Delete and reinstall IRA account

Bill Conyer

I want to start using my Net Worth Statement on a monthly basis.

Every thing is in balance with accounts except my IRA. Rather than go back and correct 20 years of transactions, I want to delete the IRA and reinstall getting the correct balance in the Net Worth Statement. Because the withdrawal is 100% taxable I do not see a downside.

Am I missing something?

NotACPA

Your IRA account holder determines how far back you can download into Q … but 90 days is a typical maximum.

You can also go out to the FI's website and see if they allow downloading for a longer period.

Otherwise, how do you intend to "get the correct balance"?

Boatnmaniac

If you delete your IRA account:

1. Any transactions originating in accounts outside of that deleted IRA (such as, cash transfers or securities transfers into and/or out of that account) will be orphaned. The transactions will still be in the originating accounts but the category will show [Unknown Account].
2. Any transaction originating in the IRA that transferred cash and/or securities into other accounts will be deleted in those other accounts creating account balance issues.
3. Most investment companies will download just the last 90 days of transactions but some will download up to the last 2 years of transactions. If you delete the IRA you will lose all of the history beyond that download window unless you wish to manually enter all of the transactions beyond that window.
4. Your net worth and other reports and tools in Quicken will no longer include any of the IRA's assets and transactions history so the historical net worth and transactions reports will be lost.

There are probably some other drawbacks that I'm forgetting to list here but I hope this gives you a broader perspective of the issues that it would create.

What I would suggest is that instead of deleting that IRA account you enter some account balancing transactions to get your IR account into balance. Then you will avoid all of the issues mentioned above and retain the historical data integrity and accuracy. The process spelled out below will not properly reconcile all of the historical data in the account but it will give you an accurate current data snapshot so it will be kind of like starting fresh without losing all of the historical data.

Assuming you are downloading transactions from the investment company, Quicken can assist you in deciding what needs to be done with the account to get it into balance.

1. Back up your data file.
2. Go to Account Details > Online Services > check the box for Reconcile to Online Balance.
3. Run OSU or Update Now.
4. Account Register > upper right Gear icon > Reconcile Shares: This will identify which securities in your account in Quicken are out of balance with what the investment company has reported and by how much. I suggest not letting Quicken generate any Placeholders for them but do make note of each securities are out of balance and by how much.
5. Enter transactions for the shares imbalances using Add - Shares Added or Remove - Shares Removed. Or you could use the Adjust Share Balance transaction option, instead. Or you could simply use Update Share Balance (under the upper right Gear icon of the Account Register) which might be the simplest and easiest way to make the shares adjustments.
6. After correcting the shares imbalances: Account Register > upper right Gear icon > Update Cash Balance > enter the balance that was downloaded by the investment company (this information will be shown in the popup when you click on the blue font Cash Balance below the register on the right).

Now your IRA account should be fully in balance with what your investment company shows.

If you are not downloading transactions into the IRA account, you can use your latest statement from the investment company to do the Update Share Balance and Update Cash Balance actions under the upper right Gear icon in the Account Register. This will also get your account into balance.

Questions?

Bill Conyer

I see the downside. My transaction file is around 10 years old.. I am in complete balance with the actual online IRA statement and my Quicken IRA account. It is the Quicken Net Worth report that shows the IRA with a different total than the actual Quicken IRA and online balance. The difference is several thousand dollars and varies from month to month.

I am presently manually adjusting the IRA line item monthly to get the true picture. ( All other assets and liabilities are in perfect agreement)

So you see I only need to get the two amounts to agree.

Bill Conyer

I am downloading transactions and do so frequently.