Asset Class Totals Don't Match in Portfolio and Dashboard Views?

Scott Schmidt

Using Quicken Mac 6.3.1. I was excited to finally see Asset Allocation come to this version of QM. However I discovered two things: 1) it appears as though the Asset Classes are somehow downloaded since when one changes them in the Securities window, the changes don't stick (if they're not changeable then why do they have an update window?), and 2) the portfolio values by Asset Class DON'T MATCH BETWEEN THE PORTFOLIO AND DASHBOARD WINDOWS. Sorry to say, but this seems pretty unbelievable! Am I doing something wrong? Updates seem to be few and far between these days, and when they do come out they bring additional disappointments.

jacobs

@Scott Schmidt. Yes, this issue has been brought up in several threads on this forum since version 6.3 was released. It's a good new/bad news situation...

For the Dashboard asset allocation, Quicken is pulling in a drill-down breakdown of each security from their third-party data supplier (perhaps Morningstar?). This is a good thing. Most of my mutual funds aren't 100% one asset class, so having Quicken correctly calculate them is a good step forward.  So if you have a mutual fund or ETF which is 60% large caps stocks, 36% domestic bonds and 4% small cap stocks, instead of using whatever asset class you assigned for the security, Quicken is applying those percentages to your holdings in that fund. Even if you have a fund that is 99% large caps stocks and 1% money market, Quicken is using those percentages to provide the asset class breakdown in the dashboard. From my understanding, going forward, every security which Quicken gets data for could be called "Asset Mixture", and it will correctly allocate the proper dollar amounts to the proper categories. The only reason you'd want to assign asset classes is for private securities or international securities for which Quicken can't download information.

In Quicken Windows, the breakdown of each security's asset class is viewable, but they haven't built a user interface for this yet in Quicken Mac even though the data exists in the database. The product manager says this will come in a future release.

The bad news is that with the 6.3 release, we're in an in-between state, where the Dashboard asset allocation is doing the calculation based on the makeup of each security, but the Portfolio asset allocation is using just the asset class in each security's setup screen. The product manager has said they will change this in a future release so Portfolio is calculated the same as the Dashboard is now. For now, though, we have to live with the Portfolio view asset allocations not being very useful.

You feel updates are infrequent and disappointing. I feel pretty much the opposite. Version 6.3 came out about two months after 6.2, and it contained a few significant new features, of which the dashboard is the most significant for most users. 

Now, in this case they took two big steps forward with the Dashboard, and one step backward with the Portfolio view by asset class. They apparently wanted to see how the Dashboard asset allocation worked for people before opening up the code of the Portfolio asset classification to make it work the same way. They very much believe in an iterative development style, where features are released which don't have all the bells and whistles, so they can get user feedback and incorporate it into subsequent revisions/enhancements to features. I think they should have been more conscious of how this would mess people up temporarily, and communicated it; this feature needs one of those signs you see on highways under construction: "Temporary inconvenience. Permanent improvement."  

jacobs

@Scott Schmidt. Yes, this issue has been brought up in several threads on this forum since version 6.3 was released. It's a good new/bad news situation...

For the Dashboard asset allocation, Quicken is pulling in a drill-down breakdown of each security from their third-party data supplier (perhaps Morningstar?). This is a good thing. Most of my mutual funds aren't 100% one asset class, so having Quicken correctly calculate them is a good step forward.  So if you have a mutual fund or ETF which is 60% large caps stocks, 36% domestic bonds and 4% small cap stocks, instead of using whatever asset class you assigned for the security, Quicken is applying those percentages to your holdings in that fund. Even if you have a fund that is 99% large caps stocks and 1% money market, Quicken is using those percentages to provide the asset class breakdown in the dashboard. From my understanding, going forward, every security which Quicken gets data for could be called "Asset Mixture", and it will correctly allocate the proper dollar amounts to the proper categories. The only reason you'd want to assign asset classes is for private securities or international securities for which Quicken can't download information.

In Quicken Windows, the breakdown of each security's asset class is viewable, but they haven't built a user interface for this yet in Quicken Mac even though the data exists in the database. The product manager says this will come in a future release.

The bad news is that with the 6.3 release, we're in an in-between state, where the Dashboard asset allocation is doing the calculation based on the makeup of each security, but the Portfolio asset allocation is using just the asset class in each security's setup screen. The product manager has said they will change this in a future release so Portfolio is calculated the same as the Dashboard is now. For now, though, we have to live with the Portfolio view asset allocations not being very useful.

You feel updates are infrequent and disappointing. I feel pretty much the opposite. Version 6.3 came out about two months after 6.2, and it contained a few significant new features, of which the dashboard is the most significant for most users. 

Now, in this case they took two big steps forward with the Dashboard, and one step backward with the Portfolio view by asset class. They apparently wanted to see how the Dashboard asset allocation worked for people before opening up the code of the Portfolio asset classification to make it work the same way. They very much believe in an iterative development style, where features are released which don't have all the bells and whistles, so they can get user feedback and incorporate it into subsequent revisions/enhancements to features. I think they should have been more conscious of how this would mess people up temporarily, and communicated it; this feature needs one of those signs you see on highways under construction: "Temporary inconvenience. Permanent improvement."  

Scott Schmidt

Thanks for the clear explanation. I guess I'm being a little hard on Quicken. I really am quite happy with the product, but still just a little impatient for it to match some of the basic features of QM2007.