I have multiple CDs I'm tracking in one savings account.

chriscray

I have multiple CDs I'm tracking in one savings account, and I'm using split transactions to track individual periodic interest paid out to each individual CD. The problem I'm having is I can easily add the interest in the split transaction and not a date it was paid, but I can't transfer that payment out within that split transaction. Simply transferring outside the split transaction makes it hard to individual CD interest and the corresponding cash account.

NotACPA

A CD is a type of investments .. and would normally be tracked in an Investment account rather than a Savings account.

volvogirl

There are several questions. If the interest is paid on different dates why are you using a split transaction? Then why do you need to transfer the interest out of the savings account? Makes it hard to what???? What does a cash account have to do with it?

Chris_QPW

This seems like a very strange setup. CDs by their nature can't be treated like a "cash account" where you can withdraw the money any time you like without penalty. So, I don't see any need for "cash account". You get to a certain point and decide not to renew the CD, and as such then you have cash, and you make a transfer to another account.

Also, even though @UKR is generally correct of how CDs might be maintained if one wants to keep them in one account, it isn't necessarily the only way. Certainly, if they are downloaded from the financial institution that way you don't want to fight the system. Also, if you are doing it manually this is a good way to go because you can track the individual CDs separately.

But I have had CDs with Synchrony (USAA does it the same way) and the way they handle it is one savings account per CD. That is the way they are downloaded.

If you have a lot of CDs and all you want to do is track the interest, then I guess using a split transaction is a bit faster than entering individual transactions, but the very nature of a split transaction means they all have to be the same date. This is "one transaction".

But saying all of this I don't understand what the problem is with "transfers". There is nothing that stops one from doing transfers in a split and even to multiple accounts. On the other hand, if you want them to show up in the same cash account as separate transfers, Quicken isn't going to do that. You have one transaction (the split one) to one cash account; it is always going to consider that "one transfer" and combine them.

Jon

When 've had CDs in the past I've always set each one up as its own savings account.

chriscray

That may work well if you just have one or two, but if your have quite a few to stagger maturity times it isn't practical. Also your account list is retained and if you ever try to delete them it messes with other accounts you transfer into and out of. This would create an endless list of open and inactive accounts. Quicken just needs to come up with a ongoing CD tracking portal where you can add interest payments by date, and where you can transfer those payments out by date. My CDs have multiple payouts throughout their duration, and I either can only use a split transaction to record them which doesn't provide a means to track them by date, and if I post them in a general CD account you can't easily tell which payment goes to each CD.

Tom Young

"Quicken just needs to come up with a ongoing CD tracking portal where you can add interest payments by date, and where you can transfer those
payments out by date."

Then you need to use and "Investment" Account and track the CD's as individual "securities" even if in your own mind you want to treat them as "cash." That's really the only approach that allows for the CD by CD precision you want.

A "Savings" Account is simply a register of cash in and cash out and doesn't really have a way a handling, easily, earmarking individual transactions as "belonging" to a specific CD. The only way I can think of doing this within one Savings Account is the create separate Tags for each individual CD and make sure every single transaction gets the correct Tag, not a particularly easy thing to do.

Chris_QPW

Now that I know what you are doing, I totally agree with @UKR and @Tom Young you should be doing this in an investment account. Since you are entering these manually you won't even be fighting the way the financial institution might have downloaded the data. On the other hand, @Tom Young 's other idea of using tags seems viable.

As for your idea that Quicken should have a system for dealing with CDs I seriously doubt that they would even implement that, but if you want to suggest it you can go to the Home page and select New Post → New Idea, so that it can be voted on.

But even if they came up with something like that, I don't see how that would save you anything. The fundamental problem you are having is that you want at times deal with multiple CDs at a time with different dates and at other times deal with them as a single CD. You aren't mimicking the real world. And I can't see any implementation that Quicken might do that wouldn't have you entering the CDs and their interest individually.

retird

I know this is a MAC thread but was searching for a way to do Cd's also in Windows. I haven't tried the following yet but am going to….. found it in the help within Quicken Premier…

Ps56k2

things would get complicated fast - if you are setting up a short term CD ladder and having the interest paid out monthly -