Recurring investment transaction

Posted by Sam on November 25, 2006, 11:18 am

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I really did not think that this would be a hard transaction to set
up in quicken but I cannot seem to get this to work. In the "real
world" I have set up an automated payment to be sent from my bank to my
brokerage company (Vanguard) to purchase shares in the Vanguard Prime
Money Market fund. Thats it, sounds simple but I cannot figure out how
to do that in quicken. Initally I tried setting up a recurring
investment transaction but that only seemed to record the transaction
in my checking account and would not show the purchase of shares in my
investment account, in other words it was not a "double entry"
accounting transaction. At first that bothered me but then I decided it
would be better to let quicken download the transactions from vanguard,
that way all the transactions would be entered automatically (my cash
purchases, dividend reinvestments and maintenance fee withdrawals)
after figuring that out I decided that I would let quicken download the
transactions for the investment account. So all I would need to do is
schedule a transaction to enter the transaction in my checking account,
the two sides of the transaction would not be linked and any changes to
one half of the transaction would not affect the other. I dont really
like that but I can live with it. So I tried to create a scheduled
recurring transaction to deduct $100/week from my checking account with
a category of Buy Investment/CD. When I do that it appears that quicken
requires a class to be assigned to that transaction, so I created class
Vanguard Money Market. Doing that worked fine for the first transaction
but the second time I enter that same transaction I get a warning that
the class name Vanguard Money Maket is already used and that I will
need to pick a different class name. So does that mean that I need to
create a new class for every one of these transactions? So if this
scheduled transaction recurs every week then after one year I will have
52 classes just for this transaction. That makes no sense.

So here is what I am trying to do:
I want a scheduled recurring transaction to deduct $100/week from my
checking account, I know how to do this but my problem appears to be
what category/class to use because Buy Investment/CD does not appear to
work the way I would expect.

Any advice on how to set up this scenerio in quicken? I am open to any
suggestions, even if it is different than what I have said above.

Thanks, Sam

Posted by 123go on November 25, 2006, 12:37 pm

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you need to schedule a group of two transactions, the first moving money
from checking to broker account; the second using that money in the broker
account to buy the shares. Search for help on "group" scheduling, or some
such thing.

> I really did not think that this would be a hard transaction to set

> up in quicken but I cannot seem to get this to work. In the "real

> world" I have set up an automated payment to be sent from my bank to my

> brokerage company (Vanguard) to purchase shares in the Vanguard Prime

> Money Market fund. Thats it, sounds simple but I cannot figure out how

> to do that in quicken. Initally I tried setting up a recurring

> investment transaction but that only seemed to record the transaction

> in my checking account and would not show the purchase of shares in my

> investment account, in other words it was not a "double entry"

> accounting transaction. At first that bothered me but then I decided it

> would be better to let quicken download the transactions from vanguard,

> that way all the transactions would be entered automatically (my cash

> purchases, dividend reinvestments and maintenance fee withdrawals)

> after figuring that out I decided that I would let quicken download the

> transactions for the investment account. So all I would need to do is

> schedule a transaction to enter the transaction in my checking account,

> the two sides of the transaction would not be linked and any changes to

> one half of the transaction would not affect the other. I dont really

> like that but I can live with it. So I tried to create a scheduled

> recurring transaction to deduct $100/week from my checking account with

> a category of Buy Investment/CD. When I do that it appears that quicken

> requires a class to be assigned to that transaction, so I created class

> Vanguard Money Market. Doing that worked fine for the first transaction

> but the second time I enter that same transaction I get a warning that

> the class name Vanguard Money Maket is already used and that I will

> need to pick a different class name. So does that mean that I need to

> create a new class for every one of these transactions? So if this

> scheduled transaction recurs every week then after one year I will have

> 52 classes just for this transaction. That makes no sense.

> So here is what I am trying to do:

> I want a scheduled recurring transaction to deduct $100/week from my

> checking account, I know how to do this but my problem appears to be

> what category/class to use because Buy Investment/CD does not appear to

> work the way I would expect.

> Any advice on how to set up this scenerio in quicken? I am open to any

> suggestions, even if it is different than what I have said above.

> Thanks, Sam

Posted by Sam on November 25, 2006, 4:47 pm

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Thanks for the response, I think I have it figured out now. Partially
by doing what you had said (which is what I had tried one before) but
this time I saw that there is another "action" I had not seen before,
BoughtX. Using BoughtX (shares bought from transfer) will enter both
sides of the transaction with a single transaction.

The other problem I was having also seems to have been fixed but I am
not sure why. It appears that when using the Buy Investment/CD category
a class is not required with the recurring transaction but when I try
to use that same category with a manual transaction I am prompted to
enter a Class, not only that but I am prompted to enter a new class for
every transaction that uses that category. Stange how a class is not
required if the transaction is scheduled.

Thanks again for the help

123go wrote:

> you need to schedule a group of two transactions, the first moving money

> from checking to broker account; the second using that money in the broker

> account to buy the shares. Search for help on "group" scheduling, or some

> such thing.

Posted by David Parker on November 25, 2006, 5:37 pm

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Can you safely use a category name that includes a forward slash, ie, "Buy
Investment/CD"? Wouldn't that signify a class named "CD" for the "Buy
Investment" category?

David P.

> Thanks for the response, I think I have it figured out now. Partially

> by doing what you had said (which is what I had tried one before) but

> this time I saw that there is another "action" I had not seen before,

> BoughtX. Using BoughtX (shares bought from transfer) will enter both

> sides of the transaction with a single transaction.

> The other problem I was having also seems to have been fixed but I am

> not sure why. It appears that when using the Buy Investment/CD category

> a class is not required with the recurring transaction but when I try

> to use that same category with a manual transaction I am prompted to

> enter a Class, not only that but I am prompted to enter a new class for

> every transaction that uses that category. Stange how a class is not

> required if the transaction is scheduled.

> Thanks again for the help

> 123go wrote:

>> you need to schedule a group of two transactions, the first moving money

>> from checking to broker account; the second using that money in the

>> broker

>> account to buy the shares. Search for help on "group" scheduling, or

>> some

>> such thing.

Posted by Sam on November 25, 2006, 5:59 pm

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David, I thought the same thing. Part of my problem is that I
converted my data file from money and I am not sure which categories
are from money and which are from quicken. I am assuming now that Buy
Investment/CD is a category that come from money. I want to go though
my register and change the category for all my investment transactions
to the proper category. Part of my original question was what category
should I use when purchasing stock, I have not received a straight
forward answer to that question. Do you know what category should be
used when purchasing stock?

Thanks, Sam