I see Quicken can keep track of Bonds but that is not an account type? Why not?

Jeff76

I see quicken can keep track of bonds, but it is not a account type, why not? I just use savings accounts, since investment account seemed more aimed at stocks. There is a place to enter a interest rate, but I never see that field used in any reports? I never have found a field to enter a maturity date nor an early call date, so I use the description field to keep track of those items. Seems to me Quicken could add more functionality around bonds in general.

q_lurker

Bonds should be tracked as securities in a brokerage account. There is a security type specific to bonds.

Boatnmaniac

An investment account is what should be used for bonds, not in savings accounts. Investment accounts are not only for stocks. They are also used for mutual funds, exchanged traded funds (ETFs), brokered CDs and other securities.

Once the bond purchases are entered as transactions in an investment account the Maturity Dates for Bonds and CDs report can be used to track them.

Jeff76

Ok, thank you. I do not see a field for maturity dates when I set up an investment account? Also, when I do set up an account I do see a field for interest rate, however I never see this field used by the system in any type of report that I have looked at, am I missing something?

q_lurker

With respect to Savings Accounts, you are not missing anything. That interest field is just sort of a reference value, just as a phone number for the bank might be.

When working as a security in an investment account, the interest and maturity info go in related to the security, the bond, not at the account level.

Boatnmaniac

So what you want to do is create a new security in Quicken for each unique bond. If you are downloading from a brokerage, the security creation and setup process will pretty much happen automatically with the appropriate information, including the maturity date and perhaps the call date. Also, the interest rate and maturity/call date are usually included in the bond name that gets downloaded. Here is an example of one bond that I own:

• 097023CU7 BOEING CO NOTE CALL MAKE WHOLE 5.04000% 05/01/2027

If you will be setting up the bond security manually you can name it whatever you want but I would suggest using the official name provided by whomever you bought it from so that it also includes the interest rate and maturity date. After the manual setup process you will also be able to edit the Security Detail and enter the bond maturity date which is what Quicken needs to be able to track it in the report.

If you want, after the new bond security set up, you can edit that security and click on the Other Info button which will open a popup where you can enter additional information as shown here:

Now you will be in a position to do a Buy Shares transaction in the investment account.

Regarding the interest rate: Quicken does not calculate the interest you will receive from the bond. It will, instead, calculate the return after you receive an interest payment from the bond.

If you are downloading from a brokerage and the bond is traded on the open market the market price and value will update every day that you download via OSU. What was initially disturbing to me is that until the bond matures the daily market price and value in Quicken will usually show that the bond loses a little value. That is because buyers of secondary market bonds (i.e., bonds that are sold by the investor prior to the maturity date) are not going to pay full price for it to ensure they will get an improved return so the market price will be a little less than what you initially paid for it. But when the bond matures or is called the market value returns to the price you paid for it.

q_lurker

Thanks to @Boatnmaniac for a nice and very helpful write-up. A few auxiliary comments.

You might note in his example, his bond has a ticker symbol = Bond1. I think having a ticker on a bond is a good thing. In order for me to do that, I need to change the Security Type to something other than Bond, then edit the ticker, then change type back to type = Bond. When making a ticker change, Quicken will prompt for copying the prices from the old ticker to the new (default to Yes is good) and prompt to delete or keep old prices associated with the old ticker (I would normally select delete).

Buying the bonds can be either as Bought Shares transaction (number of shares based on a $100 /share face value) or as a BuyBond transaction (number of bonds based on $1000 face value, but priced around the $100 par value). Yes, that can be confusing. Wherever possible, I try to use the Bought Shares approach.

If you are downloading from a brokerage and the bond is traded on the open market the market price and value will update every day that you download via OSU. 

My FI typically only values municipal bonds at end of month. Those prices will vary up and down as comparable interest rates vary.

But when the bond matures or is called the market value returns to the price you paid for it.

If the bond matures or in most cases when called, you will get face value of the bond. Those too, in Quicken become sale transactions.

Jeff76

I find all the comments above helpful, but since I hold stocks and bonds issued by the same company it comes down to ease of use. I wish Quicken would do a better job segregating stocks, preferred stocks, mutual funds, and bonds in the account window by type.

Jim_Harman

I'm not sure what you mean by the "account window"

If you want to see your holdings grouped and subtotaled by type, you can click on Investing then Portfolio to open the Portfolio views. There are several standard views that you can use as is or customize, and you can create your own custom views.

Next to "Group by:" pick Security type. You can customize the views to include one, multiple, or all accounts and/or securities. You can aslo select which columns to include in the view.