Help needed in setting up an IRA acct -

Lisa Odom · February 6

I've been using Quicken Classic Deluxe for 100 years. LOVE it for tracking and downloading my bank and credit card transactions. However I have spend endless hours trying to set up an acct. for my IRA - to include Core Cash, brokerage CDs, and equities. I have read so many questions and answers on this site as to how to do this, but I only know enough to be dangerous. I'm hoping someone can help or tell me where to go to find in depth (easy to understand) instructions? I'm a little OCD and I don't want to give up, but saying i'm frustrated is an understatement. I will be so appreciative of any help I can get - Where do I start?

Thank you!!! LisaO

I am using Quicken Classic Deluxe,

Version R54.16

Windows 11

QuickUserPSP · February 6

@Lisa Odom - please see the link below. It is a useful "how to" that has some specific information on IRAs. I think it would be a good place to start.

https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3216290

Tom Young · February 6

Boy, without knowing any of the details behind the question "how do I set up an IRA Account" it's difficult to know where to start and what level of detail is needed.

At its simplest, you can create the Account as a manual Account, tell Quicken what securities and the number of shares or each are in the Account as of "today", enter a gross cost basis for all the shares (assuming you know that), enter any cash in the Account as of "today", and your Account is established with valid data. It won't have "lot" information, it won't have "holding period" information, but it's a perfectly good starting point.

If you wanted to have downloading work with this Account after that you could connect the Account to the associated Financial Institution, delete all the "history" information that comes with the initial download (90 days worth of transactions is common), and move forward from there.

At the other end of the scale from simplest to "most comprehensive" you'd create the manual Account "as of" the day you opened it and start entering transactions in the Account from Day 1 to "today." Presumably this Account has interacted with your checking Accounts during those 100 years, so that would mean finding all those interactions in the checking Accounts and editing them to reflect that fact that the IRA existed. You'd enter all the Buys, the Sells, the Dividends the RtrnCaps, the Corporate Actions (splits, spin offs, split offs, mergers, name changes, etc.) to build a comprehensive history of the Account. Then you could connect the Account to its Financial Institution, accept all the transactions (all shown as "Match" because you've done a perfect job), and you're done.

And of course there's intermediate points on the scale from simplest to most comprehensive (e.g, starting at the beginning of a year of the Account's existence) you could make your entry point.

You appear to understand the accounting for checking accounts and credit card accounts - balanced entries of debits and credits, money flowing in and out - and investment account accounting works exactly the same, except for the fact that transactions within them frequently are more complex, requiring some higher level of understanding in order to get the accounting properly stated.

So what's the problem?

Boatnmaniac · February 6

If you are planning to later switch to online services, why not just start out with setting up your Fidelity account for download right from the start? From my perspective, setting up an offline manual account first when the long-term intent is to be able to download from Fidelity will create a lot of additional work that really is not necessary.

When you set up Fidelity for online services it will will download information that Quicken will need to add the account for you….including the detailed transactions data for brokered CDs and other securities that you have bought and sold (for as far back as the last 2 yrs). The process is so much easier than doing it all manually and so much more accurate. I've been downloading my Fidelity accounts into Quicken since 2010 and for the most part it has been a problem-free and pleasant experience.

If you want to do this, just go to:

Edit > Preferences > Investments > make sure the box for Default to Simple Investing for new accounts is not checked.
Tools > Add Account > type in Fidelity Investements > Next > follow the prompts using your current login information for your online Fidelity.com acount. Quicken will likely prompt you what to do with the data that gets downloaded….be sure to select (if given the option) Add to Quicken. During the process of adding the account, Quicken will do most of the legwork for you and will usually ask you questions along the way that will help to get everything set up properly.

Once completed, take a look at the new account in Quicken (account details, account register transactions, etc.) and let us know what questions you might have and we can hopefully help to answer them. There will be also need to be a couple of configuration tweaks that will need to be done, we'll need to have a discussion about how Fidelity reports Core Account Cash to Quicken and perhaps have a discussion regarding Placeholders that Quicken might enter into the register during this setup process.

That link provided above by @QuickUserPSP has a lot of really good information that will help you set up the account properly. I encourage you to review and follow it.

Boatnmaniac · February 6

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20415933#Comment_20415933

Ah, yes, just like so much else in Quicken it all boils down to making choices, doesn't it?

Jim_Harman · February 6

This should not be difficult.

Is this an existing IRA, or a new one?

Are you planning to enter the transactions manually, or to set up the account to download the transactions?

Are you currently contributing to the IRA, just maintaining it after making contributions in the past, or are you withdrawing from it?

QuickUserPSP · February 6

@Lisa Odom - please see the link below. It is a useful "how to" that has some specific information on IRAs. I think it would be a good place to start.

https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3216290

Lisa Odom · February 6

Manual entry ,

Not currently contributing....but buying cds , equities.....management status... not withdrawing any $... does this make sense?

Tom Young · February 6

Boy, without knowing any of the details behind the question "how do I set up an IRA Account" it's difficult to know where to start and what level of detail is needed.

At its simplest, you can create the Account as a manual Account, tell Quicken what securities and the number of shares or each are in the Account as of "today", enter a gross cost basis for all the shares (assuming you know that), enter any cash in the Account as of "today", and your Account is established with valid data. It won't have "lot" information, it won't have "holding period" information, but it's a perfectly good starting point.

If you wanted to have downloading work with this Account after that you could connect the Account to the associated Financial Institution, delete all the "history" information that comes with the initial download (90 days worth of transactions is common), and move forward from there.

At the other end of the scale from simplest to "most comprehensive" you'd create the manual Account "as of" the day you opened it and start entering transactions in the Account from Day 1 to "today." Presumably this Account has interacted with your checking Accounts during those 100 years, so that would mean finding all those interactions in the checking Accounts and editing them to reflect that fact that the IRA existed. You'd enter all the Buys, the Sells, the Dividends the RtrnCaps, the Corporate Actions (splits, spin offs, split offs, mergers, name changes, etc.) to build a comprehensive history of the Account. Then you could connect the Account to its Financial Institution, accept all the transactions (all shown as "Match" because you've done a perfect job), and you're done.

And of course there's intermediate points on the scale from simplest to most comprehensive (e.g, starting at the beginning of a year of the Account's existence) you could make your entry point.

You appear to understand the accounting for checking accounts and credit card accounts - balanced entries of debits and credits, money flowing in and out - and investment account accounting works exactly the same, except for the fact that transactions within them frequently are more complex, requiring some higher level of understanding in order to get the accounting properly stated.

So what's the problem?

QuickUserPSP · February 6

@Lisa Odom - To make it easy for yourself, I would start out with an "off line" IRA account on Quicken. You can always add online services at a later date if you want to and it's available. After you get the IRA set up on Quicken, the easiest way to start building the IRA is to add the securities to your IRA from the initial statement from your bank or financial institution (or online account). You can get the fund ID or cusip you need from your statement, online account, or by asking your bank. Once you get the investments set up in your IRA on Quicken, reconcile the beginning balances to ensure a good starting point. Then you can start adding transactions. The investment transactions can come from statements, or your online account (if you have one). Once you've entered all transactions to current, you can then reconcile your current balances. After that you can add online services to automatically download transactions to your account on Quicken.

Lisa Odom · February 6

OK, I would be happy to be able to manually enter brokerage CDs and equities.... into an IRA account for now. Then switch to online services.

This Trad IRA account won't have any connection to my checking account at this point, I'm not taking distributions... not contributing any more...Right now, ill start with the simplest method .... and cross my fingers

Just bought an $11,000 Brokerage CD today from my core cash and also bought $100 worth of shares of an equity fund - all with Fidelity Brokerage acct...my goal is to have info in my new( soon too be Quicken traditional IRA acct.)....it would be basically the info I see in Fidelity, I guess.

I will be working on this with all the information you've given me..... thank you for the time you've taken to answer my plea for help. LisaO

QuickUserPSP · February 6

@Lisa Odom - glad you are now ready to give it a start. And yes, the easiest thing to start with is to emulate the transactions from Fidelity to Quicken. If you have any issues with how to specifically enter the transactions in Quicken, please circle back.

Boatnmaniac · February 6

If you are planning to later switch to online services, why not just start out with setting up your Fidelity account for download right from the start? From my perspective, setting up an offline manual account first when the long-term intent is to be able to download from Fidelity will create a lot of additional work that really is not necessary.

When you set up Fidelity for online services it will will download information that Quicken will need to add the account for you….including the detailed transactions data for brokered CDs and other securities that you have bought and sold (for as far back as the last 2 yrs). The process is so much easier than doing it all manually and so much more accurate. I've been downloading my Fidelity accounts into Quicken since 2010 and for the most part it has been a problem-free and pleasant experience.

If you want to do this, just go to:

Edit > Preferences > Investments > make sure the box for Default to Simple Investing for new accounts is not checked.
Tools > Add Account > type in Fidelity Investements > Next > follow the prompts using your current login information for your online Fidelity.com acount. Quicken will likely prompt you what to do with the data that gets downloaded….be sure to select (if given the option) Add to Quicken. During the process of adding the account, Quicken will do most of the legwork for you and will usually ask you questions along the way that will help to get everything set up properly.

Once completed, take a look at the new account in Quicken (account details, account register transactions, etc.) and let us know what questions you might have and we can hopefully help to answer them. There will be also need to be a couple of configuration tweaks that will need to be done, we'll need to have a discussion about how Fidelity reports Core Account Cash to Quicken and perhaps have a discussion regarding Placeholders that Quicken might enter into the register during this setup process.

That link provided above by @QuickUserPSP has a lot of really good information that will help you set up the account properly. I encourage you to review and follow it.

q_lurker · February 6

@Boatnmaniac et al. Your perspective on going directly to the online download has merit.

From my perspective, starting in an off-line mode also has merit and I have recommended it in the past. My rationale is that the user can learn better (in some cases) by doing transactions themselves. I believe they can get a better feel for the real-world events by entering and understanding what the relationship is between their Quicken data and that real-world. They can become better investors (in some cases.) That puts them in a better position to understand the downloaded transactions when they get to that stage; better able to determine of the downloaded data makes sense and fits their needs.

The risk is that their methods as they develop them might be inefficient or just plain wrong.

The risk starting with online is that the user comes to believe the FI downloads are correct, accurate, and the best approach. That is not always the case.

Lisa Odom · February 6

Success! After trying to create my IRA Trad acct manually for weeks, I decided to try the online steps you have shared with me - it worked beautifully- However, I agree that creating that acct off line would help me gain a better understanding of all this - and being a retired teacher with a touch of OCD, I want to understand. So, I have bookmarked the link that QuickUser provided and copied the advice you all gave me…But for tonight, I'm so happy to see all my investments neatly in my Quicken register. Tomorrow is a new day! Thank you again! LisaO

Boatnmaniac · February 6

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20415933#Comment_20415933

Ah, yes, just like so much else in Quicken it all boils down to making choices, doesn't it?

Help needed in setting up an IRA acct -

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