How do I add an investment account?

Simple Investing tracks positions only

With Simple Investing, Quicken keeps track of the positions (number of shares for each security) over time, and your cash balances. Quicken’s tracking is based on information provided by your broker.  Your portfolio value, net worth, and investment returns over time will be available, but Quicken will not be able to calculate capital gains and losses or investment income. Quicken will display an account summary rather than an investment transaction register when the account is selected.

Complete Investing tracks positions and transactions

With Complete Investing, Quicken keeps track of transaction detail as well as the positions over time, based on information provided by your broker.  This is the tracking approach that Quicken has always provided in the past. With Complete Investing, in addition to portfolio value, net worth, and investment returns, Quicken is able to tracks and displays capital gains, and capital losses, and investment income. Quicken will displays the investment transaction register when the account is selected.

Select the type of account you would like to add to Quicken. 

If your bank or brokerage is listed on the screen, click it.

If your bank or brokerage is not listed on the screen, start typing its name. After you type a few characters Quicken displays a list of possible matches. If you see what you are looking for, go ahead and click the name of your bank or brokerage. If you don't see what you are looking for, click Back and try again.

If you have set up Quicken to track multiple currencies, select one from the list. If you decide you need to change the currency for the account, you can do so only if you haven't entered any transactions except the opening balance.

Quicken needs this information so it can download your account information. For most banks and brokerages, you can use the same user ID and password you use to log in to their website. If you don't have a user ID and password right now, add the account manually. You can always activate it to update transactions or send payments later on.

Sometimes Quicken needs more information to determine what type of account you have, or at what branch the account resides at before it can access it. If you are not sure, here are some tips that may help you:

Account Type

If different types of accounts are shown, such as checking (Chequing in Canada), savings, or credit card, choose the account type that applies to you.

State or Location

Some banks and brokerages use a state or region to classify accounts. If you see your state listed, this is probably the option to select.

Bank Mergers

Did your local bank or credit union merge with a larger bank? If you see your old or pre-merger bank name listed, this is probably the option to select.

Having trouble? Contact your bank or brokerage for instructions.

After you tell Quicken how to access your bank or brokerage, it goes online and downloads information about the accounts you hold there. Quicken then asks you to provide a bit more information about the accounts.

We have found the following

This is a list of your accounts that Quicken has detected at your bank or brokerage.

Account Type

You may see various items in this list: Checking, Savings, Credit Card, Brokerage, IRA or Keogh plan, or 401(k). Choose one that best matches the purpose of your real-world account.

Add, Ignore, or Link

Quicken needs to know what you want to do with the accounts it has found. Keep in mind that you don't need to set up all of the accounts it finds; just the ones that you want to track in Quicken.

Choose Add to create a new Quicken account in which to download your transactions. If you are new to Quicken, this is probably the option that you want.

Choose Link to download your transactions into an existing Quicken account. If you have previously set up the account in Quicken, but are not yet downloading transactions into it, this is probably the option you want.

Choose Ignore to disregard one of the accounts that Quicken has found. No account will be created, and transactions for that account will not be downloaded into Quicken.

Nickname (Optional)

Enter the name you want to use to refer to the account in Quicken. This name will appear in reports, and in the Quicken interface. If you don't enter a nickname, Quicken will use the name provided by your financial institution for the account.

Used mostly for

If you are using Quicken Business & Personal, choose the primary use of the account: Personal (which is the default), Business, or Rental Property. Your selection determines where in the Quicken interface (on which tab) the account appears. You can change this from the Account List later if you wish. the account appears. You can change this from the Account List later if you wish.

You will receive confirmation that your account, or accounts, have been added to Quicken. Depending on the type of account you are adding there may be other steps you need to take. This screen will tell you what you need to do, if anything, to start using the accounts. Congratulations!

If you have chosen to use mobile as a part of your Quicken Registration, on this screen, you will get an option to sync the added account to the cloud. If you wish to add this account to the cloud, select the Sync to Quicken cloud for Mobile / Alerts check-box next to the account that you have added.

You will see this option only if you have chosen to Use Mobile as part of the registration. If you wish to view your accounts in mobile or to receive custom account notifications, click the Mobile and Web tab and follow the instructions.

If you want to download transactions into Quicken, enter the name of your bank, brokerage, or credit card company and click Next.

If you don't want to download transactions into Quicken, select I want to enter my transactions manually and click Next. This option means that you will need to update your account transactions by hand.

Enter the name you want to use to refer to the account in Quicken. This name will appear in reports, and in the Quicken interface.

If you are using Quicken Business & Personal, choose the primary use of the account: Personal (which is the default), Business, or Rental Property. Your selection determines where in the Quicken interface (on which tab) the account appears. You can change this from the Account List later if you wish. the account appears. You can change this from the Account List later if you wish.

If you know the ending date and balance

Enter the appropriate date and balance from your statement, and then click Done.

If you don't know the ending date and balance

Leave the settings as they are (today's date, with a zero balance), and then click Done.

The new account will be added with an opening balance of $0.00, as of today. You can edit the opening balance later.

The following options are not available for every account. The connection methods you see in the wizard will be customized to your financial institution and the account you are setting up.

Express Web Connect (Free)

Express Web Connect provides an integrated way to update transactions and account balances for financial institutions that do not currently connect directly to Quicken. With Express Web Connect, you can use One Step Update to update multiple accounts, and you no longer have to go to a financial institution's website to retrieve transactions.

Direct Connect (Fees may apply)

Direct Connect is a service some banks use to connect to Quicken. You will know if you have Direct Connect if you specifically signed up for it and/or your bank sent you a special user ID and password to use with Quicken. Some financial institutions require Direct Connect to use services such as bill pay, or transfers via Quicken.

Web Connect (Free)

Many financial institutions offering Web banking also let you download your Web transactions into Quicken. If you already have a password, and if the website displays the Quicken logo or a button or link that says Download to Quicken, this means that your financial institution supports the Web Connect protocol for downloading and importing transactions into Quicken.

1. Next to Who owns this IRA? select either yourself or your spouse.
2. Next to IRA Type select:
   • Traditional IRA
   • Roth IRA
   • Coverdell ESA
   • Keogh plan
   • SEP IRA
   • SIMPLE IRA

1. Enter a name for this account.
   Account names usually appear in alphabetical order in Quicken. If you and your spouse both have a 401(k) account, or you have 401(k) accounts from previous employers, begin each account name with something similar, such as "401(k) for Terry" and "401(k) for Chris." This way, all your 401(k) accounts will appear next to each other in lists throughout Quicken.
2. Enter the ending date from your statement.

   Caution

   If you're entering information from your financial institution's website instead of from a paper statement, and if this date is today's date, then don't download transactions for this account until tomorrow. This is necessary to reconcile your Quicken account data with account data posted by your financial institution.

3. Enter the name of your employer and whether this is your current employer or a previous one.
4. Identify the owner of this account: you or your spouse.
   Quicken uses this to assign the correct tax-related category to transactions.

1. In the Statement Date field, enter one of the following:
   • If you're entering this information from a statement, enter the statement ending date.
   • If you're entering this information from your financial institution's website, use the date the information was posted (usually today or yesterday).
2. In the Cash field, enter the cash balance in this account.
   If your broker sweeps your cash balance into a money market fund, then the amount that is actually held in cash may be a very small amount—usually only equal to the amount of a recent dividend, security sale, or other transaction that resulted in a positive cash amount.
3. In the Money Market Fund field, enter the share balance for your money market fund security, if any.
   Your broker may call this a sweep fund. The cash balance and the sweep fund together make up your total cash balance. For example, if you have $200 in cash and $1,200 in shares of a money market fund, your total cash balance would be $1,400.

Do the following for each security you hold in this account:

1. In the Ticker field, enter the ticker symbol for the security. If you know the security ticker, Quicken will download the name for you.
   • If you don't know the ticker symbol, click Ticker Symbol Lookup.
   • If the security doesn't have a ticker symbol (for example, a proprietary security sold by your financial institution), enter a security name in the Security Name field.
   • Don't enter bonds on this page. When you're finished setting up securities, open the transaction list, click Enter Transaction, and then choose Bond Purchase.
2. When you've finished for each security, click Next.

Do the following for each security you hold in this account:

1. Enter the number of shares for each security you own. If this is a 401(k) account only, enter the number of shares and total market value. (If your financial institution doesn't report the number of shares, you can enter the market value.)
2. Select the appropriate security type: Stock, Mutual Fund, or Other.
3. Click Next.

Review the information you entered on the previous pages. If you need to change anything, click Back.

• Note for IRA accounts
  If this is an IRA account, Quicken identifies the entire opening balance as a contribution in the year that the account is added. If you want to edit the opening balance to assign contribution amounts to specific prior tax years, you can do so now:
  1. Scroll down to the blank transaction line at the bottom of the transaction list.
  2. Click Enter Transaction.
  3. In the Enter transactions field, select Cash Transferred into Account. Follow the on-screen instructions to create a cash transfer into the account for a prior tax year. Be sure to use the correct date for both the transaction and for the tax year assignment.
  4. Click Enter New if you need to repeat step 3 for prior tax years. When you're finished, click Enter Done.
  5. Go back to the top of the transaction list and change the Opening Balance to equal just the amount you actually contributed this year.