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Vanguard conversion of IRA to Brokerage IRA lost all sales

EmKay

It happened a while ago, so I don't remember how this was initiated, in Quicken - but as of 11/25/2020, my Vanguard IRA was converted to a Brokerage IRA, so a new account was created in Quicken and all holdings/transactions transferred to the new account, retaining cost basis information (though it's not easy to read). Unfortunately, it looks like that transfer completely ignored all SALES transactions in the old account. As of 11/25/2020, my new account's share total for one particular fund is off by exactly the number of shares sold before the transfer.

How do I fix this? When I try to copy/paste the sale transactions from old account to new, it tells me I have 0 shares and can't sell any.

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garysmith87

In the Vanguard forced IRA to Brokerage transition, I recommend the method I stated because it's literally a share for share transfer of mutual funds/stocks. Vanguard basically just renamed your account and gave you a new account number.

I've also used this method when my credit card has become compromised (multiple times...EEK!). As mentioned, it keeps the Account List shorter.

But I'm not so sure I would have done that with a switch from one company to another...or if securities are sold and then bought with different securities. I would definitely start a new account with that scenario.

BTW, it still may not be too late to do as I recommended. I think Vanguard will download two years worth of transactions.

So...backup your current data file. Delete the new brokerage account you started. Deactivate the old Vanguard account from downloads, remove the account number and account name from the Details...and then re-activate the account with Vanguard to download.

The worst that can happen is it's a complete disaster and you just restore the backup file you created.

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Jim_Harman

When you recorded the account change in Quicken, what did you do?

--Set up the new account in Quicken, connect to the new Vanguard account, and accept the downloaded transactions? This will probably put one Removed in the old account and one Added in the new account for each current security.

--Disable online services for the old account and re-enable them for the new account? From your description it sounds like this was not the case.

--Set up the new account in Quicken and use the Move transactions function to move transactions from the old account to the new?

--Set up the new account in Quicken and use the Shares transferred between accounts function to move your current holdings to the new account?

--Something else?

EmKay

@Jim_Harman, I believe I used option #1. Despite being a LONG-time Q user, I was unaware of the "Move Transactions" and "Shares transferred" functions. I often feel like I'm unaware of new features, despite reading the release notes.

Jim_Harman

OK, one "quick and dirty" way to get your share balances to match would be to enter a Removed transaction in the new account for the difference in shares of fund in question on the day after the transfer.

This may mess up your cost basis, post back if you are concerned about getting that correct.

EmKay

@Jim_Harman - yes, I really want to keep my basis correct - I'm in "withdrawal" mode, so it's more important to me, now.

Can you explain the differences / pros and cons to the Move transactions and Shares transferred functions? I'm no longer downloading transactions (I've decided that having my passwords on an aggregator service may not be a risk I want to take, anymore) so I could create a new account for the new tIRA/Brokerage account and "redo" the creation of that account, perhaps?

Chris_QPW

EmKay said:

(I've decided that having my passwords on an aggregator service may not be a risk I want to take, anymore)

Just so you know, when using Direct Connect (which at this point is for every brokerage except Charles Schwab) you passwords aren't kept on an aggregator service. Quicken is talking directly to the financial institution.

garysmith87

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here...but when Vanguard switched your accounts, couldn't you just have disconnected the Vanguard IRA accounts from downloads, edited the Account Settings to remove the account number and name, then re-connected for downloads...and linked the new Vanguard brokerage account to the previous register?

Then just delete any duplicate transactions that download. I would have done this immediately when the switch occurred.

But if you still have the traditional IRA register in Quicken, and not marked it as "closed", you can still do this now. Vanguard should still be able to download transactions from 11 months ago.

This method will retain ALL your transactions in one account register, thus preserving all cost basis.

Chris_QPW

@garysmith87 that is certainly one way to do it provided all the securities transferred one for one.

Chris_QPW

EmKay said:

Can you explain the differences / pros and cons to the Move transactions and Shares transferred functions? I'm no longer downloading transactions (I've decided that having my passwords on an aggregator service may not be a risk I want to take, anymore) so I could create a new account for the new tIRA/Brokerage account and "redo" the creation of that account, perhaps?

These are what I think the differences are.
With Shares Transfer you preserve the old account transaction in that account, up until it removes all of the shares. In other words it does a series of remove shares in the first account, and a series of add shares in the new account. Whereas this preserves the cost basis, other information is lost (remains in the old account and into in the new account, like the numbers for some calculations). It of course also results in a ton more transactions in both accounts. This use to be the only way to move shares between accounts.

With Move Transactions you are moving the actual transactions so clearly they won't be in the old account any more, but on the other hand all the data like the cost basis and the numbers used in various calculations will be preserved.

Note that now that you have use Shares Transfer, you wouldn't only have to delete/recreate the new account you would have to either go to a backup that you have before doing it or remove all the "Remove Shares" transactions that it put into the original account to get back to where you were.

garysmith87

When Vanguard "moves" traditional IRA accounts to brokerage accounts, it's a one for one transfer. All securities are transferred for the same securities and shares into the new account.

My method works perfectly. I suggest the OP make a backup of his data file and try what I recommended. He'll get the results he requested.

EmKay

Chris_QPW said:

EmKay said:

(I've decided that having my passwords on an aggregator service may not be a risk I want to take, anymore)

Just so you know, when using Direct Connect (which at this point is for every brokerage except Charles Schwab) you passwords aren't kept on an aggregator service. Quicken is talking directly to the financial institution.

Quicken support just told me that it does use a third-party with DC. Then, they said it "depends on [your] bank." I need to know the real answer before I use it!

Chris_QPW

EmKay said:

Chris_QPW said:

EmKay said:

(I've decided that having my passwords on an aggregator service may not be a risk I want to take, anymore)

Just so you know, when using Direct Connect (which at this point is for every brokerage except Charles Schwab) you passwords aren't kept on an aggregator service. Quicken is talking directly to the financial institution.

Quicken support just told me that it does use a third-party with DC. Then, they said it "depends on [your] bank." I need to know the real answer before I use it!

Well technically that statement might be correct, but if used it isn't a third party service Quicken is using, it is a third party service your financial institution is using, and as such only they can tell you if they use a third party service or not.
https://www.quicken.com/support/how-quicken-connects-your-bank

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/z6/vjj0svdl1ssf.png

The way Direct Connect/the OFX protocol works is Quicken sends a request to the URL given by the financial institution which connects to their OFX server. That server returns the response with your transactions.

And in the OFX log (Help -> Log Files -> OFX Log) you can see the URL they use and the request sent and the reply. Example Vanguard (removed the actual request/reply since it has sensitive information in it):

!-- ***** SEND to https://vesnc.vanguard.com/us/OfxDirectConnectServlet at 10:50:53 on 20211020 ***** -->

<!--

OFXHEADER:100

DATA:OFXSGML

VERSION:102

SECURITY:NONE

ENCODING:USASCII

CHARSET:1252

COMPRESSION:NONE

OLDFILEUID:NONE

NEWFILEUID:NONE

-->

<OFX>

...

<!--

OFXHEADER:100

DATA:OFXSGML

VERSION:102

SECURITY:NONE

ENCODING:USASCII

CHARSET:1252

COMPRESSION:NONE

OLDFILEUID:NONE

NEWFILEUID:NONE

-->

<OFX>

...

For any "Express Web Connect" account you will find the logs in the Cloud Sync log, which it the big flag that it is actually going through several servers. Its flow is:

Quicken -> QCS (Quicken Connection Services {as in Quicken servers}) -> Intuit server -> Financial institution's website (or maybe even a third party service that they use for this).

EmKay

garysmith87 said:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here...but when Vanguard switched your accounts, couldn't you just have disconnected the Vanguard IRA accounts from downloads, edited the Account Settings to remove the account number and name, then re-connected for downloads...and linked the new Vanguard brokerage account to the previous register?

Then just delete any duplicate transactions that download. I would have done this immediately when the switch occurred.

But if you still have the traditional IRA register in Quicken, and not marked it as "closed", you can still do this now. Vanguard should still be able to download transactions from 11 months ago.

This method will retain ALL your transactions in one account register, thus preserving all cost basis.

I really wish I'd thought about this possibility, and used it, each time an account was modified or changed. I have so many "old/unused" accounts that transitioned into something different - would've made my data a lot cleaner (and smaller) !

q_lurker

EmKay said:

...

I really wish I'd thought about this possibility, and used it, each time an account was modified or changed. I have so many "old/unused" accounts that transitioned into something different - would've made my data a lot cleaner (and smaller) !

I prefer that approach also, especially for CC accounts where a new card number has been issued. But there are two sides to the coin.

By creating the new account, the old account can be (figuratively) put to bed, whether that be formally closed within Quicken, just hidden, or otherwise set aside. You have access to the old information but it is not in the current account. That old information is less likely to get dinged or damaged by hook, crook, or user error. For an investment account, you are less likely to run into situations where the number of transactions in the active investment account causes slower performance.

Switching the account identifiers and reusing the same account leaves a cleaner, more compact account list.
Creating the new account reduces the number of transactions for the 'in-use' account.

As such, I have taken both routes at different times.

Chris_QPW

One thing on the topic of performance in an investment account. I recently started using the Archive Transactions function, and found it to be pretty good for retiring those old closed lots, by moving them to another account. Basically it is just a specialized version of Move Transactions.

Chris_QPW

@EmKay I also wanted to mention that if you really don't want to enter your password anywhere other than at the financial institution's site, then you can also use Web Connect if the financial institution provides it.
Web Connect is you going to the the financial institution's website and downloading a Web Connect/QFX file and importing it into Quicken. It is the "response" part of the OFX transactions request, but just in file format.

garysmith87

EmKay

@garysmith87 - i have used your recommended method for my husband’s accounts, recently converted. Mine were done many years ago - but apparently without the errors I encountered this time, so I’ll leave them. But I prefer to not have those previous accounts, so I like this way.