Another TSP Question - How to I add shares owned to QW?

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  • DaWeav
    DaWeav Member ✭✭✭
    edited May 2020
    I just want to add to the discussion the way I do TSP in Quicken which is how Jim and jrfaris advise. I do this every two weeks for each PayCheck period. The point to my TSP experience in Quicken is that all of the Recent Transactions listed on the TSP website should be entered in the Quicken TSP account manually as shares bought using the 'number of shares' since there is no way to download those transactions from TSP to have them entered automatically into Quicken.

    My TSP experience:

    I don't have TSP split my investment into different funds (securities) because I just use one of the single TSP fund like the L fund(s) or the G fund.

    I have my TSP account setup as a 401k style account in Quicken. I then have my PayCheck setup to Transfer four different deduction amounts into the TSP. The first two TSP deductions are pre-tax deductions which comes from the 401(k) Deduction that includes both the TSP-1 amount I have setup, and the 4% Employer Match which go into the TSP account. The third TSP pre-tax deduction is setup as Other Pre-Tax Deduction for the Matching 1% into the TSP account. And finally the forth TSP pre-tax deduction is setup as Other Pre-Tax Deduction for the over 50yo catch-up amount into the TSP account (which will change next year since the TSP is combining both regular and catch-up together!). So once the PayCheck is entered, these four TSP Deductions appear in the TSP 401k style account in Quicken as Cash Transfer transactions.

    Since the TSP does not provide Quicken downloads, I have to manually 'every two weeks' go to the Investing section in Quicken and tap the little arrow by the TSP account to see the securities (funds) in the TSP account which is just one security (fund) for myself. I then select the security and manually update the Edit Price History for the security with the price from the TSP's Share Price History website for the associated TSP Fund that I invest in.

    I then open the TSP 401k style account, and see all four of my TSP PayCheck Deductions listed as Cash Transfer transactions. I then edit each transaction (every two weeks) and change it from a Cash Transferred (Xln) transaction to a Buy - Shares (BoughtX) transaction since I'm buying shares from a single TSP fund. In the Buy Shares transaction page, I ensure the radio box for Use cash for this transaction is set to the 'From' with the account dropdown set to my Checking account since the cash came from the PayCheck that was deposited. I then select the L or G fund name as the Security Name from the dropdown, and ensure the Total Cost field matches the specific transaction's total since it's a single TSP fund I'm buying. Now for the 'hard part'. I then logon to my TSP account and select 'Recent Transactions'. The TSP Recent Transactions website shows both the Contribution and the Catch-up Contribution entries for the specific PayCheck period. I select each Recent Transaction and change the 'Dollars' radio button to the 'Shares' radio button. I then enter the 'Number of shares' for each transaction from the TSP website in the Quicken Buy Shares page for the matching transaction in Quicken and let Quicken automatically calculate the Price Paid value, and then enter/done the transaction.

    This works fine for a single TSP fund since my Quicken TSP account cash value is $0, and the Securities and Total Market Value matches the TSP account value online.

    I imagine if I used multiple TSP funds, that instead of changing the PayCheck Transfer transaction like I do now for a single TSP fund shares bought purchase, I would leave the PayCheck TSP Deduction transfer transactions alone and then add multiple Buy Shares transactions for all the 'Number of shares' for each fund bought that would be listed on the Recent Transactions page of the TSP website. It's too bad Quicken doesn't allow splitting the Buy - Shares into multiple securities, because in this example we could just split the single Cash Transfer transaction from the PayCheck into the multiple securities (TSP funds).
  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    A simpler way to do this would be to leave the 4 cash transfers alone and enter one Buy for the total number of shares purchased and the total of the cash transfers in the period.
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  • RaDos
    RaDos Member ✭✭
    I too was frustrated trying to add each transaction manually.

    So .. I went ahead and wrote a program to import TSP transactions into Quicken. The program is still in beta, supports only buy transactions, and there are manual tasks that need to be completed. Hey, but one step closer to automation.

    The ultimate goal is to parse the PDF quarterly statements and generate a qif file leading to ... look ma, no typing :)

    Please take a look at my post for additional details -
    https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7876071/i-am-developing-a-program-to-import-tsp-transactions-into-quicken
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