How to make sure historical data migrates to new brokerage?

QScott

I am about to move many of my stocks from Fidelity to another brokerage - I'm afraid all my historical data (cost basis, dividends, all of it) will be lost and that Quicken will see all the stocks at the second brokerage as 'new,' and start new historical data as of that day. A) does anyone know if this will happen, B) is there a way to make sure my data migrates to the new brokerage? thanks

NotACPA

The easiest way is to simply disconnect the account from Fidelity download and then rename it and connect it to the new brokerage.  It is, after all, the same account to you.

OR, you can create a new Q account for the new brokerage and keep the Fidelity account in Q for historical reference.

Jon

QScott said:

Jon, this is interesting. I'm wondering if you actually created an entirely new Quicken "account" so that, in other words, you now have two whole different Quickens to open, or if you mean you simply created a new account, like "jon's new Fidelity IRA" within your original Quicken so that everything is still under one umbrella? 

The latter.

QScott said:

So if I have 212.38 shares of Intel, I would go to Transactions within that stock group, and initiate Transfer 212.38 shares Intel from old brokerage to the new one? And then repeat for each holding one at a time?

There's an option on the Transfer Shares window where you can tell it to transfer All Securities, and it will create all the necessary transactions to move everything in the account so you don't have to do them one at a time. Just a heads up, when you press Save on that transaction the end result is not a single transaction but instead a whole bunch of Remove Shares transactions in the original account and Add Shares transactions in the new account.

Jon

The transaction definitions aren't wrong, it sounds like everything is working as intended. You didn't buy anything in your new account, everything is there because it got moved in from the old account so that's what Quicken shows. If you open up one of those Add Shares transactions it has the original purchase date & cost basis information, that's how Quicken still knows the gain/loss %.

In the future when you earn dividends or make changes to your investments you will see Dividend and Buy/Sell transactions in your new account, but none of that has happened yet.

NotACPA

The easiest way is to simply disconnect the account from Fidelity download and then rename it and connect it to the new brokerage.  It is, after all, the same account to you.

OR, you can create a new Q account for the new brokerage and keep the Fidelity account in Q for historical reference.

QScott

Thank you NotACPA. Want to make sure I follow: I definitely can disconnect the automatic downloads - this would keep Quicken from noticing that the Fidelity stocks were no longer there, thus 'freezing' the data, I guess. But I didn't mention that I already have a few things at the second brokerage that is also recognized by Quicken. I guess once the stocks and money migrate, Q will pick up the arrivals when everything has cleared - so I'm not sure simply renaming the collection of stocks would work? Or am I not seeing it right? If I want to connect and download prices, I'll have to connect it to the second brokerage to do that, I think. Pls let me know if I'm overthinking, and overlooking something obvious. Thanks so much.

NotACPA

Since the 2nd account already exists in Q, you probably need to move securities between accounts (if that function exists in QMac) and keep the Fidelity account for reference.

QScott

Thank you, I'll look into that. In the meantime, I think I will disconnect Fidelity to, I hope, preserve the history. Much appreciated.

jacobs

@QScott Be sure to make a copy of your data file before you make any changes, so you can revert if you end up making things worse instead of better.

QScott

Thanks Jacobs. I run Time Machine constantly so I think it will be there, but I'll also look to copy my Q file separately again before the transition. Good advice.n Thanks to both of you.

Jon

I recently moved an IRA from Vanguard to Fidelity. I created a new Quicken account for the Fidelity IRA & transferred the assets over from the Vanguard IRA account (using a Transfer Shares transaction). All the individual lots were preserved along with the original purchase date & cost basis. QMac did a better job of keeping track of the cost basis than Fidelity & Vanguard did - I used the information from Quicken to update Fidelity (they had the correct lots & purchase dates but not the cost basis).

QScott

Jon, this is interesting. I'm wondering if you actually created an entirely new Quicken "account" so that, in other words, you now have two whole different Quickens to open, or if you mean you simply created a new account, like "jon's new Fidelity IRA" within your original Quicken so that everything is still under one umbrella? Also, I'm not seeing a Transfer Shares transaction under any of the pulldowns. So far, I have disconnected the two soon-to-move accounts so that they won't update, then when I know the accounts have transferred, I will connect them to the new brokerage, which was suggested above. Sounds logical, though I have fingers crossed that the old data transfers too. I really appreciate the advice. Wait - just found Transfer Shares in the Transactions section. So if I have 212.38 shares of Intel, I would go to Transactions within that stock group, and initiate Transfer 212.38 shares Intel from old brokerage to the new one? And then repeat for each holding one at a time?

Jon

QScott said:

Jon, this is interesting. I'm wondering if you actually created an entirely new Quicken "account" so that, in other words, you now have two whole different Quickens to open, or if you mean you simply created a new account, like "jon's new Fidelity IRA" within your original Quicken so that everything is still under one umbrella? 

The latter.

QScott said:

So if I have 212.38 shares of Intel, I would go to Transactions within that stock group, and initiate Transfer 212.38 shares Intel from old brokerage to the new one? And then repeat for each holding one at a time?

There's an option on the Transfer Shares window where you can tell it to transfer All Securities, and it will create all the necessary transactions to move everything in the account so you don't have to do them one at a time. Just a heads up, when you press Save on that transaction the end result is not a single transaction but instead a whole bunch of Remove Shares transactions in the original account and Add Shares transactions in the new account.

QScott

Jon, this suggestion worked. The transaction was initiated today by the receiving brokerage, so the proof will be when I reconnect both brokerages to downloads. I don't know if the transfers I just enacted will show double when the money & stocks land at the new place in a few days and everything updates, or if the transfer will be the only record. Not sure what I'll do if it shows double, but at this point my main mission was accomplished, which was to transfer my historical data to the new brokerage without loss, so thank you very much.

Jon

QScott said:

I don't know if the transfers I just enacted will show double when the money & stocks land at the new place in a few days and everything updates, or if the transfer will be the only record. Not sure what I'll do if it shows double, but at this point my main mission was accomplished, which was to transfer my historical data to the new brokerage without loss, so thank you very much.

In my case, when the assets finally arrived in the new IRA a second set of transactions downloaded from Fidelity. Since those transactions didn't accurately show the cost basis, I deleted them & kept the ones that Quicken created via Transfer Shares.

QScott

On closer inspection today, the numbers/stats on the Portfolio view match, with proper share counts, mkt value, gain/loss, etc. But when I view in Transactions, things get a little wonky. For example, when still in Fidelity, it showed Buy for original purchases, and then Dividend and such for periodic actions. Now in the new home, every transaction is just Add Shares. (I manually changed one entry to Buy, and of course that affected my Cash total, which made that incorrect.) Also, it only shows transactions back to when I originally opened this second account, about three years ago. Though somehow it still has my historic % gain/loss and all that correct, even without showing the original Buy actions which may go back to 2015. Strange. I had two brokerage accounts in Fidelity, the one I moved yesterday was the much much smaller one, kind of as a test. So at this point, I'd say it's about 50% accurate. I was hoping for a 100% correlation between what I was seeing prior to the move; much of the info is there, but transaction definitions are wrong (all Add Shares), and changing anything makes my cash balance go awry. Not sure if this is pilot (me) error or if it's just part of the transfer I'll need to live with. Thanks again for all your thoughts.

Jon

The transaction definitions aren't wrong, it sounds like everything is working as intended. You didn't buy anything in your new account, everything is there because it got moved in from the old account so that's what Quicken shows. If you open up one of those Add Shares transactions it has the original purchase date & cost basis information, that's how Quicken still knows the gain/loss %.

In the future when you earn dividends or make changes to your investments you will see Dividend and Buy/Sell transactions in your new account, but none of that has happened yet.