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setting up invesment account for the first time

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StevenL

26 Sep, 2016 06:17 PM

I am utterly confused. For most of the past 20 years, I have been using Quicken, first on a PC but later on a Mac. In 2015, I gave up on the Quicken for Mac program and transferred my file to Moneydance. The bank info transfer was straightforward and I have maintained that data to the present. The investments component did not come in a clean way, so I deleted these accounts and intended to manually put in the investment data at a later time. This morning, I tried to do this. I have a Vanguard investment account with 15 different mutual fund components. I entered Vanguard as an investment account listing its net value at the end of 2015. It initially lists this as cash. I entered each of the 15 MF elements and they came in as $0 elements. I tried to "buy" their end 2015 values under register, but if I enter element 2 it replaces element 1 so I cannot seem to get past have only one security and cash in the Vanguard investment account. I need some kind of step-by-step example to twig on to the logic of Moneydance investment accounts because my intuitive attempts are coming to nothing. Chapter 7 of the 2015 Moneydance guide seems to describe working with an existing account, but does not tell me how to set up and enter in an investment account that I have had for 20 years. Can someone point me to a step-by-step process?

1. 1 Posted by -Kevin N. on 26 Sep, 2016 09:14 PM

   

   Hi StevenL,

   I'll give it a shot...

   Entering securities into Moneydance is a 3-step process.
   1. Add the securities to Moneydance.
   2. Add the securities to a particular investment account.
   3. Enter Buy txns into the register to reflect your holdings.
   For the purposes of these instructions. txn = transaction.

   Step 1.
   From the Moneydance Menu bar, go to Tools > Securities.
   Click the (+) plus sign at the bottom of the resulting window.
   Fill in the particulars of one of your VG mutual funds.
   Security ID: Is not necessary.
   Security Name: Enter the name of the VG mutual fund.
   Ticker: Enter the Ticker symbol that finanace.yahoo.com uses for your VG mutual fund.
   Price: You can estimate the price or just leave it at 1.
   Prefix and Suffix, again not necessary.
   Max Decimal Places: Enter the number of decimal places that VG uses on their statements. This entry can not be changed later so make sure to enter the appropriate numeral.
   Click OK.

   Repeat the above steps for each of your 15 VG mutual funds.

   Step 2.
   Access the investment account from the left side bar.
   Click the 'Securities Detail' tab - in the upper margin.
   In the upper right-hand quadrant of the resulting window, click the 'Add Security' button.
   In the resulting form, select one of the VG mutual funds that appear in the 'Security' drop-down list.
   Make any desired selections and fill in any desired particulars. e.g. Type & Subtype.
   Click OK.

   Repeat the above for the remaining VG mutual funds.

   Step 3.
   Click the 'Register' button. - again, in the upper margin.
   In the upper right-hand corner of the 'Register' window, click the 'New Transaction' button. Alternately, use key-combo CTRL-N.
   A new transaction will appear at the bottom of the window in Edit mode.
   Enter a 'Buy' txn so as to reflect your holdings of that particular VG mutual fund. You can select the desired VG mutual fund from the 'Securities' drop-down list of the txn. Disregard, for now, the 'Cash Balance' column.

   Enter a 'Buy' transaction for each of the remaining VG mutual funds.

   Once you have entered the required txns to reflect your holdings, from the Menu bar, go to Account > Edit Account.
   In the resulting window, you can enter / edit the 'Initial Balance' so as to correctly reflect the Cash holdings in the account (if any)

   I think that about covers it. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate.

   HTH -Kevin N.

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2. System closed this discussion on 26 Dec, 2016 09:20 PM.