How Do I Close an Investment Account?

billr

How do I close an investment account in Quicken for Windows 10? Am transferring securities from one broker to another. I can download the transfers using the update function for the new account. Then I would want to close the old account. Am running Quicken Premier, v. R32.10, Build 27.1.32.10, Windows 10 Home. Thanks.

Tom Young

I don't think you do want to "Close" that old investment Account.  When you do your transfer of securities from one broker to another, ("Shares Transferred Between Accounts" and "Cash Transferred Out of Account" actions), you only move the securities and cash.  All the transactions that brought you to those positions and cash balance remain in the old Account.  You may have occasion to want to refer to those transactions and you'd certainly want those transactions for investment metrics. Closing an Account in Quicken basically removes all that history.

You'd probably want to Hide the Account and/or Keep it Separate so that it's no longer on the Account Bar and won't show up in current balance sheet reports.

Frankx

Hi @billr

When you move (or transfer) an account in its entirety from one broker to another I strongly suggest that you not create a new account in Quicken at all.  Rather, I suggest that you:

1) "deactivate" the connection for the old account;
2) once deactivated, simply change the name and account number from the "Old" broker to the "New" broker;
3) reactivate online connection with the new broker.
4) add a "memo" in the "comments box" located on the "Account Details" - "General" tab indicating the transfer details (including the name and acct. # of the old broker; date of the transfer, etc.)

This retains all the account history for the account, including all investment statistics.

Frankx

maxwelwp

I have actually done this a few time this year.

Create your new investment account if it does not exist.
Go to the account you want to transfer from
From enter transactions button of the account transferring from, select shares transferred between accounts
From this box, select the required options
All of your share data including history will transfer to the new account
After you are done, you can deactivate and close the old investment account
Activate the new account for downloads. Once the new investment firm has the transfer, you can simply accept the transaction in the new account.
I have found as soon as the shares in the old account have completed transfer, the account is deactivated for download on their end and you may not be able to download that transaction into the old account.
Hope this helps.

Jim_Harman

A couple of additions/corrections to @maxwelwp's otherwise clear instructions:
-- I would  not close the old account. Once it is empty, you can hide it and/or mark it as Separate.
-- Since you have manually transferred the holdings from the old account to the new, you should delete or not accept downloaded transactions that duplicate this transfer.

I prefer this method to @Frankx's approach, because it more accurately reflects what happened in real life, and if there are thousands of transactions in the old account, your performance may be better because just the current holdings have been transferred.

To show performance over a period that includes the transfer, be sure to include both accounts in the report.

maxwelwp

Hi Jim - Not sure why you would not want to accept the downloaded transaction in the account the shares were transferred into unless from some bad experience in the past.

In my case, it simply aligned to the shares added xfer transaction to clear the transaction in the register.

Frankx

So I will respectfully disagree with @Jim_Harman . 

As far as I can tell, "what happened in real life" is that, on the day after you switched brokers, you own exactly the same investments with the exact same basis and the exact same performance history as the day before the "transfer".  I see no benefit to be derived by transferring and then having to go back and now look at two Quicken accounts to actually view the history of an investment. 

If two brokerage firms merge and there's a new name of the brokerage firm, or if the broker that you've been using at a particular investment firm left that firm and you were assigned a new broker there, would you transfer your holdings to a new account in Quicken?  No. 

I don't have "thousands" of transactions in my brokerage account and highly doubt that most users do or that any potential difference in "performance" would be achieved.  And more importantly, I prefer the old KISS method.

Frankx

Tom Young

@maxwelwp

"All of your share data including history will transfer to the new account."

That's literally not the case as that suggest that transactions will also be moved.  A "Shares Transferred Between Accounts" action will maintain current lot information in the new Account, but the transactions that cumulatively got you to those lot positions is left in the old Account.

Jim_Harman

@maxwelwp,
The shares transferred between accounts operation in Quicken generates one Removed transaction in the old account and one Added in the new account for each tax lot of each security. Often the new FI will only download one Added transaction per security. If you had multiple tax lots, you need to delete that Added, or else you will end up with twice as many shares in the new account as you should. 

@Frankx,
It works either way.

My take on what happened in real life is that you transferred the securities to a new account at another FI, so I like to see it reflected that way in Quicken. That is certainly the technique you would have to use if you were consolidating the old account into another existing account.

maxwelwp

Tom - Actually it is the case. As mentioned I have done this a few time this year. All past share purchases made in the old account transferred to the new account as individual purchases.

Case in point...

Jim_Harman

Right. But transactions for partial sales and for securities you once held but then sold are not transferred, only the info on lots you currently hold is transferred.

Tom Young

@maxwelwp

An example should make it clear.  On December, 12 2016 you buy 100 shares of Company X.  In January of the following year you sell 35 of those shares.  Then in February you transfer all 65 of the shares of Company X to a new broker.  Over in the new broker Account you'll see one Add for 65 shares, at the correct basis, with the correct holding period.  You won't see the two transactions that got you to that position.

Transactions are not moved from the old Account to the new Account.  All that's moved to the new Account are "positions."

billr

Wow! Thanks to all for your responses. Lots to ponder. Will let you know which method I choose.

Frankx

Jim_Harman said:

That is certainly the technique you would have to use if you were consolidating the old account into another existing account.

@Ji@Jim_Harman

That statement (above) is true.  But that scenario is completely different from what we are talking about here. There was no "consolidation", no change in the user's transactions history, just a different name in the "broker" field.

Frankx

billr

I went with suggestion from Jim_Harman. Tried recommendation from Frankx and had a problem with it. Thanks to all for your input. I have another problem which I will post elsewhere.

GeoffG

In addition to Jim's recommendation, I would add renaming the old account to x.MerrilEdge (name of investment co.) so the retired accounts sort to the end of the list.