How to unlink a checking account from an old IRA?

David B1954

I have had some past OSU issues. I have a checking account that does not have an "online services" tab. While doing some searching and reading, someone suggested that linking of checking and an IRA was a method used to transfer data from Microsoft Money. Years ago I did start with MS Money and then moved to Quicken. I would like to clear this up if possible? I use, and have years of data in checking account that I want to keep. The IRA CD has been closed but I left IRA CD account open with a zero balance. Anyone else had this issue and solved?

Thanks

Chris_QPW

Well it has been stated that the person creating the conversion between MS Money and Quicken didn't really understand all the ramifications and in some ways messed up.  Quicken has never allowed having a linked checking account with a retirement account, only a brokerage account, but the person that did the conversion didn't know this.  The result was that accounts that shouldn't have been linked were linked.

This of course creates all kinds of conditions that basically can't be predicted on how they will work, especially over time as they change Quicken.

As such I can't really give you an answer on how you might make all of this work in the way you want it to work.

I would be inclined to think about all you can do is maybe transfers any active investments out of that investment account into a new one, and setup a new account for the checking account.  And basically making adjustments to zero out the old accounts and getting the new accounts setup to continue on with from where they leave off.

Boatnmaniac

I agree with @Chris_QPW .  Set up separate new accounts for both.  Transfer the assets in both of the current accounts to the new accounts. 

The you can try to set up online services for the new accounts.  You probably will get some duplicate transactions downloaded into the registers when the setup processes complete and those will need to be manually deleted.  But it would just be for the 1st time you download during the setup process.  Future downloads should not see any duplicate transactions.

When you are comfortable that everything has transferred and set up properly, you could then try to close (not delete) the two current accounts in Quicken.  Closing accounts does not delete any data so you will retain all of your historical history and that data will still show up in reports and tax tools.

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @David B1954

Thank you for visiting the Community to report this issue, although I apologize that you have not received a response.

Please navigate to Help > About Quicken and provide the release that you are currently running. Can you please provide more details on the initial issue that you are experiencing? Are you receiving any error messages when updating? 

The more information you can provide the better able to assist the Community will be.

-Quicken Tyka

Boatnmaniac

Hi @David B1954 .  It is not clear to me what the issue is.  What is it that you want to do with both the CD IRA account and the separate linked checking account?

Both MS Money (I was a long time user myself) and Quicken have an option for cash transactions in investment accounts to be held in a separate linked checking account.  MS Money allows for it in both retirement and brokerage accounts.  Quicken allows for it only in brokerage accounts but it does allow for converted MS Money IRA accounts to retain these separate linked checking accounts in Quicken.  Those separate linked checking accounts were not needed for conversion to Quicken, they were essentially grandfathered into Quicken during the conversion process.

The reason for having separate linked checking accounts for investment accounts is because some people find it easier to keep track of cash transactions in the investment accounts, especially when they also really do use the investment account as a checking account.  So, having a separately linked checking account is not an issue, it is just a optional feature.

If you simply do not want to have that separate linked checking any longer it is fast and easy to change:  Go to the General tab of the CD IRA Account Details and change the option as shown below (circled in red) and click OK.  This will remove the separate linked checking account entirely and all of the transactions shown in there will be added back into the CD IRA Account Register.  All data will be retained but it will now show up only in the CD IRA Account.  A couple of comments regarding this before proceeding:

• Be sure to back up your data file first in case something goes wrong or you decide you do not like the results.
  
• If you do not like the results you should restore that backup file because I do not think you will be able to revert back to the separate linked checking account (remember that Quicken does not allow for this option for retirement accounts already set up in Quicken).
  

Or is there something else you are wanting to do with the CD IRA account and the separately linked checking account?

David B1954

To: Quicken_Tyka: I am using Quicken Premier Subscription R32.12 on Windows 10.

To Boatnmanic: I tried as you suggested to unlink. Started with checking balance of $13,350 and IRA CD balance of $0. When done, Checking was removed but IRA CD balance = $4,750 and a message of:
(see image.png)

I have restored to get checking back to $13,350.

The checking account is one of my two main checking accounts. I have had it setup in OSU.
Recently OSU stopped working, got a screen requesting passwords even though they have been in password vault. After adding passwords as requested, I got another screen asking for password of account that I just entered. Stuck in a sort of loop.

When I searched for a solution I found another user (tommys) had the same issue as I did. A link to his info: https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7887820/passwords-not-being-saved-used-during-osu-edited

Part of his solution was to "deactivate his online accounts" This is where I run into another issue because the checking account (that is linked to the IRA CD) does not have an "online services" tab to deactivate from.

I want to get an online services tab in my checking account while not losing years of data in that checking account. Then maybe I can follow the other steps to get OSU accepting passwords and working.

Boatnmaniac

Ah, so you have been continuing to use the checking account.  In that case de-linking the checking account from the CD IRA account probably would have provided you with a very undesirable result because as I mentioned earlier your linked checking account would no longer exist.  All of your checking account transactions would then instead be buried in your IRA CD account register and that is far from ideal as a checking account register.  And troubleshooting your linked checking account register to find out what the transaction issues are (I'm guessing those issues are related to categories/transfers) and then fixing them might be very time consuming.

Something else to keep in mind:  The linked checking account is not really a checking account...except in Quicken.  It is still part of the linked investment account.  Linked checking accounts are simply a different way of capturing the cash in investment accounts but it does not really exist in the real world.

What this means is you cannot set up downloads from the Online Services tab of the linked checking account because, as you already noted, that tab does not exist.  If you want to set up Online Services for that linked checking account you need to do that from the Online Services tab of the linked CD IRA account.

But I am a little confused regarding the CD IRA account:  You said the account is closed.  Is it actually closed at the financial institution or is it "closed" as far as how you are using it in Quicken?

Chris_QPW

@David B1954 But your problem is completely different than the one in the link you gave.

First let me start on why there isn't a Online Services tab for a linked checking account.
The reason is that in fact there isn't an online checking account for this use case (unlike what might be true in MS Money).

The online account is one investment account, that might have ability to do things like writing checks.
When Quicken connects it connects the Investment account in Quicken to this investment account online.
When you select to create a linked checking account what Quicken does is create a manual entry checking account, and then plays some tricks behind your back.

In other words it downloads transactions into the investment account, but for transaction types that are "cash" it redirects them to the checking account.  The same goes on for manual entry of "cash" transactions.

Now from my experience I have found that the conversion to using a linked checking account and back to be a bit problematic.  In other words I have seen problems like you describe where during the conversion back the investment account doesn't get all the correct transactions to make it reconcile properly.

But in any case there isn't any possible way that you can make the "linked checking account" online/download transactions directly into it.  It is either be going through the investment account or it is going to be completely gone (and hopefully working through the problems maybe get the investment account to the point where is has the proper transactions/reconcile).

If this checking account really can be downloaded separately, which is totally up to the financial institution, they it would show up as a separate account when you try to add accounts using your login for that financial institution.  If you can't do that then you can't even start to have it is a separate downloading account.

If you can and then reset about the history, then in theory unlinking the checking account should have brought the history of that account into the investment account, and one would have to go through the account and figure out what in the conversion went wrong and fix that.

With that done then you could move forward in having those as separate accounts where both download and where you would make standard transfers between them.

David B1954

In 2013, the CD IRA account was closed due to transfer from bank to credit union. Closed at bank.
I created a new CD IRA account for the credit union.
I treated the bank CD IRA in Quicken as a zero balance open account.
I treated my main checking (linked cash) account as a separate checking account.

Background:
About 2001 I started using MS Money. I had multiply accounts but a main checking and an IRA CD among others.
About 2009 I started using Quicken. I imported MS Money data file.
My main bank checking account (I now notice is a linked cash account) has worked for online updates the whole time, 2009 to 2021.
In 2013 I transferred the IRA CD to a credit union from my original bank. The main bank checking (linked cash ) account continued to work fine with online downloads.

Chris_QPW

Well it has been stated that the person creating the conversion between MS Money and Quicken didn't really understand all the ramifications and in some ways messed up.  Quicken has never allowed having a linked checking account with a retirement account, only a brokerage account, but the person that did the conversion didn't know this.  The result was that accounts that shouldn't have been linked were linked.

This of course creates all kinds of conditions that basically can't be predicted on how they will work, especially over time as they change Quicken.

As such I can't really give you an answer on how you might make all of this work in the way you want it to work.

I would be inclined to think about all you can do is maybe transfers any active investments out of that investment account into a new one, and setup a new account for the checking account.  And basically making adjustments to zero out the old accounts and getting the new accounts setup to continue on with from where they leave off.

Boatnmaniac

I agree with @Chris_QPW .  Set up separate new accounts for both.  Transfer the assets in both of the current accounts to the new accounts. 

The you can try to set up online services for the new accounts.  You probably will get some duplicate transactions downloaded into the registers when the setup processes complete and those will need to be manually deleted.  But it would just be for the 1st time you download during the setup process.  Future downloads should not see any duplicate transactions.

When you are comfortable that everything has transferred and set up properly, you could then try to close (not delete) the two current accounts in Quicken.  Closing accounts does not delete any data so you will retain all of your historical history and that data will still show up in reports and tax tools.

David B1954

I did a phone help today and the Quicken personnel got my OSU functioning again. Your suggest sounds like a good idea to try and let me get away from the liked cash account.

Thanks for all of the posters help!