Setting up 403B and 457 accounts

Question

Twenty years ago I tried to setup two retirement accounts that happen to be 403B and a 457 account.  At the time there was no downloads for these companies.  So I just classified them as retirement accounts on Quicken and kept a running cash total in each account.  Periodically I go in and enter a balance adjustment to record the value in each account.  Now I would like to set these up for internet downloads.  Should I just delete these accounts and create two new accounts for internet downloads, or what would happen if I just go into these current balance accounts and add internet downloads to them?

brhutch · Answer

Thanks for the info.  Well as it turns out one of these accounts was transferred to another managing company so I have decided to just create a new account in Quicken to include the new company.  When I try to create the account in Quicken(Complete Download) it asks for data on Cash Balance and individual holdings in the account.  Do I have to input this data or can I just have it download everything on the initial Direct Connect?

Frankx · Answer

Hi @brhutch,

It sounds like all you've been doing is maintaining on "ongoing" cash balance for each account in Quicken for twenty years, with no actually investment history.  There's nothing wrong with that method, since it has provided you with a running balance of the accounts' value and has enabled you to monitor those investments as well as see their value in your net worth reports.

My view, about what you should do now, is to keep the old accounts and set them up for downloading going forward.  Here's what I would suggest:

a) First make sure your settings are such that the downloaded transactions will not be automatically entered into the registers.
b) Next - using the existing accounts enter the information needed for downloads - such as account number, financial institution, customer ID, in the "Account Details tab.
c) Download transactions for each account, but before you accept any transactions make sure you note the date of the oldest downloaded transaction for each plan (or, if you can review online statement data for each plan) and make note of each account's balance/value just prior to that oldest downloaded transaction.  This will enable you to determine the adjustment you will need to make to the old cash running balance.
d) Once you complete the downloading you'll need to first delete any of the "cash adjustment" transactions that you've been making that are dated more recently than the "first dated" downloaded transaction (in each account).
e) Next, you'll need to make an additional "transfer transaction" - dated the day before the first new downloaded transaction - in each account to that reduces the running "cash balance" to zero. This is an unusual transaction where the account name "transferred to" is this same account.  The amount should be the cash balance in the register on the date of the transaction. Here's what it will look like:

That should maintain the history of the account balances from when you started to track them, and also allow you to see that actual investments going forward.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

Quicken Diana · Answer

Hello@brhutch

Thank you for posting in the Community today. Indeed, there
are a few ways to handle this situation and it all comes down to what you
prefer.

Yes, you can set up the current accounts with the financial institution
and proceed to download transactions. Though, depending on how the current
accounts were created, this may cause an issue with formatting.

It may be best to create new accounts and set those up for
transaction downloads to be sure that the many years of historical data from
the current files are not changed.

If you would like to see what both scenarios would look like
and how it would function, you can create a copy of your data file to test
with. That way you know that your original work and data is safe while you experiment
with the options.

Thank you

Quicken Diana