Upgrading to Deluxe - want support for investments - Brighthouse & Primerica

Rob_L

I currently use Quicken Starter Edition (used Deluxe in the past prior to the change to the subscription model). My question is this... if I were to upgrade to Quicken Deluxe in order to handle investment accounts, would I be able to link to the following for downloading: Annuities with Brighthouse Financial (spin-off from Met Life), an investment account and inherited Roth IRA with Vanguard, and an investment account with Primerica? I/we have on-line account profiles for each of these institutions. I'm only interested in tracking balances, disbursements, earnings, etc.

Thanks!

Frankx

Hi @Rob_L,

To answer your questions:

You will be able to download transactions and quotes from your Vanguard accounts.  However, unless the websites of Brighthouse and/or Primerica have "file download" features that are compatible, which is doubtful based on my limited review of their websites - I believe that you will not be able to "connect" those accounts or download them into Quicken.  Neither of those entities are listed on Quicken's Financial Institution Directory and their websites did not mention Quicken or any downloading feature.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

Frankx

Hi @Rob_L,

To answer your questions:

You will be able to download transactions and quotes from your Vanguard accounts.  However, unless the websites of Brighthouse and/or Primerica have "file download" features that are compatible, which is doubtful based on my limited review of their websites - I believe that you will not be able to "connect" those accounts or download them into Quicken.  Neither of those entities are listed on Quicken's Financial Institution Directory and their websites did not mention Quicken or any downloading feature.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

Ps56k2

I can look at the ADD ACCOUNT - but it really depends on each financial institution -
to purchase and contract with Quicken for downloading support....

- Brighthouse Financial ... Not Found
- Vanguard ... no problem
- Primerica ... Not Found
[EDIT] - also updated topic title to better reflect the actual Q&A .... beyond common Vanguard support

BTW - I find our Deluxe handles all the investments quite well, without the added bells and whistles of going up to Premier.
Use for ... Chase, Ally, PNC, - Schwab, Fidelity, TRowe, Vanguard

jacobs

I can't answer with certainty. I do not see Brighthouse listed as a participating financial institution, and annuities can be hard to track online. Vanguard should be a yes. I don't see Primerica.

I will say that unless you have a lot of securities and do a lot of trading/transactions, you may find entering one or two of the accounts manually not to be too much of a problem. I've always entered my investment accounts manually (force of habit, but I find it's a good way for me to review my accounts quarterly); it may take me a couple hours a year to do so, but I also don't fight with connectivity problems, editing issues with downloads, etc. Some people feel if it can't be done automatically, there's no point to using Quicken; I'm one who can happily use Quicken entirely manually and find it a tremendous value to have all my financial data and history in one place.

Rob_L

Thanks, folks. It's not a deal breaker and getting the quarterly statements on-line is no big deal. As a retiree, it's not like I don't have the time...

Ps56k2

Rob_L said: t's not a deal breaker and getting the quarterly statements on-line is no big deal.

You can always create both accounts as - manual - and just make all the entries "manually" -

Chris_QPW

Note on Quicken Windows there is a new "Simple" investment mode where you just update the cash balance and then the number of shares and price.  It might be the better choice if you are just doing quarterly statements.

Rob_L

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Note on Quicken Windows there is a new "Simple" investment mode where you just update the cash balance and then the number of shares and price.  It might be the better choice if you are just doing quarterly statements.

Thanks - but as far as I can tell, the Quicken Starter version I'm now using has no provisions for creating investment accounts. I would have to do the investment accounts as a cash accounts to do things manually. Paying for the upgrade and doing the extra work is not really worth it to me, though. We are retired with multiple retirement income streams. I'm comfortable with looking at the investment accounts quarterly and our financial advisor will alert us if anything needs attention in between. I appreciate everyone's input!

Rob

Chris_QPW

Rob_L said:

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Note on Quicken Windows there is a new "Simple" investment mode where you just update the cash balance and then the number of shares and price.  It might be the better choice if you are just doing quarterly statements.

Thanks - but as far as I can tell, the Quicken Starter version I'm now using has no provisions for creating investment accounts. I would have to do the investment accounts as a cash accounts to do things manually. Paying for the upgrade and doing the extra work is not really worth it to me, though. We are retired with multiple retirement income streams. I'm comfortable with looking at the investment accounts quarterly and our financial advisor will alert us if anything needs attention in between. I appreciate everyone's input!

Rob

Yes, that makes sense.  In fact I'm semi retired and my finances are setup to be really simple so I could in fact do it exactly like you are talking about.  I mostly use Quicken it as a hobby these days.

The "simple" investing mode is only in the investment accounts so you would have to upgrade to the Deluxe version to get it.  I was just saying that if one was going that route, one might be better off just entering the quarterly changes in shares/price and cash then trying to enter the details.

jacobs

The "Simple Investing" feature from Quicken Windows has also be implemented in Quicken Mac as of the version 6.3.x release.

Although it takes me a little time each quarter to record my actual dividend/gain transactions, I prefer to keep doing it the old fashioned way of recording everything. It allows me to dig in and look at performance of securities in more detail than if I set the account to Simple Investing. And I do like having all my investments pulled together in one place, rather than having to parse my brokerage statements, especially dealing with retirement and non-retirement accounts. With the new asset allocation features which started to be rolled out in the 6.3 release, and promised enhancements for that to follow in the months ahead, I see Quicken Mac becoming even more valuable to me in managing my finances in retirement. But we all utilize Quicken differently, so what's the "right" answer for each of us is likely to vary.