VERY Simplified Investment Tracking
I'm using Quicken to help track my mom's accounts. I am mostly interested in tracking her spending, checking account balance, etc.
She has an investment account for her and my late Dad's IRAs. It is managed by an investment firm that does not support Quicken. The accounts contain a number of stocks and funds and I do not want to enter in all the different investments. I know Quicken could track all of them, but I just don't need to spend time entering all the data. What I think I'd like to do is simply enter the inputs and outputs and then enter the account balances each month (or quarter) to keep it current. I am not concerned about tracking lots, cost basis, rates of return, etc.
What ways have people found to do this? Clearly it should be done in an "offline" account since nothing will be downloaded. Should I try to use an "invesement account" in Quicken or a "Banking account" or an Asset Account?
Thank you for any ideas.
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I would use one offline investment account in Quicken. You would then create one fake security for each IRA and Add one share of each security with a share price equal to the total value of that IRA. Then when you receive a statement from the investment firm, you would update the share prices to match the IRA balances. You can edit the share prices by going to the account, clicking on Holdings, and editing the Quote/Price column.
Another way to do this would be to keep the fake security prices at $1.00 and Add or Remove shares to match the IRA balances.
A third and newer way would be to set up the account with one share of each security but select Simple mode during the account setup. This is designed for just this situation. In Simple mode, the account is displayed as a 4-panel dashboard rather than a list of transactions. Then when you want to update the prices, click on the gear at the top right of the account and pick Update security prices.
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I think the most important part is go get this exactly clarified:
The accounts contain a number of stocks and funds and I do not want to enter in all the different investments.
There are two levels of complexity with securities. One is just the number of the securities themselves, and then then higher level is tracking the details of those securities.
If "I don't want enter all the different investments" refers to the securities themselves and all you want it a total, then any account will do. Note that in the Account Details → Display Options, you can set the Account Intent so that the account is grouped where you want on the Account bar.
If on the other hand you want a value for each security and the cash balance, then you to with what @Jim_Harman was suggesting, which basically is you have each of the securities in the account with you updating how many shares it has at a given time and update the cash balance.
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II wasn't saying to record each security. I was saying to create one fake security for each IRA account and use that to track the account balance.
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