Subscription coming due - time to upgrade Starter to track Investments

330ScottO

Greetings all. I am running Quicken Starter for Win and my annual subscription is coming due on April 3rd. I want to do a better job of tracking my investments (401k, Money Market, Individual Stocks, etc.) so it looks like I need to upgrade to Deluxe at the minimum. Maybe Premier?

Have a couple of questions:

1) Do I have to rebuild the history for my investments or can I just plug in the current financials as of a given point in time and go forward from there? For example X number of shares at $$$ per share on April 4th.

2) Are some of these investments updated on a real-time basis? I would think that individual stocks may be but that more complicated investments such as my 401k may need to be manually updated, which I don't think will be a big deal.

3) If I change plans from within my Quicken account, is the upgrade pretty painless.

Fwiw, my Starter version does have one investment account setup. Don't remember if I was able to somehow setup it up or if it migrated over from an earlier version of Quicken.

If anyone can provide some insight into my upgrade questions, I would appreciate it.

Scott

NotACPA

1) The choice is yours.  "Plug" is simpler, but "rebuild" will provide more complete and more accurate investment reports.  The setup for the investment account is where you'd make this decision.

2) Normally, investments are only updated when you choose to "Update Quotes".  BUT, there is a parameter that you can set to update ALL quotes every 15 minutes.  The type of account ("regular" vs IRA vs 401k) doesn't matter ... but the type of security MAY matter.  "Update Quotes" can also be set to happen once at a specified time and day of the week. I update mine at 7am 6 days a week.

3) Your Starter data file is completely compatible with a Deluxe data file.  So there's no conversion required.  Just buy and install the newer, upgraded product.

RE: that investment account.  IF you do TOOLS, Account List and then click EDIT adjacent to the account name, what "Account Type" is shown?  Because Starter doesn't support Investment accounts ... and this account will come over as what it truly is  in Q.

330ScottO

Thanks for the replies. Appreciate it.

1.) Think I will just plug in the data instead of rebuilding the history. The managers of my DSPP's, for example, already have my transactions in their records including the cost basis'. From that point I will manually add reinvested dividends and add'l purchases. Should be good enough.

2.) I don't need up to the minute quotes and as long as I have some flexibility in setting up when those updates do occur, I should be good. Guessing that I can force quotes as well.

Also, I looked at the Account List and the one "Investing" account that is listed in the Account Bar is not there. Neither is the "Property & Debt" entry that I have. Just the Spending, Savings and Credit accounts. However when I click on the stock, it displays probably close to 50 transactions from when I first purchased the stock in 2011. It had to have gotten imported from and earlier version of Quicken some how. I may delete both the Investing & Property/Debt accounts before I upgrade to avoid the potential for some sort of data corruption.

Thank you again,

Scott

thecreator

Hi @330ScottO ,

You don't need to delete anything. Starting with the new version of Quicken, it now does an Automatic Backup of your current data file, automatically, for all Users.

The information is only found in the

If something does go wrong, simply restore the data file.

See the Release Notes:  

Open Quicken. Click Help. Click Release Notes.

For Version 32.10 under Improvements

See:

Release Notes from the program, does not match the Published Release Notes, found on the Web at: https://www.quicken.com/support/update-and-patch-20182019-release-quicken-windows-subscription-product 

NotACPA

@330ScottO at some time in the past did you downgrade to Starter?

If so, your investment account(s) would have been grandfathered in ... but they'd have no functionality.

You can't create an investment account in Starter. 
Starter just doesn't have that function.

330ScottO

And that is what gets to the core of my need to upgrade. That I can see the one stock, but am unable to create new investments.

My workaround has been to create and treat my investments as cash accounts. And that works, but there has to be a better way. I.E., having them set up as true investment accounts. Politely put, I can be a little too detailed oriented at times.

I have been using Quicken for probably over 20 years, so more than likely the one investment account that I can see was, as you said, grandfathered in. Btw, I can manually enter transactions into that investment account and it looks like I can have Quicken download transactions as well if I want to bother setting it up.

I still have the question of when to do the upgrade. I would think that a Quicken Customer Service rep would be able to provide the answer in 30 seconds for me. Alas I cannot locate a phone number for them and they have yet to answer the question in the Quicken Facebook group. Customer service across the board has really gone downhill these last few years.

Frankx

Hi @330ScottO

Here's a phone number for Quicken Support (650) 250-1900.

Good luck going forward.

Frankx

330ScottO

Thanks Frank. Although maybe I should have called a little earlier. I guess 5:11 PM is probably too late for Customer Service to be working.

"Thank you for calling Quicken.
Our office is currently closed.
Please try your call again when we resume normal business hours.

CLICK"

:D Okay. I will. By the way, what are your "normal" business hours? :/

It stopped amazing me years ago. Now I just shake my head at the ineptitude going on in this world.

But thank you again, Frank, notA and TC.

jrich75

Here is what they say on the Quicken Support page:

What is the Quicken Support phone number?

The Quicken Support phone number is 650-250-1900.  Phone support is available from 5:00am PT to 5:00pm PT, Monday through Friday.  To see current wait times,

http://www.quicken.com/contact-support

So, you'll need to wait until next week but Chat is open on weekends.  Click on the

Talk to Support button in the above link for access to Chat.

330ScottO

jrich, where did you get that? I am running the current version of Google Chrome as my browser and when I click "Talk to Support", nothing happens. No new page, or tab or pop-up. Nothing. I have been there before and keep getting the same results - nothing.

So I just tried it in MS Edge and I do get a pop-up but since both chat & phone support are closed I am unable to go any further. Possibly the phone support number is buried deeper in the pop-up? Guessing so.

I wonder what and where the problem is? You know, I just don't care.

I will check chat in the morning or call on Monday.

Thanks for the assistance.

thecreator

Hi @330ScottO ,

Google Chrome Version is 89.0.4389.90 (64-Bit)

If you don't know Quicken Investment Accounts that well, it might be a good idea for you to upgrade to Quicken Premier as oppose to Deluxe, since you would be getting Free Access to Premium Support from Quicken without waiting on hold for a long time.

Just a thought.

Also see this FAQ:  https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7307115/add-your-quicken-information-to-your-posts-plus-how-you-are-connected-to-the-internet