How to track IRA w/o entering individual securities

dghilpert

I have several managed IRAs with numerous securities (stocks & ETFs). The prices/shares can't automatically download. I would like to at least update the overall value once a month but don't see a way to do this. Everything I've tried affects the cash balance. Create a fake security with a share balance of 1 and change the price? Thanks for your ideas.

volvogirl

That's what I would do.  Or actually make the price $1 and change the # of shares.  I do a reinvest Div to adjust the shares.

Sherlock

If you don't want to maintain the security holdings, I suggest you maintain the balance as cash: open the IRA, press Ctrl + Shift + N, and select Update Cash Balance...

Frankx

Hi @dghilpert,

I have see other posts in the past where users have reported that they have created "fake securities" when the "securities" they hold aren't publicly traded, or where the prices weren't downloadable, so yes, I think that is something you could do to at least have the value of your holdings in your IRA accounts reflected in your Quicken application. 

The other option, would be to setup the actual "securities" that you own in Quicken manually, and then record each transaction that takes place while periodically also manually changing the prices when you receive update prices from statements provided by the plan, or by logging in to an online account.  This would obviously be a lot more work for you but, it likely will give you a better way to track performance.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

Ps56k2

dghilpert said:  Create a fake security with a share balance of 1 and change the price? Thanks for your ideas.

just a note.... I would UPDATE the Price List for the security for each touch, so you would retain some kind of market value history.

dghilpert

Thanks all. In reply I think that keeping the share price at $1 would not allow me to track the history of the value even though I would be keeping my paper statements (old guy). I started out tracking it as cash and realized that's throwing off my actual total cash balance so that's out. Way to much work to track manually now. As I concentrate more of my other accounts into the IRAs it may make sense.

Jim_Harman

If you keep the share price at $1.00, you Add and Remove shares to make the balance match your statements, so you will have a record of the historical balances. That is probably the easiest way to handle it, especially if you have ongoing cash contributions to the account. When you make a contribution, the cash goes into the account and you Buy shares at $1.00 to use up the cash.