Is it possible to transfer cash to or from a Simple Tracking Investment account?

evsteve

I like the Simple Tracking feature for investment accounts. However, I do occasionally move cash from/to an investment account to/from a checking account, and it's convenient to have those transactions tracked/recorded. I did a test transaction indicating a transfer of $1.00 (category = transfer:[investmentAccount]) from my checking to an investment account. The cash in the list of holdings in the investment account went up by $1 so it would seem it recorded it there. And I deleted the transaction and the investment account, cash balance adjusted again, reflecting the change. But I haven't yet actually transferred between those accounts so not sure what would happen. Any thoughts or warnings?

jacobs

If you're going to use Simple Tracking for the investment account, Quicken is always going to pull the balance for the account from what the financial institution provides. So reflecting a transfer going into or out of the account wouldn't really accomplish anything. In your checking account, you can probably use Transfer:[InvestmentAccount] or simply Transfer as the category and perhaps a note about where the transfer is to/from in the Memo/Notes field. Using the plain Transfer category, without specifying a transfer account, in Quicken allows the checking account to be increased or decreased in value without knowing where the money came from or went. I think you would get the same results either way, but I don't use Simple Tracking on my investment accounts, so I can't say for certain.

garysmith87

Apparently, however, you CAN go back and forth from Simple Investing to Detailed Investing.

Which makes things rather interesting then.

So, with Simple Investing selected and in my checking account I transfer $1,000 to the investing account, if I do it with Transfer:[Investment Account], we understand that you won't see the transfer in the investing account since there is no transaction register.

But if I then change to Detailed Investing, does that transfer then show up...WITHOUT me re-entering the transfer?

Because if those transactions are still somehow recorded in the investment account but "hidden" from view because there is no register, but only show when Detailed Investing is selected...then I would STILL use the normal transfer designation of Transfer:[Investment Account].

There is no way of knowing if you will ever return to using Detailed Investing sometime in the future.  

The Simple Investing view is just the Dashboard view of that account and no register view.  Also think of the selection option as just a toggle on or off...and you can switch back and forth and back again at will. But transactions are STILL there...they are just out of view in Simple Investing.    

Chris_QPW

Assuming this works just like in the Windows version (and there isn't any reason to believe it wouldn't) then this should work just fine.  And there is a reason why one might want to do this, it isn't "useless".

The first thing to understand is that the investment register didn't really go away, it is just hidden.
The main difference as far as the transactions go will be what happens when you download.  If you are in complete mode, it downloads the transactions.  If you are in simple mode, it will put in transactions that make your cash and security share balances equal to what the financial institution said they were.  So, you will be getting add/remove shares kinds of transactions, and deposit/withdraw transactions for the cash.  Note that because of this as soon as some of these transactions come in the cost basis/return numbers aren't going to be correct.

So, there isn't anything stopping you from doing a transfer from/to your checking account.  The transfer will be recorded in the investment account and the cash amount will go up.  Let's say it is now $100, then you download, and the financial institutions says that you have $0, but have some more shares of a given security.  Quicken will now enter a transaction to reduce the cash to $0 and an Add Shares to increase the number of shares for the security.

So, why isn't entering the transfer "useless", if it is just going to be zeroed out in the investment account?

Think of a paycheck and a contribution to a 401K.  The transfer is doing two things, it is supplying the cash in the investment account, but it is also giving you a transfer that you can report on so that you know how much you have contributed into the 401K.

Note that even though you can switch back and forth between complete and simple modes, once you start downloading in simple mode you can't easily change back to complete mode because you will be missing the transactions that give you the cost basis and such (the buys and sells).