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Allow "Simple" "Investment Tracking Method" for offline accounts

RPSMG

My offline investment accounts are retirement accounts. They are very difficult to maintain because I have to track changes in holdings via transactions. This level of detail is of no use as the accounts are retirement accounts. I would like a streamlined way to update share prices and share totals.

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Comments

NotACPA

But, since these accounts are offline, wouldn't you still have to input some sort of transaction to update the share balances?

Be more specific as to how you'd want to update prices and share amounts.

And, unless you've got a horrendous number of holdings, I hardly see how 1 transaction per security, input once a month (or quarter) is a hardship.

miklk

~~If they are offline, then you cannot get simple or complete. Offline is all manual entry~~ . ~~I1ike what you want is an online account setup for Simple Investing which can be done now unless you just don't want to have it online or it can't be setup onlin~~e.

Apparently, Simple MODE is available in offline accounts in Windows version.

Chris_QPW

Does Quicken Mac have an "Adjust Shares" transaction type?

If so, that would be your best bet to get it entered, but even then, there are definite reasons for doing it differently as you have suggested.

Long time Quicken users might have forgotten about it, but back in the days when you got 401K statements once every 3 months, "Simple Mode" would be the "standard". You didn't track transactions, you tracked balances, and I'm sure there are plenty of people that still want to do it that way even if is offline. And as such what is shown in Complete Investment mode might not be nearly as nice as what is displayed in Simple Investment mode and the entries could be made to be much easier since all the securities are being displayed on one screen.

Simple mode in Quicken Windows (online and maybe Quicken Mac) is already exactly what is needed, it just needs to allow it in offline mode and skip doing any downloading.

It already shows all the securities and allows you from that screen to change the number of shares.

As an example of this:

I have pointed at where the shares, and cash balances can be changed, and one can use Update Share balance… from the menu to add a new security.

And this is really ironic that this exists in online Simple Investing mode because as soon as you run One Step Update all of this will be overridden. It is only really useful if the account is being maintained offline.

I have seen several request in Quicken Windows for this same kind of thing. I think I'm going to suggest it in Quicken Windows Idea.

jacobs

If you're doing it manually, all you need to do is add an adjustment transaction to increase the shares of your holdings. It's not quite as simple as Simple investment tracking would be, but not too much more work, either.

Jon

I used to do this with my 401K. It would have been nice if I could have just told Quicken what my current holdings were and had it figure out the adjustment transactions for me.

RPSMG

I came to the Mac version after years on the Windows side. My memory may be a little fuzzy, but in the Windows edition, you could pop up a single pane and update the holdings, share counts and value of each security in the account all at once. I'm looking for a similar flow to perform the update.

At the moment I have to maintain a spreadsheet with the previous share totals. Then I enter the current share totals for each security to calculate the amount I need to use in my new transaction. Then I have to create a transaction for each security to reflect the chance. Then I have to go through a different flow to update the security value.

To make matters worse, my 401k is tracked as 4 separate accounts by the vendor.

I only update quarterly, but it's a real pain.

My preference would be for something like what is available on Windows. But I'd be quite happy if they just enabled simple tracking for offline accounts. You could even limit the option to investment accounts that are classified as retirement if there was some reasoning behind the current exclusion.

Chris_QPW

For what it is worth, I remember the popup that allowed you to change the shares in a 401K in the past in Quicken Windows, but don't see it now. But now that I looked at again, I believe the Simple Investing view replaced it.

I don't know what went wrong for me before, but I now see that I can create an offline account in Simple Investing mode in Quicken Windows, and update shares using the screen I showed above.

RPSMG

Screenshot of Mac Classic not allowing Offline with Simple.

miklk

I did NOT notice you were in MAC and I have not seen that version.

(I was surprised Windows allowed it too since it is really a feature for what Quicken does with the downloads)

Chris_QPW

I'm curious if anyone using Quicken Mac has tried simple mode?

The reason I ask is I wonder if that Simple Investing mode view allows changing the number of shares and adding securities?

Jon

No, it does not. The transaction register is completely unavailable in Simple mode and without that you can't change your assets or number of shares held. You still have access to security prices so you can manually enter those if needed but that's all.

Chris_QPW

Yes, but when you think about it, it is exactly what one needs for easily maintaining a 401K or brokerage account where you are only going to look at statements and enter the number of shares and cash values.

And the more I think about this the history went something like this in Quicken Windows.

A long time ago Quicken Windows had a menu option where you could bring up a dialog that allowed changing the security shares and cash for that account. This was long before Simple Investing mode. I remember it because that is exactly how my dad did it. In fact, I remember showing him how to turn on downloading security quotes and he hated it because he wanted to track what was on his statements, not "real time".

Then somewhere along the time this dialog was removed. There was still the one that you could do it one at a time, but not all of them together (this menu item is still there). And I remember complaints on this in Windows threads.

I also remember people suggesting that they should be able to change the number of shares on the Simple Investing mode view. I don't think it was available at the start, I believe it was added later.