Move a Quicken account to another Quicken Account

hwhite3

Is there a way to move an account en mass from one Quicken account to another Quicken Account? My wife passed away and I want to move her entire IRA account to my IRA account. Is there an "easy" way to do this?

Boatnmaniac

@hwhite3 , please accept my condolences for the loss of your wife.  I can't imagine what you must be going through.

Do you download these accounts from the brokerage(s)?  If so, why not let the brokerage(s) download the necessary transactions and you shouldn't need to do anything else?

If not, will her security holdings be liquidated with cash transferred to your account?  In this case, you should enter Sell transactions for each security.  When setting up the Sell transactions you can check a box to sell all shares so it does become only one transaction for each security.  Then you can enter a Cash Transferred Out of Account transaction in your wife's account with the cash being transferred to your account.

Or will her security holdings be transferred to your account?  In this case, I suggest you enter a Shares Transferred Between Accounts transaction in your wife's account.  You can select the option to transfer all securities to your account so there is only 1 transaction that needs to be entered that will transfer all securities, shares and history.  IMO, this would be the easiest and fastest way to do it.

As an alternative to this Shares Transferred Between Accounts you could do a Remove Shares transaction for each individual security in your wife's account.  Make notes of how many shares of each security you removed (and perhaps the cost basis of each security).  Then in your account, do an Add Shares transaction for each transferred security.  You might want to also edit the securities to get the cost basis entered (but since these are IRA accounts the cost basis isn't important from a tax perspective).  It will be more work for you but it will help to keep the clutter of your wife's lot transactions history out of your account.

BTW, before you do any of these things, be sure to back up your data file.  It will make recovery fast and easy for you in case something goes wrong or you don't like the end results.

volvogirl

Did you actually move it from her account to your account at the company?  Seems like you could just do a Remove Shares and Add Shares and start your account from the transfer date.  Unless someone else has a better way.  

Boatnmaniac

@hwhite3 , please accept my condolences for the loss of your wife.  I can't imagine what you must be going through.

Do you download these accounts from the brokerage(s)?  If so, why not let the brokerage(s) download the necessary transactions and you shouldn't need to do anything else?

If not, will her security holdings be liquidated with cash transferred to your account?  In this case, you should enter Sell transactions for each security.  When setting up the Sell transactions you can check a box to sell all shares so it does become only one transaction for each security.  Then you can enter a Cash Transferred Out of Account transaction in your wife's account with the cash being transferred to your account.

Or will her security holdings be transferred to your account?  In this case, I suggest you enter a Shares Transferred Between Accounts transaction in your wife's account.  You can select the option to transfer all securities to your account so there is only 1 transaction that needs to be entered that will transfer all securities, shares and history.  IMO, this would be the easiest and fastest way to do it.

As an alternative to this Shares Transferred Between Accounts you could do a Remove Shares transaction for each individual security in your wife's account.  Make notes of how many shares of each security you removed (and perhaps the cost basis of each security).  Then in your account, do an Add Shares transaction for each transferred security.  You might want to also edit the securities to get the cost basis entered (but since these are IRA accounts the cost basis isn't important from a tax perspective).  It will be more work for you but it will help to keep the clutter of your wife's lot transactions history out of your account.

BTW, before you do any of these things, be sure to back up your data file.  It will make recovery fast and easy for you in case something goes wrong or you don't like the end results.

NotACPA

@hwhite3, first off, my condolences also.  My 1st wife died in 2007, so I had to do this also.

In my H&B version of Q, there's a "Move shares between accounts" action in the IRA.

I don't know if that action is available in all Q products, and you don't state what Q product you're running ... but it's worth looking into.

That action, way down the list under the "Enter Transactions" dialog, is how I moved the shares.  The move shares dialog includes an option for "All Securities"

Chris_QPW

@NotACPA the Move shares feature is in all the editions except Starter which doesn't support investment accounts.

But what I would use is the relatively new feature "Move Transactions".
Select the gear icon menu in the right of that account that you want to move the transactions from and select "Move Transactions".

Unlike the "Move shares" which will put in sells for all the transactions in original account and they put in buys in the second account, Move Transactions actually just moves all the transactions.  It means that the old account will be empty, but the full history of that account will now be in the second account.

Move shares preserves the cash basis for tax purposes, but not all the information that is calculated based on the transactions themselves.

NotACPA

I was aware of the "Move Transactions" action ... but I wanted to keep the history of my late wife's IRA in that account and only move the current positions to my account.

Ultimately, it's @hwhite3's decision as to how he wants to see the info presented.

Boatnmaniac

Move Transactions is certainly another option I'd forgotten about.

@hwhite3 - I think you now have several very good options to consider and choose from.  If you have any questions about anything please be sure to let us know.

Chris_QPW

NotACPA said:

I was aware of the "Move Transactions" action ... but I wanted to keep the history of my late wife's IRA in that account and only move the current positions to my account.

Ultimately, it's @hwhite3's decision as to how he wants to see the info presented.

True given there is a tradeoff between seeing the old account as it was and seeing all the calculated numbers correctly in the new account, it is really up to the user what works best for them.

hwhite3

Thank you for all the help! The transfer shares between accounts" option worked.