Want all accounts to be "single mutual fund"

rdk

I have some accounts that are set up as brokerage. I want to change them to "single mutual funds" accounts, but cannot figure out how to do it. I read that if they have "0" cash transactions, you can change them.

Per a forum post: "Once that is done, the cash balance column would be $0 throughout the account. You would then have the option to edit the account details to make it a SMF account (assuming no different securities involved in the account). "

I have accounts with no cash transactions, but still cannot edit and change to Single Mutual Funds??

Jim_Harman

What do you see as the advantage of having the accounts be SMF? Usually the only reason to set up an account that way would be if you are downloading transactions and the brokerage or fund company requires it.

If you go to the account and click on Holdings is more than one security listed? That would be a problem.

If not, what is preventing you from converting it to a SMF account?

NotACPA

WHY would you want SMF accounts.  When an SMF account is setup, you must at that time specify the fund ... and ONLY that fund can EVER be held in that account.

Also, you can't change a current brokerage type account to SMF if there's ANYTHING other than a single fund EVER in that account.

SO, if you currently have 5 SMF accounts and you sell all of one such fund and buy another fund, you have to set up a 6th SMF account.

Also, as you've noted, Cash can't be held in an SMF fund.  So all transactions have to be transfers to/from a cash account .... talk about a mess.

Chris_QPW

Note that if you change to SMF accounts you most likely can no longer download transactions, it will be manual entry only.

rdk

Thanks. I want to know how to do it, not explain why. Yes, I want each fund set up as a single, and yes I want to manually enter transactions.

Jim_Harman

If you answer my last two questions above, I may be able to help you.

Chris_QPW

Given that you are going to have to have an account for each fund I would imagine the best way would be to create one new account for each fund.

Start with adding an offline brokerage account, and skip through the dialogs until you get to this one.


And select that you want this kind of account.
Then use Move Transactions to move each security in the old account to one of the new accounts setup for this purpose.


I see little point in figuring out how to change over in the old account when you are starting with multiple securities, and you can only do the change over once you are down to only one security.

rdk

Thanks Jim. No account currently has more than one security or mutual fund. Never has. None have a cash balance. When I edit the account, there is no choice to select SMF. I only have seen that choice when adding a new account most of my older accounts were set up as brokerage, because of the written manual (yes paper back book) instructions. I have too many accounts to go to the brain damage to delete and set back up as SMF, plus I don't want to lose any data.

Chris_QPW

I just tested this and the moment you add one security transaction to the account the option to turn on SMF goes away.

Jim_Harman

Building on what @Chris_QPW said, the Single Mutual Fund option for a brokerage account goes away if any of the following is true:

-- the account has ever held more than one security
-- the account has ever had a cash balance. This means no Deposit, Withdraw, Xin, Xout, Bought, Sold, Div allowed, only BoughtX, SoldX, DivX, Reinvest, etc.
-- the security in the account has a Type other than Mutual Fund

So in order to convert the account to SMF, you would have to edit the transactions to satisfy all the above conditions

rdk

In short, existing accounts cannot be changed to SMF.

Jim_Harman

rdk said:

In short, existing accounts cannot be changed to SMF.

That's because there are usually transactions in a brokerage account that are not allowed in a SMF account.

There is no problem going in the other direction, unless you are downloading transactions and your Financial Institution only supports SMF accounts.

rdk

I figured out how to do it! Open the account, Click on Holdings, scroll down to Single Mutual Fund, change NO to YES.

Jim_Harman

rdk said:

I figured out how to do it! Open the account, Click on Holdings, scroll down to Single Mutual Fund, change NO to YES.

That option apparently has fewer checks to see if all the transactions in the account are compatible with SMF. I did see that it warns you if the account has a security that is not a mutual fund. You should check the result carefully to make sure all your account balances are correct and nothing has been lost. Please let us know what you find.

Chris_QPW

rdk said:

I figured out how to do it! Open the account, Click on Holdings, scroll down to Single Mutual Fund, change NO to YES.

Interesting!

I almost never go into the Holdings view so I wouldn’t have even thought to look there.

rdk

Why would you care that the security is not a mutual fund? As long as you can track the single investment through the account.

Jim_Harman

rdk said:

Why would you care that the security is not a mutual fund? As long as you can track the single investment through the account.

There is no good reason that I can think of. A SMF type account might be appropriate to track securities held in certificate form, with no brokerage involved, but that is very uncommon these days. I think the "back door" you found permits this, with a warning.

q_lurker

rdk said: (edited)

Why would you (the program) care that the security is not a mutual fund? As long as you can track the single investment through the account.

I believe it is a carryover from early days when some mutual fund families required a one fund-one account relationship. Only MF families did that. No brokerage houses did that. It only applied to downloading. 

My corollary question is Why do you (rdk) care?  You already operate manually with that restriction. I speculate you want the consistent presentation across all your accounts and like the SMF presentation as perhaps cleaner. That’s fine.  Personally, I find the SMF designation too limiting. 

rdk

Among other reasons I prefer SMF is that when manually posting dividends to an account that is NOT classified as a SMF, the first thing that happens is that you get a popup box that says "A Security is Required" (annoying) then you click "OK", then select the security from a long list of securities. If the account is classified as a SMF, then the security box is prefilled with the correct security and one can avoid searching for the proper account and a possible error. The popup box still appears before you can post, which is annoying and a waste of time to clear the box each time because the security is already prefilled.

I prefer to post manually as a reconciliation with financial institutions. Also I do not want Q to have access to all my account balances. I believe it is a matter of when, rather than if, that Q will get hacked. I am now retired and have the time to manually post. A few years ago I had trouble when a financial institution double downloaded transactions, and it was a nightmare getting them removed, only to have them download transaction again.

I do not see any operational differences between a SMF and a brokerage other than posting of transactions. I can keep mineral interests, real estate partnership interests, and even I bonds in SMF and then prepare financial statements and reports with information I choose.

Jim_Harman

Of course it is up to you how you want to organize your accounts.

Many of us feel there are advantages to using brokerage accounts in Quicken if your securities are actually held in brokerage accounts. The securities in an account are automatically grouped together in Quicken. You can buy and sell within the account and when reconciling, the account total in Quicken should match the total on the brokerage statement.

rdk

Yes, I know the value for brokerage treatment for individual stocks, and agree that the program should have the option. I do not buy/trade individual stocks. I only hold index funds or investments in single assets. The choice in Q is necessary - it should not have been difficult to reclassify an account as a SMF, but glad I figured out how. I imagine others will want to use this information to reclassify some of their accounts to SMF.