Can I Download One of Several Accounts at the Same Institution?

Jim in Arizona

I have a single login to Schwab that give me access to four separate investment accounts. These accounts are also four separate Quicken accounts. When I download transactions in Quicken using that login, they are downloaded for all four accounts. There are times when I'd like to download the transactions for only one of those accounts - not all four. Is it possible to specify this?

Sherlock

To download only one account, you would need to deactivate the other accounts.

Why would you only want to download one of the accounts?

Sherlock

To download only one account, you would need to deactivate the other accounts.

Why would you only want to download one of the accounts?

Jim in Arizona

Thank you, Sherlock. Occasionally I am interested in working in detail on just one of the accounts, so I want to concentrate just on it. Now that you mention it, there's probably not a good reason to do that.

Jim in Arizona

Sherlock, I remember now a case in which I might want to download just one account. We have five Schwab accounts. For purposes of this explanation I'll call them A through E. Two are my IRA accounts (A and B), one is my wife's IRA account (C) and two are family investment accounts (D and E). I have a Schwab login that accesses accounts A, B, D and E. My wife has a separate login that accesses accounts C, D and E. Both logins are set up for transaction download. When I do a download using my login, accounts A, B, D and E are updated. Then I do a download using my wife's login, because account C hasn't yet been updated. However, doesn't this cause accounts D and E to be updated again? Will Quicken and/or Schwab recognize that they have just been updated during a different login session and not download the same transactions twice?

Chris_QPW

I can give a simple case where you don't want to download all the accounts, a joint account shared by both logins.
If you download it with both logins you will be double counting it.

So it isn't even about downloading the account multiple times, it is about not double counting the same account.
I have this exact situation with mine and my wife's IRA account and shared joint account at Vanguard.

In the past when you first setup accounts it would ask you which accounts you wanted to have in Quicken.
I guess someone found that to be too much for some reason and these days when you do your first connection to the financial institution it will setup all the accounts available.  And so you have to go back and unlink/delete accounts that you don't want in Quicken.  If you later add an account it will ask about creating a new account/linking to existing accounts.

Sherlock

Lynn in Arizona said:

Sherlock, I remember now a case in which I might want to download just one account. We have five Schwab accounts. For purposes of this explanation I'll call them A through E. Two are my IRA accounts (A and , one is my wife's IRA account (C) and two are family investment accounts (D and E). I have a Schwab login that accesses accounts A, B, D and E. My wife has a separate login that accesses accounts C, D and E. Both logins are set up for transaction download. When I do a download using my login, accounts A, B, D and E are updated. Then I do a download using my wife's login, because account C hasn't yet been updated. However, doesn't this cause accounts D and E to be updated again? Will Quicken and/or Schwab recognize that they have just been updated during a different login session and not download the same transactions twice?

An account register in a Quicken file may only be bound to one account in one sign-in at financial institution at a time.  If A, B, D, and E are linked to your sign-in, only C may be bound to your wife's sign-in.

Also note, every imported transaction is supposed to have a unique FITID.  This means that if you were to attempt to import the same transactions, they should only appear once.

Jim in Arizona

Sherlock, thank you for clarifying that. You are exactly right. I checked and confirmed that I have A, B, D and E in my example set up to log in using my credentials and only C using those of my wife.

Rocket J Squirrel

Chris_QPW said:

these days when you do your first connection to the financial institution it will setup all the accounts available.  And so you have to go back and unlink/delete accounts that you don't want in Quicken.  If you later add an account it will ask about creating a new account/linking to existing accounts.

I have recently decided it is unwise in general to allow Quicken to create accounts. It doesn't always get it right. I test Quicken, so I'm always creating new files & linking accounts. If I allow Q to create accounts, which is its default behavior in a new file, it sets up my savings account as a checking account, for example. And, as you say, it will find and create all accounts without asking.

I find it gentler on my soul to manually create accounts and then activate & link them. Then I get exactly what I want.