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New to tracking investments

KSNaples

Quicken Classic Deluxe, Vers R66.28 on Windows 11

I’m new to tracking investments (IRAs) in Quicken. Where do I start to track performance over time and see those historical values? There are 4 Traditional IRA accounts at one firm, and 1 ROTH, all with various managed Asset classes.

I rarely Reallocate but in 2 years I’ll begin taking RMDs. I thought about creating a separate Quicken file just for Investments in case I make a mess of it before gaining full understanding.
The Release notes indicate data can be imported from a csv file but I was able to connect directly and download data for one of the IRA accounts. It created 3 Placeholders with dates of 2024, one for each of the Asset classes in that account but I’m not sure what to do with those. The next time I tried another download did not add any new data.

If I import from a csv file, I can create that file as of the end of the previous month, not on any day in the current month but that’s okay.

If I create a separate Quicken File, I read that it could not be combined with my current working file (but it seems it could be imported in the future????).

I did input one Account (a single Stock) as a Simple account but I chose the wrong selection when entering the reinvested Dividends and it now has bad data and I don’t want to make that mistake again.
Should I start over with the Stock account and add back in as a Complete account to learn from? It has less than 2 years of activity and only quarterly reinvested dividends so it wouldn’t take long.
Thanks for any advice.

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Comments

q_lurker

I prefer to keep to Complete tracking, especially if you are after performance data. I believe the Complete tracking model would be more reliable for performance data, but I have not tried Simple, so I may be off base in that regard. If you try Complete for a while and find it too cumbersome, you can back off to Simple. It is harder to go the other way.

I would think creating a separate file for learning might be advantageous for you. If you do, I would plan on recreating that in your real file rather than importing from the separate file to the real file. Maybe it is or becomes possible, but it would seem your investment accounts should be relatively straightforward to recreate.

It created 3 Placeholders with dates of 2024, one for each of the Asset classes …

Let's keep terminology clear. Placeholders would have been created for securities, not for asset classes. So you may have mutual fund securities for Emerging Markets, Bonds, and S&P 500, but those funds are first securities, not asset classes in Quicken-speak.

Jim_Harman

I would not recommend trying to import investing data from a CSV file. The feature is new and has bugs such as rounding errors.

I would also not recommend creating a separate Quicken file for your investments. If you want to experiment, you can make a copy of your working file and try things out there without risking interfering with your real data. Just remember to switch back to your working file when you are done experimenting. Give the test file a different name so you don't get confused which is which.

Re: Placeholders, is that one for each security (mutual fund, ETF, etc.) in the account? When you first connect an existing account for downloading, Quicken does not necessarily download all the transactions since the account was created, sometimes you only get the last 3 months or so. It creates Placeholders to force your current share balances to match the current holdings in the account.

If you want, you can "resolve" the Placeholders by entering the missing transactions. Please post back if you want more information on that.

KSNaples

Thanks for the clarification about Securities vs Asset Class (I admitted this is all new). This particular account (I started w the smallest one) only has a Fixed Account and a Nasdaq 100 Index. Since I transferred money from Employer 401Ks to this firm circa 2015, I have not had any further transactions. In Quicken I just selected to Update Quotes only and it did change the Securities Value/Total Market Value. Maybe that's all I will get?

I'll try another account that has more securities and see how that works.

Jim_Harman

Are the securities in the test account publicly traded, i.e. do they have valid ticker symbols? Quicken's share price updates only work for publicly traded securities.

When you say "fixed account" does that security always have a share price of $1.00 like a money market fund, or does the share price vary?

KSNaples

Yes, I would like more info on Resolving Placeholders.

The securities have CUSIP IDs

I have a FIXED ACCOUNT PLUS that is like a money market fund with a share price of $1.00.

I’ve since been able to connect all accounts to download successfully into Quicken, all with Placeholders for each of the Funds. The Total Value of the account and Share Balance for each fund matches what is on the website and updates each time I run "Update Quotes".
If I “reconcile” a Placeholder will that allow the next “update” to display another transaction date/value?
The Quicken register looks like I should manually enter info for the following: PRICE, DATE ACQUIRED and COST.
I'm assuming the PRICE is (current) price per share and the COST is (current) Total Value of the Security. DATE ACQUIRED would require a lot of research since all these accounts were created prior to 2015 with the exception of one which was created in 2021.
Maybe I cannot get much of a historical perspective but I would like to see performance over time in the future. Thank you.