How to merge 2 securities that share the same Ticker but different description (Capital Letters)

Yves Beaupré

I have merge 2 different investment accounts that have the same securities under the same Ticker but were entered differently in each investment accounts, i.e., there description is the same, but they have been entered with capitals letters in one investment account.

This poses the problem that when I enter an investment transaction, I then get 2 securities in the Investing view for the same security because of the difference in their description.

Can I merge two securities that share the same ticker without corrupting my existing data?

Thanks,

Frankx

Hi @Yves Beaupré

If I understand your situation correctly your Quicken file has two securities, each with the same ticker as the other, but the security name for one is in ALL CAPS while the other is (presumable) Initial Caps.  Is that correct?

If so, please open the Security List (go to "Tools" > "Security List") and tell me whether the CUSIP numbers for each of these securities are also the same, or different.

Frankx 

Yves Beaupré

Hi,

Thanks for your quick reply.

None of my duplicate securities have CUISP numbers and are a mixt of Capital and regular characters for the same ticker . As a matter of facts none of my securities have CUSIP numbers.

Note is use Ver. 33.7; Built 27.1.33.7; Edition Canada Windows edition.

Thanks

Frankx

Hi again @Yves Beaupré

Thanks for the additional information.  Based on that, I believe that you really have a few choices of handling this situation.

There are probably three different ways that you can accomplish what you are trying to do.  However the easiest would be to use the "Corporate Name Change" method.  Here are the steps:

1) Make  backup of your Quicken Data File (just in case);
2) Decide which of the two current security names you want to use going forward.
3) Open the Quicken account register that holds the securities whose name will be changed.
4) Click on the enter transactions button and in the "Enter transaction:" drop-down at the top > select "Corporate Name Change" (see Snip below)



5) In the "Security name" box > select the name of the security you want to replace;
6) In the "New security name" box > type the security name you want to keep;
7) Click "Enter/Done"

Let me know how that goes or if you have followup questions.

Frankx

Sherlock

I suggest you determine which security has the fewest transactions and, then, replace the security in each of those transactions with the other security.  Once you're done, you'll be able to delete the original security.

Before making any significant changes to your Quicken file, always save a backup: press Ctrl + B

Yves Beaupré

Hi Frank,

I tried your advice and when I enter the Security name I want to keep in New Security Name, I get a message Security Name already exists...

Any other solutions

q_lurker

Yves Beaupré said:

Hi Frank,

I tried your advice and when I enter the Security name I want to keep in New Security Name, I get a message Security Name already exists...

Any other solutions

The suggestion from @Sherlock is the way I would go at it.  You can ease the process by sorting the transactions list by security (click on that header), and then simply pasting in the preferred name over the non-preferred name and saving the transaction.   

I am a little surprised you got to where you have said you are.  In the US version, if I have a security with all caps (ABB LTD), I cannot create a new security with Upper/lower case mix of the same letters (ABB Ltd).  Perhaps in your case some of the accented letters made an additional difference.  

Yves Beaupré

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I will try your solution and let you know. However I wonder if this will somehow delete/remove the security I wish to delete. My goal is to have only one choice when I select a security name when I entered a transaction instead of 2 choices. For practicality I always include the security ticker in the description. For exemple when I enter XYZ in the security name (TRUST XYZ vs Trust XYZ), 2 securities popup and I find this very confusing.

I suspect the duplicate securities with the same tickers being present in the securities list is a result of the merge of my wife securities and mine that I have done. I have accomplish this via a QIF import operation. In some case we share the same securities/ticker that have been entered with a slight difference in their descriptions.

Thanks,

q_lurker

Once you have edited the transactions so that they all refer to the chosen name, you can then go to the security list and delete to other security from your file.