About Entering Investment Transactions

Although downloading is generally the simplest method, there may be times when it is appropriate to enter investment transactions manually.

For example, most brokers keep historical transactions from only a limited period available for download. If you have had an account with that broker for several years, you may want to enter transactions manually for at least some of that historical data. To learn more about entering historical transactions, see Decide how much historical data to enter.

Funding my investment account

You must first deposit cash into your investment account to fund any investment purchases. In Quicken, this transaction is recorded as a transfer of cash into the investment account. You can either record the transfer as a lump sum to establish a cash balance, or handle the transfers incrementally as you enter each Buy transaction.

It is also possible to fund an investment account by transferring shares from another investment account. These shares can then be sold to raise cash to fund new purchases.

Entering transactions for my cash management account

The investment transaction list can accommodate and display both banking and investing transactions. As with investing transactions, you use specific dialogs to enter your data for common transactions such as writing a check , making a deposit, withdrawing cash, and creating an online payment instruction.

Scheduled transactions are the only banking feature not supported by the investment transaction list, so if you need support for scheduled transactions in the cash portion of your brokerage account, then you still need to maintain a linked checking account.

Recording buys and sells

Use the Shares Bought dialog to record the purchase of shares of a stock or mutual fund, and use the Shares Sold dialog to record a sale. For a Buy transaction, Quicken tracks purchase price and lots. These will be important later when you use the Capital Gains Estimator to minimize the tax liability incurred by sales. Similarly, cost basis information can be captured at the time of sale.

• To update a 401(k) account, see Entering updates to a 401(k) account.
• To enter a bond purchase, use the Buy Bond dialog.
• To track the purchase of exchange-traded options, see Record the purchase of exchange-traded options.
• While recording Sell transactions, you have the option of selecting the specific shares you want to sell in the Specify lots dialog. You can tell Quicken whether you want to sell all the shares in a particular lot, or just some of those shares.

Adding or removing shares without affecting your account's cash balance

There are times when you want to add or remove shares of a security from an account without affecting your cash balance. For example, you may inherit shares or receive them as a gift. These transactions are different from Buys and Sells, and you use the Shares Added or Shares Removed dialogs.

• The cost per share for inherited shares is generally the value of the shares on the date that the deceased died or on an alternative valuation date. When you receive the inherited shares, record the cost per share on that date.
• The cost per share for gift shares depends on the value of the shares on the date of the gift and the price that the giver paid for the shares, as well as your sale price if you sell the shares.

Transferring cash into or out of an account

From time to time you may need to transfer cash into your investment account to fund your purchases. Or you may transfer the proceeds from a sale out of your investment account and into another account you track in Quicken. Use the Cash Transferred Into Account and Cash Transferred Out of Account dialogs to record these types of transactions.

Recording a margin interest expense

This transaction is handled slightly differently depending on whether or not a liability account has been set up in Quicken to handle your margin loan.

Recording a miscellaneous expense

Use the Miscellaneous Expense dialog to record other types of expenses not directly related to the price of securities being purchased.

Transferring shares

Use the Transfer Shares form to record the transfer of shares of a security from one account to another. You can record a transfer for a single security, or for the complete holdings of an account (such as you would do when closing out one investment account and opening a new one).

Recording transactions related to a short sale

Use the Short Sale dialog to record a Short Sale transaction. A Short Sale is like a Buy, except that instead of purchasing shares of a stock that you think will go up in price, you instead borrow shares, sell them immediately, and wait for the price to go down.

When the price goes down, you buy the shares you have already sold (presumably at a lower price), and return the shares to the broker. This is called covering a Short Sale.

Adjusting the share balance

You use the Adjust Share Balance function primarily during Guided Setup to get started quickly with holdings-only tracking. In other instances, the Adjust Share Balance dialog is used to resolve rounding errors or missing data states.

Redeeming shares for IRA custodial fees

In a mutual fund account set up as an IRA or other retirement account, the fund custodian may redeem shares as a custodial fee.

Learning about actions shown in the investment transaction list

In the investment account transaction list, the Action field indicates the type of action (Buy, Sell, and so on) a specific transaction represents. All possible actions are listed and defined in this reference table.