How do I track the performance of cash in an investment account?

To use this method, you must first add a money market fund security. Add a new security and name it something like MMF (for money market fund). For the security type, select Stock. For the share price, enter $1/share to represent the cash or money market fund. Then keep the account cash balance at zero by buying or selling shares of the MMF to offset any transactions that require cash (such as the sale or purchase of securities).

Pros and cons

This method may make your transaction list look closest to the statement you receive from your brokerage account. However, it's the most time-consuming method.

Example

To represent a stock purchase, enter a Buy action of the security along with a Sell action of the MMF. When you receive a dividend from the security, enter a Div action in the security, and also enter a Buy action in the MMF.

When reconciling this account, reconcile to the (typically zero) cash balances in your brokerage statement. As a part of the reconciling process, verify that the new balance for the money market fund is correct.

If you set up your investment account for transaction download, the first time you download, Quicken identifies your financial institution's money market fund security and prompts you to use it for cash tracking. When you do this, Quicken calculates the performance for you, based on the money market fund's Dividend transactions.

The ability to track your money market fund balance as cash isn't available for all financial institutions. If this ability is available for your financial institution, Quicken displays the Cash Representation dialog the first time you download. (If you don't see the Cash Representation dialog during your first download, this option isn't available for your financial institution.)

If the option to track a money market fund as a security is available for your financial institution, and you initially choose to track the money market fund as a security, you can convert the fund to cash later. However, once you select to convert a money market fund to cash, you may not be able to convert it back to a money market fund later.