How to correct a jumbled investment account

NV-VT

Premier Windows with latest build. For some time I had two investment accounts with M Stanley, one tax deferred. Later opened a new M Stanley cash savings account and created new savings account in Quicken by selecting M Stanley Cash Management on the brokerage search and activated downloading option under the "banking" group which appeared like a bank account register. For reasons not important here, my broker had to move one mutual fund into the separate MS "cash" account. I moved the Quicken account from the "banking" to "investing" group. Now the Quicken account shows the correct mutual fund shares but the cash incorrectly shows as "1 unit" at some weird value with the cash total way off. Can I correct this? Instead should I delete this account and start over? Can I delete that one investment account without deleting or otherwise screwing up my two other investment accounts? Starting that process I got a warning that I needed to call the broker! so I stopped.

Tom Young

Of course the best approach would be to work through the history of transactions at MS and get them properly recorded in Quicken.  That would involve deleting erroneous transactions and substituting the correct transactions; that could be a lot of work depending on the situation.  I'd suggest you make a backup of your current file and at least try that.  It might come down to only a few transactions that could be easily corrected, giving you a clean history.

If everything else in the MS Accounts aligns with what MS says, except for the cash, then the other approach is to get the cash correctly stated and move forward.  I'd guess that somehow a "security" got created along the lines with that "1 unit" and that security needs to be Removed. 

Deleting the one Investment Account probably would mess things up due to transfers between this Account and other Accounts in your file.  I'm not sure what kind of warning you got when you tried to delete the file but it might have had something to do with the downloading method where, sometimes, financial institutions charge  you a fee for downloading and Quicken was telling you you needed to notify them to stop the downloading charge.

q_lurker

It appears you had a Cash (checking or savings) account in Quicken and reset it to have a Banking intent rather than an Investment intent.  Nothing wrong with that specifically, but the account still remains a cash-only account.  So what you did "to move one mutual fund into the separate MS "cash" account", I can't imagine. 

Now the Quicken account shows the correct mutual fund shares but the cash incorrectly shows as "1 unit" at some weird value with the cash total way off. Can I correct this? 

Because I don't really understand what you did, I can't see any way to correct it.  I would be inclined start a new account that can have both cash and this mutual fund; a basic brokerage account.  Perhaps you can then move necessary transactions from the old account to this new account, before deleting the old account.  You may need to create the new account with a linked checking account to better reflect the cash and fund activities.  Backup before heading into any of this, just in case.

Beyond that, maybe you can clarify how you were managing both the cash and the mutual fund shares in this account.

NV-VT

Thanks but let me clarify. The third account was separate cash account at MS and originally set up in Quicken a "Banking" account because it was just cash. My broker, not me, later transferred a single mutual fund from a "wealth management account" at MS into this third MS "cash" account even though as far as MS is concerned it is just another investment account. That new Quicken "banking" account originally displayed with a register like a checking account. Under tools > account list, I re-designated this new account to be in the "investing" group.

Later when I did a one step update in Quicken, that's when things went haywire. After several days of trying to do updates it now displays like an investment account (holdings and enter transactions) But I see no option to "enter cash" or "adjust cash balance."

Another helpful reply post today suggests that if I try to delete the screwed up account it will delete all three MS accounts. That is scary especially since the older investment accounts go back years. If I try to set up a new investment account in Quicken, and follow the prompts to "add an account" in Quicken Investing, and search for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Quicken shows I already have these three accounts in Quicken and set up for online downloading (direct connect, I think).  If I delete the one screwed up account in Quicken, will it delete the other two accounts also? I am getting conflicting advice here and dare not make a wrong move. Thanks for input. Lemme know if this gives you any better insight to my issue and a solution.

q_lurker

1.  If you create a backup before taking any actions (like deleting an account), I don't see any risk involved.  You fully recover to the current state by restoring the backup. 

2.  I would not as a first step delete the haywire account,  I would deactivate the online connectivity to it.  Edit Account Details, Online Services tab, Deactivate.  I would not expect that to do anything to the other accounts connected to MS.  If something unexpected happens, see point 1. 

3.  I don't know what is going on with the lack of Update Cash options.  The gear icon should offer you an Update Cash Balance option for an investment account showing the Enter Transactions and Holding buttons.  Using the Enter Transactions, there should be options at the bottom of the transactions entry dropdown for cash entry options.

4.  So my steps would be

• Backup the file
• Deactivate the existing account for online connectivity, 
• Create a new Manual entry account not tied to Morgan Stanley at this time.  
• Move appropriate transactions as necessary from the old account to the new account.  Get that account to where you think it should be.  
• Connect the new account to MS (Edit Account Details, Online Services.  Be sure to link the third account to the new (was a manual) account.  You may need to delete duplicate transactions from the new connection to MS.
  
• All good?  Delete the old account. 

If at any point things go wrong, restore the backup.

Tom Young

" If I delete the one screwed up account in Quicken, will it delete the other two accounts also?"

If you go to the Display Options of the Account Details screen and click on "Delete Account" that will not delete the other MS Accounts.  However, all transactions between those other two MS Accounts and the deleted Account will become unlinked to the closed Account and become what's commonly referred to as "one-sided" entries.  You might need to re-establish downloading or you might not; I've never deleted a connected Account in a file with other Accounts connected to the same financial institution.