make it possible to write and print checks from a brokerage account (IRA)

mgottfredson

I have a fidelity account. I can actually go to "enter transactions" and use transaction type "write check". But I cannot print the check. The brokerage account has a check feature, and I write checks out of it all the time, but I have to do it manually because I can't print a check out of the quicken account. Not very professional to hand write the checks. I would like to be able to print them.

q_lurker

I I am not a big fan but … can’t you identify that the brokerage account has a linked checking account (Edit Account Details) and print the checks from there?  

Rocket J Squirrel

I just tried it and was able to print a (fake) check from my Fidelity brokerage account with no linked checking.

Chris_QPW

By any chance is the account a retirement account?
Because I tried this and had no problem with doing this either from the brokerage account or a linked checking account.

When I tried it from an IRA account it would let me enter the transaction, but the print dialog wouldn't allow selecting from that account.

Rocket J Squirrel

Chris_QPW said:

When I tried it from an IRA account it would let me enter the transaction, but the print dialog wouldn't allow selecting from that account.

Good point. The "Write checks from" menu at the top of the Write Checks (Ctrl-W) dialog also shows which accounts are allowed to print checks and IRAs are not.

UKR

Rocket J Squirrel said:

Chris_QPW said:

When I tried it from an IRA account it would let me enter the transaction, but the print dialog wouldn't allow selecting from that account.

Good point. The "Write checks from" menu at the top of the Write Checks (Ctrl-W) dialog also shows which accounts are allowed to print checks and IRAs are not.

I'd call that a bug that needs to be fixed.

Chris_QPW

UKR said:

Rocket J Squirrel said:

Chris_QPW said:

When I tried it from an IRA account it would let me enter the transaction, but the print dialog wouldn't allow selecting from that account.

Good point. The "Write checks from" menu at the top of the Write Checks (Ctrl-W) dialog also shows which accounts are allowed to print checks and IRAs are not.

I'd call that a bug that needs to be fixed.

But how?

One could easily argue that it is impossible to write checks in an IRA account, and therefore the fix would be not to allow the print action in an IRA account.

UKR

Chris_QPW said:

UKR said:

Rocket J Squirrel said:

Chris_QPW said:

When I tried it from an IRA account it would let me enter the transaction, but the print dialog wouldn't allow selecting from that account.

Good point. The "Write checks from" menu at the top of the Write Checks (Ctrl-W) dialog also shows which accounts are allowed to print checks and IRAs are not.

I'd call that a bug that needs to be fixed.

But how?

One could easily argue that it is impossible to write checks in an IRA account, and therefore the fix would be not to allow the print action in an IRA account.

That argument doesn't hold water. My brokerage allows checks to be written to make withdrawals from my IRA account. They sent me a whole booklet of these checks.
The "Enter transactions" dialog allows a Write checks transaction to be recorded in the IRA account. There also is a checkbox there to queue this check for printing.
The only problem is that the "Write (and print) Checks" dialog does not allow the IRA account to be selected and therefore the entry in the print queue cannot be found and printed.

Chris_QPW

I guess I'm living in the past, just like Quicken is.  

If it is possible at the brokerage, then it should be possible in Quicken.
It does seem like it would be an easy fix.  They are purposely filtering out the IRA accounts.

Eagleville

It is now July 2024 and apparently this bug has not been fixed. I am not able to print a check from my IRA account.

Is anyone at Quicken/Intuit listening?

mshiggins

[Unless otherwise noted, the term "retirement account" in THIS post, refers only to retirement accounts that the owner must pay taxes on when withdrawing funds from the account.]

I'm not so sure addressing the issue of this discussion is as simple as some users appear to believe it is.

In my view, if there is a bug involved, it's not clear that the bug is Quicken preventing the "Write Check" (CTRL-w) dialog from accessing retirement accounts. I think it's at least as likely that the bug is Quicken allowing the "Write Check" option for transactions in retirement accounts.

Typically, withdrawals from traditional IRA accounts and 401k accounts are taxable. 

I think it would be difficult for Quicken to account for the taxes on those withdrawals if the user withdrew funds by writing a check on the investment retirement account. 

As I see it; Quicken expects the user to use a transfer transaction (a transaction with an account in square brackets as the Category) for withdrawing funds from retirement accounts in order to allow Quicken to capture the taxes on the withdrawal (the Tax Line Iten for taxable retirement account withdrawals is chosen using the "Tax Schedule Info" button at the foot of the Edit Account Details dialog). The taxes are captured from the half of the transfer transaction in the TO account (the non-retirement account), where the amount has the proper algebraic sign to increase the user's tax liability.

A check written in Quicken would usually have some expense category with no Tax Line Item assigned. But even if a 1099 Tax Line Item were assigned to the check transaction in a retirement account, the amount in the check transaction would have the wrong algebraic sign, the transaction would reduce tax liability rather than increasing it.

One could quibble about the fact that there are no taxes due on Roth IRA withdrawals, so it should be possible to Write Checks from Roth IRA,accounts. But that's not the complaint this discussion is about.

-JP

UKR

Let's hope that the programmers aren't totally forgetting about fixing this bug.

Adding IRA and other retirement accounts to the account selection list should not be a major issue.