How do I enter a transfer out of one fund into another fund in my 403(b)?

hokiealum08

I'm entering the full transaction history of my wife's account since her provider is Empower and Quicken doesn't connect to them. She had everything in her 403(b) invested in VIVLX but last year they changed the fund over to the VFFVX version. So in her transaction history it was a transfer out of VIVLX and into VFFVX. There were separate transactions for each part (employee contr., employer match, etc.). I tried to enter as a sold and then bought but the cash balance of the account isn't adjusting correctly and the cash investment amount is showing as "N/A". Any help on how to manage this transaction correctly?

q_lurker

To truly see placeholders, be sure your preference selection is set to Show hidden transactions. 

Mark1104

certainly one way of doing it is as you suggested: sell everything in VIFLX and re-purchase it in VFFVX.  that would work as long as you had the correct share balance in VIFLX on the date of the transfer and used the correct 4 p.m. price.  no other reason it would not have worked. 

do a 'mutual fund conversion' transaction type in the enter transaction drop down menu. 

I assume you don't care about the cost basis since this is within a qualified account. 


 

Tom Young

@hokiealum08

"I'm entering the full transaction history of my wife's account since her provider is Empower and Quicken doesn't connect to them."

Why?  It would be much easier to disconnect that Account from Empower, and change the Account's name.  Put something in the "Comment" box of the General tab of the Account Details screen to remind yourself what you did.

Mark1104

Tom - Empower expects to provide transactional download capability later this quarter.  They are dealing with a technology issue preventing that service at the current time.  Would that chnage your advice? 

Tom Young

"Empower expects to provide transactional download capability later this quarter.  They are dealing with a technology issue preventing that service at the current time.  Would that chnage your advice? "

No. Until they provide support for downloading you're going to be entering transactions manually and leaving the existing transactions in the existing Account saves a boatload of work.  When they do get downloading up and running you should be able to connect the existing Account to Empower. 

q_lurker

@hokiealum08 -- usually N/A in cash indicates a placeholder (Adjust Share Balance) transaction in the records.  Resolve and delete the placeholder is the conventional wisdom. 

hokiealum08

> @q_lurker said:
> @hokiealum08 -- usually N/A in cash indicates a placeholder (Adjust Share Balance) transaction in the records.  Resolve and delete the placeholder is the conventional wisdom. 

Maybe that's my issue. I wanted to backfill all previous transactions rather than starting from 2023. I've entered all transactions prior to the transition from VIVLX to VFFVX but since I didn't record any income into the account I had to enter a manual cash balance revision which you can see in the screenshot, followed by the transfers out of the VIVLX fund, which incidentally leave me with a fraction of a share after all is said and done. Then after the transfer out I started working backwards from when I started recording paychecks and cash in the account for share purchases. I'm going to finish entering all transactions and see if that clears it up.

q_lurker

To truly see placeholders, be sure your preference selection is set to Show hidden transactions. 

hokiealum08

> @q_lurker said:
> To truly see placeholders, be sure your preference selection is set to Show hidden transactions. 

Yep, I didn't realize there was data behind the scenes causing this. Thanks so much. Once I cleared the extra transactions that I entered not realizing what I was doing, the balances added up correctly after I finished entering all remaining transactions to bring the history up to date.