Home Page link  

Need expert advice on updating brokerage account...

  
Groups | Search | About
User Password
Register Now! Lost Password?

Quicken Personal Finance Discussions - Quicken - personal finance software discussions

 Post an article  get this group's latest topics as an RSS feed add this group's latest topics to your My MSN content add this group's latest topics to your My Yahoo content  add this group's latest topics to your Google content  YahooMyWeb Yahoo!  Google Google  Windows Live Favorites Windows Live  del.icio.us del.icio.us  digg digg  Add to Netscape Netscape
Subject Author Date
Need expert advice on updating brokerage account... Terri 02-13-2008
Posted by P.Schuman on February 14, 2008, 12:09 am
Please log in for more thread options
 A couple of other basic questions:
You say "not entered" vs "not downloaded" ?

Do the accounts have One Step Update capability,
or maybe just the manual Web Connect,
or at the bottom - NO online access.... like my kid's 529 accounts.

Also - based on the above scenarios,
why have you not updated the accounts since 2005 ?

Terri wrote:
> They are still active accounts in my portfolio and they are eithe
> buys/sells/dividends etc. They are up to date at 12/31/2005 but I
> have not entered anything since then
>
> Would the information have to be put in for the years separately? I
> want to do this the easiest way possible so they are updated to
> 12/31/2007 with the proper final totals so that I can update more
> frequently in the future.
>
>> Terri wrote:
>>> Using Quicken Premier 2006 and have not done any updates on my
>>> brokerage account since the end of 2005. What is the best way to do
>>> this now? Online One Step Update? I do think I tried that some time
>>> ago and it combined accounts somehow. Need some expert advice
>>> please.
>>
>> well - how active are they ?
>> what kind of transactions do they have ?
>>
>> I mean, are they idle with respect to "trading"
>> and only are sitting there with basic Divs, LT/ST gains ?
>>
>> I would try the One Step Update and see what you are able to
>> download. Then I would manually go thru your statements and just add
>> those
>> transactions
>> up to the point where a One Step Update made it current.



Posted by TomYoung on February 13, 2008, 9:17 pm
Please log in for more thread options
> Using Quicken Premier 2006 and have not done any updates on my brokerage
> account since the end of 2005. What is the best way to do this now? Online
> One Step Update? I do think I tried that some time ago and it combined
> accounts somehow. Need some expert advice please.

I think the "best" way depends on you. For me, the "best" way to do
this would be to take each month's statement and enter the listed
transactions one-by-one. That way I could 1) enter the transactions
at my own pace, 2) review each transaction and select the best way (in
my opinion) to enter the transaction as opposed to Quicken's way of
entering the transaction, 3) balance each month end 's market value
per Quicken to each month's statement, giving me confidence that I'm
entering transactions correctly. At the end of the day I'd have a
better understanding of what went on in the account for the past 3
years and more confidence in the end result. Because of all that, I'm
willing to do the work.

If you aren't willing to go to that effort then you might try the One
Step Update route. It sounds like you might not have understood the
process when you tried it before. If, for example, you want to update
your Schwab brokerage account but you also have a Traditional IRA, a
Roth IRA and a SEP IRA at Schwab, Quicken will really want to update
ALL those accounts; if you don't read carefully and understand what
Quicken is asking you in the One Step Update process it would be easy
to combine transactions for all those Schwab accounts into your one
Quicken/Schwab brokerage account.

However, I'd be surprised if whatever Financial Institution you're
dealing with will have over 3 years of transactions available to
download via One Step Update, so you're probably going to have to
enter some (old) information manually, in any case.

Tom Young

Posted by Terri on February 14, 2008, 10:17 am
Please log in for more thread options
OK - what if I deleted ALL the prior information from ALL the accounts and
just went to One Step Update and began anew with, let's say December 31
2007 - would this be disastrous? It is just too much work to go back and do
everything by hand.



>> Using Quicken Premier 2006 and have not done any updates on my brokerage
>> account since the end of 2005. What is the best way to do this now?
>> Online
>> One Step Update? I do think I tried that some time ago and it combined
>> accounts somehow. Need some expert advice please.
>
> I think the "best" way depends on you. For me, the "best" way to do
> this would be to take each month's statement and enter the listed
> transactions one-by-one. That way I could 1) enter the transactions
> at my own pace, 2) review each transaction and select the best way (in
> my opinion) to enter the transaction as opposed to Quicken's way of
> entering the transaction, 3) balance each month end 's market value
> per Quicken to each month's statement, giving me confidence that I'm
> entering transactions correctly. At the end of the day I'd have a
> better understanding of what went on in the account for the past 3
> years and more confidence in the end result. Because of all that, I'm
> willing to do the work.
>
> If you aren't willing to go to that effort then you might try the One
> Step Update route. It sounds like you might not have understood the
> process when you tried it before. If, for example, you want to update
> your Schwab brokerage account but you also have a Traditional IRA, a
> Roth IRA and a SEP IRA at Schwab, Quicken will really want to update
> ALL those accounts; if you don't read carefully and understand what
> Quicken is asking you in the One Step Update process it would be easy
> to combine transactions for all those Schwab accounts into your one
> Quicken/Schwab brokerage account.
>
> However, I'd be surprised if whatever Financial Institution you're
> dealing with will have over 3 years of transactions available to
> download via One Step Update, so you're probably going to have to
> enter some (old) information manually, in any case.
>
> Tom Young



Posted by Laura on February 14, 2008, 10:30 am
Please log in for more thread options
It might be easier to create a new account for your brokerage firm and see
what gets downloaded.

> OK - what if I deleted ALL the prior information from ALL the accounts and
> just went to One Step Update and began anew with, let's say December 31
> 2007 - would this be disastrous? It is just too much work to go back and
> do everything by hand.
>
>
>
>>> Using Quicken Premier 2006 and have not done any updates on my brokerage
>>> account since the end of 2005. What is the best way to do this now?
>>> Online
>>> One Step Update? I do think I tried that some time ago and it combined
>>> accounts somehow. Need some expert advice please.
>>
>> I think the "best" way depends on you. For me, the "best" way to do
>> this would be to take each month's statement and enter the listed
>> transactions one-by-one. That way I could 1) enter the transactions
>> at my own pace, 2) review each transaction and select the best way (in
>> my opinion) to enter the transaction as opposed to Quicken's way of
>> entering the transaction, 3) balance each month end 's market value
>> per Quicken to each month's statement, giving me confidence that I'm
>> entering transactions correctly. At the end of the day I'd have a
>> better understanding of what went on in the account for the past 3
>> years and more confidence in the end result. Because of all that, I'm
>> willing to do the work.
>>
>> If you aren't willing to go to that effort then you might try the One
>> Step Update route. It sounds like you might not have understood the
>> process when you tried it before. If, for example, you want to update
>> your Schwab brokerage account but you also have a Traditional IRA, a
>> Roth IRA and a SEP IRA at Schwab, Quicken will really want to update
>> ALL those accounts; if you don't read carefully and understand what
>> Quicken is asking you in the One Step Update process it would be easy
>> to combine transactions for all those Schwab accounts into your one
>> Quicken/Schwab brokerage account.
>>
>> However, I'd be surprised if whatever Financial Institution you're
>> dealing with will have over 3 years of transactions available to
>> download via One Step Update, so you're probably going to have to
>> enter some (old) information manually, in any case.
>>
>> Tom Young
>
>


Posted by TomYoung on February 14, 2008, 3:13 pm
Please log in for more thread options
> OK - what if I deleted ALL the prior information from ALL the accounts and
> just went to One Step Update and began anew with, let's say December 31
> 2007 - would this be disastrous? It is just too much work to go back and do
> everything by hand.


One problem with this approach is that you most likely would lose cost
basis information for older securities that you still have in your
portfolio.

Say, for example, you originally purchased a stock in various lots in
1990, 1991 and 1992. From 1993 to to the end of 2005 you sold some
of those shares from time-to-time, specifying different lots for
calculation of capital gain/loss. At the end of 2005 your Quicken
file would be carrying that lot/cost basis information for the stock
that remained, and that information would all be lost with the
deletion. It's almost a certainty that the downloaded information
would not include this kind of cost detail.

If, at this point, you did a One Step Update the FI would send along,
and Quicken would enter, transactions from the present back to however
long the FI provides this information (probably no more that 2
years.) Then Quicken would create "placeholders" (adjusting entries)
in your account to balance the sum of the transactions with current
balances provided by the FI. You'd end up with correct current
balances for securities but no reliable cost basis information for
older securities.

If you're unwilling to enter this information manually but still want
to have good cost basis figures for older stocks then the only other
option is to do a One Step Update and go back and "fill in" any gap
between the end of 2005 to the point the One Step Update information
begins, followed by deleting placeholder entries created by Quicken.

What I'd recommend you do is to back up your current files, do your
One Step Update, and see how far back the information goes.

Tom Young

Similar ThreadsPosted
Export advice on updating brokerage account since 1995 !!! February 13, 2008, 11:34 am
IRA Account Advice October 9, 2007, 10:37 am
New checking account advice April 11, 2006, 7:00 pm
How can I use a brokerage account like a bank account? January 4, 2007, 7:31 pm
Brokerage Account Consolidation February 14, 2008, 10:59 pm
Online brokerage account glitch July 7, 2006, 12:56 am
Yield On T-Bills in Brokerage Account December 14, 2006, 2:53 am
Brokerage account/Scheduled Transaction January 5, 2007, 8:28 pm
Quicken home and business 2008 - Not updating securities in my RRSP account November 16, 2007, 11:55 pm
proper category question, interest to purchase funds in a brokerage account December 9, 2007, 8:42 am

Contact Us | Privacy Policy
This site is not affiliated with Intuit - makers of Quickbooks and Quicken software
This site is not affiliated with Sage Software - makers of Peachtree accounting software
XML SitemapXML Sitemap