Change security on multiple transactions

Chris Anderson

Is it possible to change the security on multiple transactions in Quicken for Mac?  My employer recently changed to a new 401k administrator. Fortunately I can now automatically download transactions into Quicken for Mac.  Unfortunately the names of all my investments changed slightly.  The investments do not have a ticker symbol ( they didn't with the previous administrator).  I've tried merging the new security name with the old security name but this messes up the price history.  I have transactions dating back to 2004 so changing individual transactions is not an option.

Jon

In your particular case, where you have transactions under both the old & new security names, I don't know of any way to do that other than merging the securities. If you try to select multiple transactions in the register of a brokerage account and select Edit Transactions to try a group edit, you can change the contents of the Security/Payee window but it gives you a list of payees rather than securities. And if you try typing in the name of a security it tries to create it as a new payee instead. So that doesn't seem to be a viable solution.

If you don't have very many entries under the new security name, I would try this (after backing up your file):
1. Change the transactions using the new security name to something else, some bogus made-up security name that you can easily find later on.
2. Delete the new security name from the Securities window now that no transactions are using it.
3. Edit the old security in the Securities window and change the name to the new security name. This will modify all the transactions using the old security name to use the new one. I'm not sure what this will do to the price history.
4. Change the transactions you modified in step one back to the new security name.

Chris Anderson

I tried this for one security and it worked great for everything in my portfolio.  Unfortunately when I went to update the accounts, a new security was created (original security - S&P 500, newly created security - S&P 500 2).  It seems there is a problem linking the security when downloading.  I was, however, able to merge the newly created security (S&P 500 2) with the original security (S&P 500).  The price history was incorrect at first but corrected when I updated the account.

Jon

In your particular case, where you have transactions under both the old & new security names, I don't know of any way to do that other than merging the securities. If you try to select multiple transactions in the register of a brokerage account and select Edit Transactions to try a group edit, you can change the contents of the Security/Payee window but it gives you a list of payees rather than securities. And if you try typing in the name of a security it tries to create it as a new payee instead. So that doesn't seem to be a viable solution.

If you don't have very many entries under the new security name, I would try this (after backing up your file):
1. Change the transactions using the new security name to something else, some bogus made-up security name that you can easily find later on.
2. Delete the new security name from the Securities window now that no transactions are using it.
3. Edit the old security in the Securities window and change the name to the new security name. This will modify all the transactions using the old security name to use the new one. I'm not sure what this will do to the price history.
4. Change the transactions you modified in step one back to the new security name.

Chris Anderson

I tried this for one security and it worked great for everything in my portfolio.  Unfortunately when I went to update the accounts, a new security was created (original security - S&P 500, newly created security - S&P 500 2).  It seems there is a problem linking the security when downloading.  I was, however, able to merge the newly created security (S&P 500 2) with the original security (S&P 500).  The price history was incorrect at first but corrected when I updated the account.