401k transfer within same financial institution and employer

Question

I work for a huge company that has many subsidiaries. Recently our 401k accounts were transferred to a different subsidiary's plan. The financial institution and investment options did not change. Is there any point to creating a new 401k account in Quicken and recording this transfer? Fidelity shows two separate 401k accounts when I login and a pair of "transfer out/transfer in" transactions for each fund I'm invested in.

If I wanted to record what happened in Quicken would I enter "sell all shares" and "Xout" transactions for each fund in the old account, followed by a "Buy" transaction for the same fund in the new account? Or would I use some other transaction to transfer the shares directly without buying/selling?

Sherlock · Answer

There is no point to creating a new 401k account in Quicken and recording this transfer.  I suggest you just set the 401k account register to track new account 401k.  If you were using Online Services to import transactions, you would deactivate the register and set up the Online Services to pull transactions from the new account and remove any imported transactions associated with the transfer.

If you wanted to record what happened in Quicken by creating a new 401k account, I suggest you remove any imported transactions associated with the transfer and use the Shares Transferred Between Accounts wizard: open the original 401k register, press Ctrl + N, select Shares Transferred Between Accounts from the Enter transaction: pull-down menu, and choose All securities.   Don't forget to edit the paycheck reminder.

Note:Before making any significant changes to a Quicken file, always save a backup: press Ctrl + B

NotACPA · Answer

If the former account is empty (at Fidelity) and everything's in the new account ... I'd just disconnect the old account from download (in Q), rename it, and re-connect to Fidelity.After all, to you it's all the same account.