How do I remove (and integrate) a linked cash account when that option does not appear acct details?

Neil W · February 2022

I want to remove a linked cash account by clinking "No" in the related investment account detail, "Show cash in linked account", but the option does not appear. How can I fix or trouble-shoot this?

Neil W · February 2022

Information points: As I recall, I did convert these files from MSMoney back in 2000. There were no linked accounts in my MSMoney file, so when they were created by the conversion I thought that was the way Quicken had to have them; when I realized they could (and should) be a single account, I converted those that I could.
As it turns out, the option to fix this was there for the 2 accounts that were the 403B (equivalent to 401K) accounts, but were hidden by a block that overwrote them in the limited space in the display box (see attached). I have now fixed those (but it took hours given the number of transactions).

For the other 3 IRA accounts, you have convinced me that the right thing to do is just hide them (along with others). I am just a bit surprised that hiding one account of a linked pair does not hide the other one - they each have to be hidden explicitly.

Thank you again for your time and the education.

Frankx · February 2022

Hi @Niel W,

You need to go to the "Linked Cash Account" open up the "Edit Account Details - General Tab" there and select "No". That will remove the cash account and return the Investment account back to what it was before you setup the link.

Let me know f you have any followups.

Frankx

Neil W · February 2022

That option does not appear in the details for either the linked account or the investment account. Does it make a difference if the investment account is an IRA?

Neil W · February 2022

That option does not appear in the details for either the linked account or the investment account. Does it make a difference if the investment account is an IRA?

Chris_QPW · February 2022

Frankx said:

Hi @Niel W,

You need to go to the "Linked Cash Account" open up the "Edit Account Details - General Tab" there and select "No". That will remove the cash account and return the Investment account back to what it was before you setup the link.

Let me know f you have any followups.

Frankx

The setting is in the Investment account, not the "linked cash account".
Investment account:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/lp/a5xl8hvxli49.png

"Cash account":

If the investment account doesn't have this setting, but you actually have a linked cash account, then something is corrupted. Note that this option doesn't exist in any retirement type of account.

Frankx · February 2022

Hi @Neil W,

I am almost positive that it is impossible to have (establish, or setup, etc.) a "linked cash account" - as that term is used by Quicken - for an IRA, or similar retirement accounts. So I don't understand the original premise of your post where you said "I want to remove a linked cash account".

All I can surmise is - IF you have a "linked cash account" in your Quicken datafile, it must be related to another investment account and not the one you originally thought it was (i.e. the IRA).

Frankx

Jim_Harman · February 2022

Has this linked account for your IRA been set up that way for many years? It is possible that at one point in the past Quicken allowed linked accounts for IRAs but does not anymore, and removed the setting.

Neil W · February 2022

That option does not appear in the details for either the linked account or the investment account. Does it make a difference if the investment account is an IRA?

Jim_Harman · February 2022

Neil W said:

That option does not appear in the details for either the linked account or the investment account. Does it make a difference if the investment account is an IRA?

@Neil W there is no need to repeat your earlier post.

Was this account converted from Microsoft Money? That might explain why you have a linked account with your IRA.

Please see this discussion
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20182071#Comment_20182071

Neil W · February 2022

Thank you so much for trying to help; I do appreciate it. So... these linked accounts were set up by default when I first started using Quicken many years ago. And yes, they were set up for all my investment accounts, including IRAs and 403Bs. I only recently realized that they shouldn't be that way and over the last year, I have eliminated most of the linked accounts, including a couple of IRAs. But I have 5 accounts left that don't display that option.

Chris_QPW · February 2022

It sounds like somehow you have falling into the same trap as what @Jim_Harman pointed out. The person that did the MS Money converter had no idea that Quicken didn't allow a linked cash account for retirement accounts, and setup the converter to do it. Since the not being able to do it is really in the GUI not the backend database, this was possible. But now these people are in the situation that the backend and what the GUI allows doesn't line up.

Frankx · February 2022

So, to summarize...

You now have five (5) bank accounts which hold cash that actually should be held in 5 other "retirement type accounts". The five bank account "cash balances" are accurate and up to date, and the problem is they should be part of these 5 other accounts in Quicken.

Have you considered making new "transfer" transactions in the registers of those bank accounts that transfer the entire balance of each to its correct retirement account? If you can do that successfully, you could then delete those bank accounts and you'll be good going forward.

Does that make sense?

Frankx

Chris_QPW · February 2022

BTW if this wasn't a conversion from MS Money you would have to go way back for this to be possible (if it was ever possible), here is the Account Details of an IRA from Quicken 2004.

Neil W · February 2022

Thanks again. As it turns out, those five accounts are actually no longer active because the assets were transferred to newer rollover accounts. I wanted to integrate them to more cleanly reconcile and archive the sets of transactions (which go back more than 20 years). I haven't archived my Quicken data before and don't know if the linked accounts will cause a problem with archiving and subsequent access.

Chris_QPW · February 2022

As it turns out Quicken 96 did support this:

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Chris_QPW · February 2022

Neil W said:

Thanks again. As it turns out, those five accounts are actually no longer active because the assets were transferred to newer rollover accounts. I wanted to integrate them to more cleanly reconcile and archive the sets of transactions (which go back more than 20 years). I haven't archived my Quicken data before and don't know if the linked accounts will cause a problem with archiving and subsequent access.

What archiving are you talking about?

Year end copy doesn't touch investment transactions.
And the new Archive Transactions feature that was added recently just moves closed lots to another new account.

Neil W · February 2022

So.. I guess I don't understand how to reduce the amount of active data in Quicken, and that also explains why I have 20 years of data in some of my accounts. If you have a good tutorial or reference you could point me at, I need to re-think my approach. Thanks.
Back to the main question. Is there a way to temporarily label the IRA account as a regular investment, then integrate the linked account, then relabel the account as an IRA? Online access of these accounts is no longer an issue.

Chris_QPW · February 2022

The recommended approach (as given by the SuperUsers) to "archiving" is not to do it.

As for the rest I don't really know of a way to convert those linked cash accounts back because there isn't any way to convert from a retirement account type to a non-retirement account type. You can go the other way, but not back. I suppose that one could try exporting/importing with QIF, but that might mess up things more, I don't know I haven't tried it.

Jim_Harman · February 2022

How about this:

-- Create a new IRA account (with no linked account, it isn't allowed)
-- Use Shares transferred between accounts to move the current holdings to the new account
-- Use Cash transferred into account to move the cash to the new account

That should leave two empty accounts, which you can hide, and an IRA with your current holdings and cash.

I did something similar a while back when I had a 401(k) that should have been an IRA. If this is a longstanding account and you have made investment changes over the years, this has the added advantage that there will be fewer transactions in the new account, and potentially faster performance.

CAUTION back up your data file first, in case the result is not what you expected.

Chris_QPW · February 2022

Jim_Harman said:

-- Use Shares transferred between accounts to move the current holdings to the new account

That should leave two empty accounts, which you can hide, and an IRA with your current holdings and cash.

This will not result in two empty accounts. Shares transferred between accounts works by putting in Remove Share transactions in the first account and add shares in second account. So, you actually end up with more transactions in the first account.

But in this case, I believe it won't do anything since there isn't any shares to remove, they have all long ago been sold/moved to another account, probably with "Shares transferred between accounts" long ago.

Chris_QPW · February 2022

Given that these are long dormant accounts, what I would do is just mark them hidden.

Jim_Harman · February 2022

Sorry, when I said "empty accounts" I meant "zero-balance accounts, with no holdings." But I missed that these were already zero balance. In that case, I agree that they should simply be hidden.

Neil W · February 2022

Information points: As I recall, I did convert these files from MSMoney back in 2000. There were no linked accounts in my MSMoney file, so when they were created by the conversion I thought that was the way Quicken had to have them; when I realized they could (and should) be a single account, I converted those that I could.
As it turns out, the option to fix this was there for the 2 accounts that were the 403B (equivalent to 401K) accounts, but were hidden by a block that overwrote them in the limited space in the display box (see attached). I have now fixed those (but it took hours given the number of transactions).

For the other 3 IRA accounts, you have convinced me that the right thing to do is just hide them (along with others). I am just a bit surprised that hiding one account of a linked pair does not hide the other one - they each have to be hidden explicitly.

Thank you again for your time and the education.

How do I remove (and integrate) a linked cash account when that option does not appear acct details?

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