Investing Checking Accounts

Question

I have several accounts with Merrill Lynch one of which is basically a checking account.  However, because it with Merrill Lynch, which Quicken considers all accounts with ML as investment accounts, history must be maintained forever.  I'm sure Merrill Lynch isn't the only wealth management company to offer their customers a checking account service, i.e. banking account service.  So, why doesn't Quicken give its customers the option of setting up an account with an investment company as if it were a bank checking account? Just like my checking accounts I would like the ability to simply create a new starting point and eliminate prior history.  I understand you are going to tell me there is a way to do that with an investment account, but it is not as straight forward and as simple as with a checking account. I would just like to see Quicken support Wealth Management accounts, which are not investment accounts, the same way they do with their banking accounts.

Chris_QPW · Answer

I believe that Quicken Mac can still deal with "checking transactions", but you have to just do it in the investment account.  I could be wrong about that, but you really need to ask the Quicken Mac people.  Select New Post from above and use a Quicken Mac category to ask your question in.

PaulWD · Answer

I recently migrated from Quicken for Windows to Quicken for MAC.  In the Windows version, the cash management account was still considered to be an investment account.  However, there was an option to automatically move the money directly to the associated account in Quicken.   Now when I use the MAC version of Quicken, there is no option to automatically sweep those transactions to the associated checking account.  Basically, I no longer have a way to directly download checking transactions from my investment account to checking.

Chris_QPW · Answer

This isn't Quicken's choice, it is the financial institutions.  And I believe that the reason it is done that way is because even though they offer check writing services the accounts are still consider investment accounts by them and the government.

If you look at E-Trade they have both an investment branch and banking branch.  This is true of Wells Fargo and others too.

Clearly they have no problem whatsoever sending Quicken the right information for creating a checking account instead of an investment account.

If this is regular brokerage account then you can use the option to push the cash transactions to a linked checking account, but this is still an investment account where Quicken uses the linked checking account as a virtual account where the financial institution is actually sending investment actions, and Quicken is picking out the cash actions and pushing them to the linked account.

If you want Merrill Lynch to treat that account like a checking account in Quicken you have to talk to them.  I doubt they would change it though.

And yes, since it is an investment account year end copy isn't going to allow you to archive it.

EDIT Come to think of it Bank of America own Merrill Lynch so it is just like all the others, their banking side sends banking OFX data and their investment side sends investment OFX data.  It isn't up to Quicken to decide if that is appropriate or not.