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How to transfer all assets from one brokerage account to another (Q Mac)

RCinNJ

I am transferring all assets from one type of account at Vanguard to another. The investments are being "transferred in kind" so the capital gain and loss information stays the same. What is the best way to just move all the investments from one account to another and keep all the history and other data?

I'm sure this has been answered before, but what I have found is just moving some transactions rather than all the investments in an account.

I have linked the new account (with a $0 balance) in my Quicken for Mac, although I'm not clear that was the right thing to do first — I could always delete this before the transfer if this is a mistake.

Thanks for your help!

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NotACPA

The easiest way is to simply disconnect the current account from download … and re-connect to the new brokerage account.

And then delete that new account that you created.

After all, from your perspective, it's really all the same thing.

Jon

It depends on whether you want to keep records of the two accounts separated or not. If you're fine with Quicken treating them as if they were the same account all along then do what @NotACPA suggests. If you'd rather keep them separate then use the Transfer Shares transaction type - it will create a set of transfers to move the assets to the new account while maintaining your cost basis.

RCinNJ

NotACPA, it sounds like Jon is correct that the intention of your suggestion is to reconnect the existing account to the new account? Not my ideal choice, but may be the best option. But would Quicken keep all the old records to a newly connected account? I'm concerned if Quicken just downloads the information as new investments and loses all the historic transactions. Can you explain this process in more detail?

Jon, you are correct that ideally I want to keep the historic records of the old account, but transfer all the assets and their gain and loss records intact. I'm still not clear on how to do this.

It is not clear to me if the process is different between QM for Windows and Mac. Ideally I would like to select all the different assets (ETFs, mutual funds, stocks, cash) and move them from the old account to the new account. Both are at Vanguard.

I can't find a Transfer Shares transaction. Where is the "Transfer Shares transaction type"? Within the individual account window or the menu bar?
I also cannot figure out how to select multiple assets in the account view.
Some of these investments are also in my personal account so, for example, I cannot just move all of the securities by using the "Securities" window.

Thanks again for these answers and any further help!

NotACPA

@RCinNJ now that the discussion has evolved to "how to do this in QMac", I'm bowing out … since I'm a QWiin user.

BUT, if you use my approach, see if there's some way that you could put a note of some sort in the register to record the move.

Also, will the securities being moved be IDENTICAL in the new account … or might there be a "class" change of some sort, say from regular shares to some "advantaged" shares?

And, I'm not a Vanguard customer, so I don't know what the actual terminology for such shares might be.

Jon

@RCinNJ You initiate a Transfer Shares transaction by creating a transaction of that type that in the register for your old account. You can select individual assets to move (and even select individual lots) or you can just tell it to move everything in the account as I've done here:

Screenshot 2025-06-02 at 12.30.13 PM.png

Be aware that once you click on Save you will see a series of Remove Shares transactions in the old account and Add Shares transactions in the new account, there will not be a "Transfer Shares" transaction:

Screenshot 2025-06-02 at 12.41.14 PM.png

Screenshot 2025-06-02 at 12.34.31 PM.png

If you do decide to follow @NotACPA's advice & keep using the same Quicken account, you won't lose any old transactions by doing so. But you may end up with some extra transactions showing the assets being added to the new account that you'll have to delete.

jacobs

I want to keep the historic records of the old account, but transfer all the assets and their gain and loss records intact. I'm still not clear on how to do this.

@RCinNJ The answer was in @Jon's original response, but if you've never done this before, it's not terribly intuitive. In the old account, create a new transaction and select the date you want this transfer recorded. (That's the non-intuitive part; you wouldn't expect to create a transaction when you're wanting to select an action to transfer them.) For Type, select Transfer Shares. Select All Securities. Pull down the Transfer to Account menu to select the new account. Click Save.

Quicken will create Remove Shares transactions for each security in the old account to empty it out, without creating any taxable gains or losses. In the new account Quicken will create Add Shares transactions on the selected date for each individual lot from the old account, setting the Date Acquired field to the original purchase date. So your new account will start with a bunch of Add Shares transactions dates on the transfer date, but the history is retained with the separate transaction for each lot using its original date.

I suggest you make a backup of your Quicken data file before you do this, just in case it doesn't come out as you're expecting.

RCinNJ

Thanks to all of you for your help!

Jon, thank you so much for the screenshots. I agree with jacobs that this is not intuitive and I wasn't understanding the process. I followed what is shown in your screenshot and it seems like it will work as I want. Once I see it, it seems very simple (in theory). I will, of course, make a backup before actually doing this.

jacobs, very helpful as always. However, the process you describe seems to fit Jon's suggestion for moving the assets between accounts. Is there something different if I decide just to change the name and relink to the new account?

NotACPA, thanks for your help. To be clear the assets will be identical. They are just being moved from a trust to a new brokerage account. Since they are being moved "in kind" there are no changes and no tax consequences for the move.

My plan is to check Vanguard over the next few days to see if the transfer has been completed, and then move the shares in Quicken, and then "Download Transactions" to be sure nothing unexpected appears.

If anyone has more to add, or I wrote something that suggests not understanding, I will be grateful for a response. Otherwise I will report back after I do this.

jacobs

However, the process you describe seems to fit Jon's suggestion for moving the assets between accounts. Is there something different if I decide just to change the name and relink to the new account?

Yes, you're talking about two different things. The process Jon and I described is for moving securities from one account to another while maintaining the history. This is probably the more pristine way of maintaining a record of exactly what happened and when. The alternative of just renaming the account is also fine; it wouldn't document the date the old account changed into the new account, but if you don't care, then it really doesn't matter. (You could record a $0 transaction with a Memo to record the date things changed.)

In terms of Quicken connecting to Vanguard, as Jon said, I think there's a reasonable chance Vanguard will download transactions of some sort to Quicken — which you don't want because you'll already have the account holdings correct in Quicken. For instance, Vanguard might send all the securities being added to the new account and Quicken would then create adjustments to undo those additions to make the totals correct. So you will have to watch closely and delete any duplicate or adjustment transactions if they appear.

RCinNJ

I finally made the transfer of shares between accounts in QM and it worked pretty well. Not perfect, but overall I’m impressed. It took Vanguard some days to make the transfer, and then I was traveling, so I just did it.

Total values were correct or very close after transferring, but as warned, after my first download there were some new duplicate transactions to track down. Some were obvious, but there is still some clean up I will need to do to track down and remove some duplicate transactions so the account total matches the actual amount again. Also, somehow a few transactions seemed to get assigned to a different, and wrong, account. These will be easier to fix, although I need to be sure they are not duplicated in the new account before deciding whether I should delete or transfer.

In Portfolio view the individual lots and purchase dates were maintained, so the Cost Basis, etc, for individual lots is the same as in the old account— which was my main goal! I guess it is inevitable that in Transactions view everything shows the transfer date I used; so if I search for a security that had multiple buys it shows multiple buys but all with the single transfer date, unlike in Portfolio view. I’m impressed that QM can track all this “under the hood”, but I don’t know how it does this, and I don’t know if there is a setting I can change that would display the correct purchase date information in Transaction view since this information is obviously still in QM somewhere. I’ve tried adding some different columns but none that I’ve tried show the original purchase dates that are shown in the Portfolio view— a small irritant, but not a big deal. Although, if someone knows a setting or column that would display the traction dates in Transactions view please let me know.

Thank you all again for past help and any future suggestions!

jacobs

@RCinNJ The transfer dates will all be the same, because that reflects when the transfer took place. But if you open any of those transactions, you'll see there is a different Date Acquired, which represents the original purchase date. That's how Quicken maintains a correct history of your investment values.

Screenshot 2025-06-18 at 12.19.00 PM.png

I'm not aware of a way to view the Date Acquired in the transaction register; I think it can only be viewed when you open individual transactions.

RCinNJ

A "final" update in case someone has a similar situation and finds this thread. After my last post where I said it mostly worked OK, I went through each security and opened them up to see all purchases. I discovered about 25% did not have the lots. I'm not sure why, although some had name changes which Quicken was still tracking fine, but may have made QM choke when trying to transfer shares. Merging changes in "securities" fixed these. Others may have had other problems that prevented QM from doing it all automatically. For example, I think securities with foreign tax withholding might have been a source of other problems. I fixed these manually.

One final problem: After all the transfers, QM has the incorrect amount of cash. I doubt I could find where this happened, I just want to add the missing cash to the Money Market fund as an account adjustment. QM normally correctly places cash into the Vanguard Federal Money Market Account and I've tried to make an account adjustment to get it to the correct value. I tried Add Shares and Buy, but the money is not being added. After either adjustment, the Transactions window shows the correct Share Value, but the amount was not added in Portfolio View and the Market Value of the account didn't change. I also tried Payment/Deposit. There are no ledger adjustments at the bottom of the Transactions window, and no cash shown in Portfolio view. I can't find where this added cash could have gone so I think QM is just not adding it for some reason. I do see the correct amount in the left column (Sidebar) so it was added there, and now matches the account value shown on the Vanguard website (on Saturday so this should be correct), but not to the QM Market Value or the actual Money Market Fund. Am I doing it wrong or is there a different fix?

The screenshot shows my adjustment using Add Shares

Screenshot 2025-06-28 at 12.09.45 PM.png

. The Share Balance in the screenshot is correct, but the "Shares" in Portfolio view did not increase to this value.

Grateful for any solution!

RCinNJ

QM resolved my final problem itself in a couple of days. I guess QM needed some new data to update. All is good in that account now.

Thank you all for your help!