Tracking Investments

Question

I've been using Quicken to track my finances for about 20 years, mostly focusing on bank and credit card accounts.  [Currently using Quicken 2020 Deluxe for Windows.]  Over time, due to lack of my paying attention to investment accounts, those accounts have become filled with garbage (old mutual funds I no longer own, etc).  I want to start again, and carefully track investments in Quicken.  However, I don't want to delete the old accounts because there are transactions in there (e.g., when I invested money from my checking account) that are transfers from the "accurate" bank accounts that I don't want to get scrambled.

So, trying to figure out the best way to do this.  I have investment accounts that can both be downloaded (e.g., from Vanguard) and others that will need to be tracked manually.  I'm thinking that I should proceed as follows:
 1)  Hide the existing investment accounts.
 2)  Set up entirely new investment accounts, and, where possible, set them up to download from e.g., Vanguard.

However, when I download from Vanguard, will it download all my historical info?  I don't care if it doesn't track every past transaction, but it would be nice to have the detail for the cost basis of mutual funds that I currently own.  I suppose I can enter this manually, but if there's a way to download, that would obviously be easier.

Also, when I run reports, am I going to have a problem with the "hidden" investment accounts being included?  Do I somehow have to zero those accounts out, so it doesn't create a problem?

Or am I thinking about this completely incorrectly and there's a better way to proceed?

Fred9719 · Answer

Thanks to both of you.  Very helpful.

Jim_Harman · Answer

Closing the old accounts is a one-time, irreversible operation. Instead, you can mark them as Separate. This will keep them alive but remove them from your reports and net worth.

Quicken_Tyka · Answer

Hello @Fred9719

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to report this issue, although I apologize that you have not received a response.

The steps and process you have outlined, are sound are would work for what you have described that you need.

When adding an account new, the amount of transaction history that will be downloaded varies depending on the financial institution. Brokerage accounts use Direct Connect and typically download a bit more information, up to 18 months or so.

As far as reporting, you may consider closing the account to zero the balance. However, you will have the option to customize reports to include the accounts that you would like to show.

I hope this helps!
-Quicken Tyka