anyway, I was just trying to give the Board of Trustees as much info as possible. We will be undertaking some conversions to ETFs in the future and I may get back to you if I can't work it out.

Thank again.