Moving brokerage accounts to a different company

Question

I'm moving from one brokerage company to a different one.  Is there written instructions on how to do this in Quicken?  The first company had my assets in 9 different accounts.  The second one will show them in just 3 accounts.  Anyone have experience doing this?  I already know that Quicken doesn't always correctly download investment info and want to avoid a really BIG mess trying to make this change.

Tom Young · Answer

"I already know that Quicken doesn't always correctly download investment info..."That's more properly stated as "the financial institutions sending information to Quicken don't always send the correct information to Quicken."  As far as I know Quicken has never "mangled" downloaded information, though I'd guess that does happen on rare occasions.  If improper entries are made in a transaction list (register) the blame almost always lies with the financial institution sending improper information to Quicken.  
If your Quicken information is correct in the 9 current investment Accounts then the process should be pretty straight forward.  
* Click on the Investing tab > Portfolio, set up to show Value and Grouped by Accounts
* Print out the Portfolio View using {Ctrl} - p.  This will give you the "balancing" information in the 9 old Accounts.
* After you know how the securities in the 9 Accounts have been reshuffled into the 3 new Accounts, go into each of the 9 old Accounts and, one security at a time, use a "Shares Transferred Between Accounts" transaction to move each security into it's new Account.

* As @Jim_Harman says, money market securities should be sold and the cash moved using the "Cash Transferred out of Account" action. Use this same action for any actual cash in the old Accounts

Jim_Harman · Answer

@Mark1104's approach is  good start, but it may not preserve the tax lots and cost basis of the transferred securities. After the securities have arrived in the new accounts, I would check that the quantities are correct and note them down, then back up your data file and delete the Removed and Added transactions.

Then go to each of the old accounts and enter Shares transferred between accounts transactions to move the securities to the appropriate new accounts. This will enter one Removed transaction for each security in the old account and one Added in the new account for each tax lot moved. Be patient, you may (correctly) end up with dozens of Added transactions for each security if you have been reinvesting dividends.

When you are done, the share counts should match the ones that were downloaded and the cost basis should be correct.

For money market funds there are no capital gains considerations, so you can record those transfers as Sold, transfer the cash, and Bought.

Mark1104 · Answer

it really should be easy.... the outgoing company should reflect 'removed' transactions which should zero out the securities in the 9 accounts.  then the incoming company should reflect 'add' transactions which should populate the 3 new accounts with the same securities. You shiould be prompted on the first download from the new firm to set up the 3 new accounts