Quicken - Ideas Solicited for Tracking Value of Portfolio

LagunaPhil

My TIAA/CREF portfolio contains multiple funds. I am only interested in tracking, in Quicken 1) total value of the portfolio 2) MRD payments from the portfolio to my checking account 3) payments from my MRD to my church 4) tax payments on these MRD payments and 5) payments to the portfolio from my checking account. My only deposits to the TIAA/CREF account are occasional checks written from my checking account. The only withdrawals are the MRDs paid to my checking account, paid to my church and tax payments to the IRS. My current approach, treating this as a stock, is a kludge, at best.
Yes, I could abandon this approach and treat this like another checking account but I’d prefer to have it show as an investment.
1. The portfolio is treated as a single stock in a Brokerage account with an initial value equal to the initial portfolio value
2. When MRDs are deposited to my checking account, they show as payments from the brokerage account
3. When additional money is added to TIAA/CREF it shows as a deposit from the checking account
4. Tax on the MRDs shows as payment (Misc Expense) from the brokerage account (corrupts tax total for year)
5. Quicken carries the accumulation of these brokerage transactions as “Cash”
6. The “Market Value” of the portfolio is manually updated periodically
7. The accumulated “Cash” is zeroed out each year with a “Return of Capital” entry for a negative cash position or “Misc Expense” entry for a positive cash position (corrupts expense total for year)
Has anyone found a less complicated solution?