How do I add new investment categories

rrockley

Hi all. Just starting Quicken today.

I have several investments in LLCs. How do I add these investment categories? The standard categories don't fit.

Also, how do I add sub-categories. For example, I would like category LLCs, and sub categories for each individual LLC.

I'm using deluxe version on a Mac.

jacobs

I'd just use the brokerage type for these accounts. Don't get hung up on the name; it doesn't affect how anything is transacted or reported in Quicken; it only affects where it shows up in the left sidebar. (The developers have said they will eventually create a way for users to make custom account groupings in the sidebar, but that doesn't exist at this time.)

The only thing I think you need to decide is whether to create one account for the LLC's, and track each of the LLC investments in that account as separate securities, or create a separate account for each LLC. 

jacobs

What transactions did you enter in the register to create your holdings? I don't know if you're trying to back-date them to when you made the investments, and if so, trace what account the money came out of.

If you invested $5,000 in one of the LLCs in 2015 and the money came from your checking account, you would need to enter a transfer transaction from your checking account to the investment account for $5,000 to create a positive cash balance in the investment account. Then in the investment account, you would enter a Buy transaction for $5,000 and the number of shares you purchased. If there aren't really "shares" in this investment — e.g. you just have a $5,000 investment, not 50 shares at $100 — you'll still need to record the purchase of shares. You could record $5,000 for the amount and 5,000 for shares, for $1 per share.

If you aren't going back in time to account for where the money came from for the investment, then instead of a transfer of cash followed by a Buy transaction, you would use an Add Shares transaction. This is a way of creating shares out of nothing. So you could record Add Shares for $5,000 of 5,000 shares at $1.

In either of these cases, your sidebar would show the value of the account as (positive) $5,000. 

I'm guessing that the negative value you're seeing is if you used Buy to create your share holding, but didn't transfer cash into the account. In your register for the LLC accounts, is the running balance column — which is the cash balance of the account — showing -$5,000? You want it to be zero, because you don't have any cash in this account.

The fact that Quicken can't look up a value for the securities should be irrelevant. In the Securities window, open one of the securities (LLCs) you created, and click on the Price History tab. It should show just one line, the price of the security on the day you entered your Buy or Add Shares transaction. In my examples above, it would show a closing price of $1.00 on that date. And until you some day enter a new price/share for that investment, Quicken will always use $1 per share as the current value.

jacobs

What sort of investment categories do you need to add? Quicken Mac calculates investment returns internally, so chances are if you create new categories, you may not be able to use regular investment transactions in Quicken Mac. 

rrockley

New category - LLCs. (Limited Liability Companies.) These are investments that are not traded and only yield a return when you get distributions, and when the underlying property is sold.

Sub categories - for each investment (LLC 1, LLC 2 etc)

jacobs

I understand you have invested in LLCs, but I would think they would be the security you bought. Then you would manually update the share price (if it varies), and use regular investment transactions to record dividends or capital gains. You don't need to create categories for this.

rrockley

Look, it's not "brokerage" it's not "property", it's not "retirement." None of them fit.

Can I add a new category under "Investing" or not? I just want to know if I can add a customized (for my needs) category, or am I stuck with the options Quicken thinks I need.

jacobs

I'd just use the brokerage type for these accounts. Don't get hung up on the name; it doesn't affect how anything is transacted or reported in Quicken; it only affects where it shows up in the left sidebar. (The developers have said they will eventually create a way for users to make custom account groupings in the sidebar, but that doesn't exist at this time.)

The only thing I think you need to decide is whether to create one account for the LLC's, and track each of the LLC investments in that account as separate securities, or create a separate account for each LLC. 

rrockley

Thanks all for your replies and patience with a Quicken newbie. You saved me a lot of time trying to figure out how to do something that can't be done. I can make it work - I think I'll use assets rather than a brokerage other I think, since they're not liquid assets.

I think this a major and unnecessary weakness of Q. though. I have worked with several accounting systems over the years and have never before come across one where you couldn't add your own balance sheet account names and account groupings. I have about 20 LLC investments - some of these will be worth a decent amount of $ but some could be worth nothing. I would prefer to record each one separately but be able to collapse them all into one total rather than have a string of individual investments cluttering up the screen. I can see how to make it work though now, so thanks again all.

rrockley

Thanks RickO, I added my upvote to the "Add ability to customize the asset class menu" that you linked to:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20015367#Comment_20015367

rrockley

RickO

I created a new account under brokerage called LLCs. I was able to enter a couple of LLCs within that one code. I had to create new investments but it looks OK.

Do you have any idea why the dollar value for these is showing in the sidebar as negative?

rrockley

I think because these are not tradable securities, Q. can't find values for them and is recording their value as zero dollars. I don't know why it's showing the total as a negative rather than as zero dollars though. I see no way to change the negative dollar values. Any ideas?

jacobs

What transactions did you enter in the register to create your holdings? I don't know if you're trying to back-date them to when you made the investments, and if so, trace what account the money came out of.

If you invested $5,000 in one of the LLCs in 2015 and the money came from your checking account, you would need to enter a transfer transaction from your checking account to the investment account for $5,000 to create a positive cash balance in the investment account. Then in the investment account, you would enter a Buy transaction for $5,000 and the number of shares you purchased. If there aren't really "shares" in this investment — e.g. you just have a $5,000 investment, not 50 shares at $100 — you'll still need to record the purchase of shares. You could record $5,000 for the amount and 5,000 for shares, for $1 per share.

If you aren't going back in time to account for where the money came from for the investment, then instead of a transfer of cash followed by a Buy transaction, you would use an Add Shares transaction. This is a way of creating shares out of nothing. So you could record Add Shares for $5,000 of 5,000 shares at $1.

In either of these cases, your sidebar would show the value of the account as (positive) $5,000. 

I'm guessing that the negative value you're seeing is if you used Buy to create your share holding, but didn't transfer cash into the account. In your register for the LLC accounts, is the running balance column — which is the cash balance of the account — showing -$5,000? You want it to be zero, because you don't have any cash in this account.

The fact that Quicken can't look up a value for the securities should be irrelevant. In the Securities window, open one of the securities (LLCs) you created, and click on the Price History tab. It should show just one line, the price of the security on the day you entered your Buy or Add Shares transaction. In my examples above, it would show a closing price of $1.00 on that date. And until you some day enter a new price/share for that investment, Quicken will always use $1 per share as the current value.

rrockley

Thanks Jacobs, that made sense. I was able to add them all using "add shares" as you suggested. I think I'm ready to use QMac going forward. Thanks again for your help.