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Simple vs Complete Investment Tracking

AaronJB

So, I am struggling with making the investment transactions useful and/or accurate. It seems like Quicken/Simplifi is making a big push for investment tracking at the transaction level. Have tried Simplifi (25+ years on Quicken Classic) to make my life "simpler." Our brokerages have all the tracking we need these days, I would like to just have my holdings and account values updated daily; what an aggregator should be good at. Quicken Classic lets you choose Simple or Complete.

Would love that option on Simplifi.

Thank you

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Feature Request

Status: Active

Comments

DannyB

I agree. I don'don't want or need transaction level investment tracking. "Simple" tracking would be useful for anyone who wants to see and track net worth in QS, but doesn't want to mess with keeping all the minutia of an investment acaccount accurate and up-to-date.

I tried the fully connected and gave uup on it after a couple of weeks… Just not worth the effort.

Went with manual, but again, having to check and update any changes in holdings was not worth the effort.

Finally and currently just not including any investment accounts.

I have as good a record of net worth as needed with my advisor'advisor's account.

SRC54

Well, the good news is that you don't have to track the transactions if you don't want to do so. You can just delete them if they bother you since they don't affect the Portfolio View or the bottom line. I agree completely that most of us don't need or want it to be complicated.

So I assume that if you choose Simple, it wouldn't download transactions, just do what it used to do for informational and net worth purposes. If you want Transactions to download, that would be Complete?

I would still choose to download transactions as they affect my finances.

Transfers into IRAs and Investment Accounts for investing purposes.
Dividends that I receive that count as income that I intend to spend and for which I pay income tax.

As I say, I think it is fairly minimalist as it is.

DannyB

@SRC54

Exactly this…

…Simple, it wouldn't download transactions, just do what it used to do for informational and net worth purposes. If you want Transactions to download, that would be Complete.

QClassic started offering this option a few years ago and it would be nice to have this option in QSimplifi.

I currently don't have any of my investment accounts either connected or manually set up in QS pretty much for this reason - I don't want to mess with any transactions including having to delete them when they download. I don't need to know any details of my investment accounts in QS since for me none of these affect my D2D finances. But if I had the option to simply keep my holdings and account values up to date without having to deal with account transactions, I would consider reconnecting those accounts perhaps.

For other's investment account activity does affect D2D finances, as with yourself, so having the option for Simple or Complete would meet both needs.

Max1223

really like this…maybe because at the moment, there are bugs in the Investment transaction register that are causing problems for me. I Upvoted for this.

I'd like to see from the Transaction view, the Accounts and the total $ in the account. That should make Net Worth accurate and not affect anything else. I'd even skip seeing Holdings if it made implementation easier. And yes, skip the Transaction download.

UrsulaA

I agree with this feature. My brokerage, Schwab, has income tracked properly. In Simplifi, the transactions get duplicated when I change the action to something else. Schwab is downloading interest payments as payment/deposit. I prefer to disregard investment transactions and just keep an accurate holding value over time that accounts for purchases, sales, and other corporate actions (spinoffs) for the holdings list to be accurate.

Max1223

To the folks at QS, this conversation might not be happening if there were no bugs, registers were accurate and messages like below did not appear.

I get this message below but what am I supposed to do with "Incomplete" which I see at the Portfolio tab, Total Gain info box? Shouldn't the syncing accounts fill in the Total Cost? I don't want to manually update my Total Cost, especially in fear of creating other issues in the register like this one.

So consider where to spend your resources, that might ultimately impact customers annual fees: Create a Simple/Complete Transaction feature, or fix the bugs. If data syncing were 100% accurate and bug free, I'd vote to fix the bugs, but if that was an insurmountable task due to inconsistency and lack of control over the different institutions method of categorizations, then maybe the "Simple Transaction" Investment, new feature, is better for users and a more cost effective way of creating a bug free experience.

Thanks for listening.

Max1223

@SRC54

Points 1 and 2 are insightful as I do the same. The insight made think about how much I need to see the Investment register as many of them are auto tagged as hidden.

Just curious, assuming you have your Investment Accounts linked to "normal" bank/checking accounts, you will still see the Transfers from the normal to/from investments right? e.g. I transfer money from Investments to Checking so that I can spend it, so QS will show me that income/transfer in the Checking register. I really didn't look at the actual transactions in Investments until I came across some bugs.

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/45481#Comment_45481

SRC54

@Max1223 Thanks. Yes, I see the transfers that are linked from my Investment accounts to my checking accounts. Of course, as transfers they are ignored in Spending Plan and Reports.

The only issue I have is sometimes Simplifi doesn't link them. I usually get them to link by just editing one side of the transfer (just saying transfer) and then going back and changing it to Transfer to Checking, and then Simplifi will pop up and ask me if this is the same transaction, and then will link them.

Even in my brokerage accounts, buys and sells and Reinvest Dividends are ignored because these are essentially transfers, just specialized ones.

And as I said earlier, I just tell Simplifi to ignore my IRAs. But I still can "see" the transfers into and out of them when I contribute to them.

Max1223

So I've decided not to try and manually fix Investment Transactions as it just feels like I am a dog chasing the tail…

With that, I'm considering removing Investments all together as I can fortunately and accurately see transactions via Schwab. This upsets Net Worth figures in QS.

A workaround: Create a single manual "Total Investments" account, then once a month, go to your Bank(s) where you are investing, eg. Schwab, get your total balance, manually input your Total Investment QS account so that it adds to your Net Worth. If you only have one investment bank, then its a once a month, one manual transaction. That's much better than trying to pick through and fix lot's of individual transaction line items. This is what @DannyB I think was referring too. And to his point, might not be worth the trouble!

UrsulaA

https://community.simplifimoney.com/discussion/comment/45856#Comment_45856

I agree with @Max1223. I am not changing or monitoring investment transactions in Simplifi anymore. The transactions fortunately do not affect the balance and holdings screens and the net worth report is correct. My accounts are with Schwab.

Max1223

So after 3 months of Deleting my Investment accounts, then creating manual accounts to periodically enter a total balance, eg. a Schwab Investment account, I've not had to worry about correcting/finding missing transactions, incorrect categories and transactions showing up in places they shouldn't.

Yes, my Net Worth does not reflect the latest, but it's close enough.

The Investment section does Graph my Performance and balance. Each time I manually change, it marks that day and it reflects in the graph.

DryHeat

I would be happy if folks had the choice proposed in this thread. I would be unhappy if the Transactions register were eliminated.

Money goes into our investment account from various accounts that display in my QS — but also from some of my wife's accounts, which don't show up in my QS. Without a transaction register, those contributions are invisible to me (in QS, anyway).

Having the transaction register lets me see all of the contributions in one place, no matter the source. So it helps me.

Note: I'm not a trader so I don't have that many transactions. Maybe that makes a difference in how I view it.

Max1223

It would be great to have the choice, see balances or see everything.

I've had issues with the transaction detail that have caused issues elsewhere in QS, so I'd prefer just balances. Hence my decision to delete the investments all together.

I do agree that if you many investment accounts at different institutions, then yea, having them consolidated is good.

BhupeshGajria

Please can we get an excel upload for tracking the investments…. you have that option in the manual entry - Buy / Sell / Dividend / Dividend reinvestment / etc….. all we need is an excel template to upload all this

MikeZ

I vote for simple. PLEASE???????

Please just get the balance and maybe transactions. But in no case should Simplifi be attempting to calculate anything with investment accounts. The brokerage already does that.

I like to track my weekly/monthly contributions to ensure I'm on track. The transactions that show the receiving transaction is nice to have, but those are all ignored anyway.

And stop with the total cost adjustment every single day - nobody is going to do more than twice.