"Simple" investment account type to just record monthly changes and balances
I have a financial advisory firm that manages several investment accounts for us. They make all the decisions about trades, not me, and I see no reason to keep any information about individual securities, etc. All I want to track is the end of month balance.
Right now the only way I can do that is to create "savings" accounts, which works up to a point. That point is reached when I run a monthly Balance Sheet report, because these accounts show up as Bank Accounts, not investment accounts.
So my ask is that Quicken give me an option to set up an Investment account where I can enter just dates and balances (with a way to record the increase or decrease in the balance.)
Phil
Been using Quicken (and TurboTax) since DOS days in 1990s. Now using Quicken subscription on Windows.
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First off, I would try setting the Account Details → Display Options → Account Intent, to Investment. That will cause Quicken to treat the saving account as in an investment account in most places. It works pretty well as long as you don't expect it to give you information like Return on the Portfolio view.
But also, if you setup the account as an offline investment account you can select the gear icon menu and select Update Cash Balance.
This is good if you want to have a history of the different balances.
If you aren't concerned about the history setup an offline investment account in Simple Investing mode. Then you will get a "Dashboard" instead of a register, and you can click on the gear icon and select: Update Cash Balance. This will not have any kind of history, just the current balance.
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I did make that change above, so my Money Market Account is now grouped with other accounts under the Investing group within the Accounts sidebar. However, however, all those financial advisor investment accounts still show up under the Banking heading in the Balance Sheet report.
Are we talking bug here?
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Hmm. Yeah, there are definitely gaps in the was the "intent" is used.
I guess to really get it right in all the places you will have to use an investment account.
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@Chris_QPW
An investment account setup is way more work than I need to do. My financial advisor has created a portfolio for each account that is multiple pages long, and keeping track of all those changes is TMI, Too Much Information. Also TME, Too Much Effort. And FNGR, For No Good Reason.
Been using Quicken (and TurboTax) since DOS days in 1990s. Now using Quicken subscription on Windows.
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People,
I would appreciate it if you would all UPVOTE this idea.
Thanks,
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An investment account isn't any more complicated than a savings account when only recording a cash balance.
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Chris,
I need to keep balance history, or else the Balance Sheet report is meaningless.
Been using Quicken (and TurboTax) since DOS days in 1990s. Now using Quicken subscription on Windows.
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Are you able to connect to this account for downloading? One thing you might try is setting it up as an Investing account in "Simple" mode, where the detailed transactions are not downloaded, just your share and cash balances. The investing register is hidden and replaced with a simple dashboard.
To select this option, click on the gear at the top right of the account, select Edit account details, and under Tracking method, select Simple.
You can also manage an offline account in Simple mode. You can either update the share and cash balances to match your statement each month, or if that is too much effort, you could not set up any securities and just record the account balance each month using "Update cash balance".
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As @Jim_Harman suggested I'm talking about using an offline investment account in Complete Investing mode.
Clearly, you're not downloading transactions given that you are currently treating the investment account as a savings account.
(I mentioned Simple investing mode, but also mentioned that it might not be what you want because it has no history).
Selecting gear icon and then Update cash balance:
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In fact, this is easier than using a savings account. A savings account doesn't have an "update cash balance", you have to calculate the difference yourself.
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Simple mode retains the balance history. Here is what a cash-only account looks like in Simple mode.
If you are updating the share balances, either manually or by downloading, the dashboard will show your current holdings.
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Hmm, when I was testing it, it was updating the one balance. But I do admit that I haven't used it over any length of time, just in a quick test so I can certainly be wrong about it. BTW slightly different subject, an Asset account updates the balance when you "reconcile". So, between a savings account and an asset account my choice would be the asset account.
But if Simple investment mode does maintain the history that would be the best for this situation.
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I did the test again, and yes Simple investment mode does retain the history. I don't know what I did wrong before.
I entered a few cash adjustments over different days/months and then switched to Complete investment mode and such enough it is all there:
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@ Chris_QPW
Thanks. However, the simple investment mode covers all my requirements EXCEPT for reporting. But this info is still good to know, if needs change.
Been using Quicken (and TurboTax) since DOS days in 1990s. Now using Quicken subscription on Windows.
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What reporting do you want to be able to do?
Quicken needs to know what securities you hold in order to calculate your asset allocation. It can track deposits and withdrawals, changes in your account balances, and net worth with Simple mode accounts, but it can't track capital gains/losses, investment income, or performance unless it has all the transaction details.
Hopefully the missing information will be provided by your advisor's reports.
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So my ask is that Quicken give me an option to set up an
Investmentaccount where I can enter just dates and balances (with a way to record the increase or decrease in the balance.)
This is exactly what Simple investing mode is doing, So, like @Jim_Harman points out you will need to state what isn't getting reported so that maybe we can figure out what is needed to fill the gap.
I can say one thing for sure, Quicken's portfolio view and reports like it, aren't going to report the interest when all you do is change the cash amount of the register. One either has to have investment transactions that record the proper security actions. On the other hand, reports like the tax ones will report interest from non-investment accounts provided you have the transaction category recorded as interest.
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As I've stated I'm happy with the setup of a Savings account whose purpose is investments.
My only issue is that I have these accounts that show up in the All Accounts sidebar.
However, these same accounts are listed under Bank Accounts in the Balance Sheet report. To be clear all of these investment accounts were set up as Savings account whose purpose is investments. So I think the issue is that Quicken looks at the format of the account, not its intended purpose.
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Since these accounts are all part of my investment advisor's funds that they manage for us, I have no neither time time nor the interest to track market value of individual securities, or of the trades that they execute for each of these accounts. Why should I, when I'm paying a management fee so that the investment advisor does the work to maximize my asset values. They charge a fee based on asset values, not commissions or other fees.
I hope that I am explaining myself clearly and articulating my thinking clearly.
When I was younger, I used to trade individual stocks. That didn't always turn out well. I just don't have the aptitude to be a good market trader. I really admire those people who do have that aptitude. On the other hand I had a career in various long-hours, high-stress high tech companies, both startups and established companies. And I survived several downturns that caused large shakeouts.
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I set up several investment accounts as savings accounts for the exact same reason and I like the simple register. But it totally screws up reports. Totally agree with OP.
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Frankly, I don't expect Quicken Inc to make any changes for such a low volume request, so it is best to try to work around the problem.
From my experience, yes trying to treat a savings account as an investment by using the intent setting has several gaps in it. For this reason, I stopped trying to do that.
From above Simple Mode doesn't fill all the gaps for this either.
So, it seems to me we need to get back to what was actually meant by this statement, because I think that is where the confusion came in. I think @Jim_Harman and I got off on a tangent believing that you might want to record the security balances. Given that savings accounts are being used and from what @Phil Burton said in his last post and the original one, I come back to this statement I made:
If all one wants to do is track a cash balance and are willing to do it manually (if automatic the closest thing is the Simple Investing mode), and have it be treated as an investment, they just have to do this in an investment account (in Complete investment mode) and make a manual entry to update the cash balance. And there is even a quick way to update the cash balance. From the gear icon in an investment select "Update Cash Balance".
Which results in this (entered 3434 for 12/12 and then 2000 for 12/14):
And you can even select this to put an icon/shortcut to this menu item on your action bar.
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