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.