Help accessing, tracking, and assessing my Vanguard account

Question

I have had most of my investment portfolio at Vanguard for over 20 years. It was primarily a retirement account, so prior to my retirement I didn't really pay a lot of attention to what the various holdings were doing. Now that I am retired, I want to start using that portfolio. I want to increase my charitable contributions, increase my donations to the 529 accounts for the grandkids, and use some of it to pay for some vacations that I didn't have time for while I was working.

I am looking for a tool that will let me keep track of capital gains when I sell stock, required minimum distributions (RMDs) and qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) in my SEP-IRA account, tax deductions for charitable contributions, and anything else that will help me balance my withdrawals and minimize taxes.

Shortly after moving my investments to Vanguard, my son told me that he used Personal Capital. He said that it was able to download the information in my vanguard account by means of an API. I was never able to get it to work and eventually gave up. My understanding is that Personal Capital is now called Empower.

I called Vanguard to ask about tools that might be available. The rep told me that Quicken is able to do the same thing. I can download the last 18 months, but only 18 months, of information to a .qfx file that I can then upload into Quicken. But if I install Quicken, it can connect to my account in the same way that I was told that Personal Capital could do, and it can access my entire investment history of over 20 years.

I then called Quicken support and was told that Quicken Classic Deluxe can do exactly what the Vanguard rep told me it could do. I would love to hear from some Vanguard investors who are using Quicken to manage their investments.

Can it actually download the entire investment history (over 20 years)?

Get it then continue to download investment information from this point forward? And if so, does it do it on some kind of a regular basis or only when I tell it to do so?

Can it handle the kinds of tax and other financial questions above?

I used to use Quicken a long time ago when it was still part of Intuit, so I'm somewhat familiar with the software.

Thanks in advance for any help

q_lurker · Answer

I have Vanguard accounts and have used Quicken to track them for about 35 years very successfully in much the manner you are seeking.

I am skeptical that you can get 20 years oh data. I believe with an initial direct connection setup, you may get 18 months to maybe two years of data. Via the QFX dole export from Vanguard / import to Quicken you might get to 10 years of data. Maybe they are right and Vanguard will go to 20 years.

I strongly recommend a setup with one Vanguard account holding multiple Vanguard funds.  There would still be separate accounts retirement accounts (SEP-IRA, Roth IRA, taxable brokerage accounts, etc.).  That is consistent with the way Vanguard has transitioned the ‘brokerage’ accounts in recent years.  That setup may make the backfill of 20-years of data more difficult.

Broadly speaking, I would begin setting up the needed accounts in Quicken as manual accounts (no online connection) and then importing the QFX files to those manual accounts.  When all available QFX data has been imported, then switch the accounts to the Direct Connect style.

Hope this helps.

Helen Bacque · Answer

The reps I talked to at both Vanguard and here at Quicken told me that the Classic Deluxe app could get the entire history.

Do you have an account at Vanguard? If so, do you use Quicken to track it?

NotACPA · Answer

For any downloads/updates that are initiated from within Q, the bank/card/brokerage determines how far back the download can go. 90 days is typical.

For any downloads that are initiated manually from the website, the website determines how far back they go.

That said, 20 years is a LOT of data … and if Vanguard permits such I'd be careful to download only a single account at a time and take lots of backups.