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Setting up investment accounts

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dscampbell

13 Dec, 2025 05:13 PM

Hi, This is a follow up to a conversation I started on November 24. I have not had a response to my last post dated December 4.

I was planning on setting up all my investment accounts (4) in MD. As it turns out my bank does not provide the download file formats required for MD so looks like that option is not available to me. I can only download the account details as a csv file.
I have decided to change my approach and just track the totals of each account without the securities attached. I have too many securities to track these manually. Can I track the total value of the accounts and update manually each month based on my statements?

Also, I already have one account set up with the securities attached so I will need to delete these and start over. How would I do that?

Thanks in advance,
Doug

1. 1 Posted by Ali on 30 Dec, 2025 08:48 PM

   

   If you're just intending to track the value, and nothing else (like dividends, capital gains, other income), you can achieve this by just increasing the cash value of your investment account using the Xfr action for the change in value and using an unused category or creating a new one like "Holdings Adj" so that it doesn't show up in the categories that you use to track other income/expenses.

   For the second question, to delete all the securities you will first need to delete all the transactions for those securities. Go to that account's register, select all the transactions and then delete. You can then leave the securities be as they would not hold any value, or you can go into the Securities Detail tab for that account and click "remove security" one by one.

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2. 2 Posted by dwg on 30 Dec, 2025 10:18 PM

   

   There are quite a number of approaches you can take to track investments at the totals level, one has already been outlined.

   Another approach you can take is to use an Asset account, you change the value of this through entries you make using one or more categories you defined.

   If you want to track it more like you would an investment like shares or a fund there is another approach you can take.

   You have your investment account and you have one security that represents the fund as a whole.

   For your very first transaction you use a share price of 1.00 so the number of units is your total investment value.

   For subsequent months you get the value of the investment from your statement and divide it by the number of units this giving per unit price, you enter this as the share price for that month, so you in fact build up a share price history. This allows for things like investment performance graphs and reports to work.

   I built some spreadsheets to do the calculations for my funds, I only track them in Moneydance at the total level since the data I can get is not usable as an import, rather sparse CSV files like you have, which would take quite some parsing to work. I built some Spreadsheets so I can handle adding more money to the funds or withdrawing money, and it will give me the price I need to use for these transactions and via calculation how many units to enter as a buy or sell.

   I would suggest creating a test Account set and trying out different methods to see what works for you.

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3. 3 Posted by dscampbell on 09 Feb, 2026 06:04 PM

   

   Thank you for your response. I have been thinking about the best way to
   move forward which leads me to a few additional questions.

   * I currently have an investment account set up in MD with 4
   securities associated to it along with cash. As mentioned previously, I am
   unable to complete the auto download from my bank so I need to update the
   accounts manually. My plan was to update each security manually based on my
   monthly statement but I am not sure how to do this. If this is not an
   option, would it be easier to start over and track the investment as one
   item based on the total value and update monthly?
   * Also, I have two savings accounts (mutual funds) within an
   investment account (one Canadian funds and one USD) which I want to track
   separately as I occasionally have the need to transfer to and from these
   accounts to my regular chequing account that I have set up in MD. I don't
   want these transfers to mess with my budgeted income/expenses I have set up.
   Is there an easy way to handle this?

   Thanks in advance for your help!

   Doug

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4. 4 Posted by dwg on 09 Feb, 2026 08:57 PM

   

   What you can do really depends on the data in the monthly statement. Investments have a number of elements, for example -

   - Buys
   - Sells
   - Income
   - Reinvested income
   - Funds added to investment
   - Funds withdrawn from investment
   - Price movements

   So what you can do is dependent on the data you have.

   Moneydance budgets are basically expenditure budgets, they do not capture transfers between assets, these are not an expense.

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5. 5 Posted by dscampbell on 10 Feb, 2026 03:45 PM

   

   Hello,

   I think I have most if not all of the elements you have listed.

   My statement is broken down by asset class - in this case I have common
   shares and mutual funds. There are headings across the top of the page that
   list the security symbol, quantity, market price and book cost and finally
   the current market value of each item.

   Then below all the asset classes listed there is an account activity section
   that starts with the opening balance and then itemizes all the transactions
   by date that have occurred during the month including buy, sell, interest,
   etc. and then the closing balance at the end.

   As for your response to my second question, I should be good with just
   setting up the two savings accounts and using the account transfer function
   to move funds between the accounts as needed.

   Thanks for this!

   Doug

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6. 6 Posted by dscampbell on 12 Feb, 2026 05:57 PM

   

   Hello,

   I have one other issue. I need to record a significant withdrawal in MD
   that I have withdrawn from an investment account and I don't want it to hit
   my income/expense budget. Is there an easy way I can do that?

   Thanks in advance,

   Doug

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7. 7 Posted by dwg on 12 Feb, 2026 09:08 PM

   

   It is a transfer between accounts, it is taking money from one Asset (Investment) and moving it to another Asset (Bank Account) it is not an Income or Expense item.

   Items are only included in a budget if the transaction is classified in an Income or an Expense category, in the category field you are specifying another account.

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8. 8 Posted by dscampbell on 12 Feb, 2026 09:20 PM

   

   It is not transferring between accounts. I have to make a transaction to
   remove funds from an account. Is there an account (or one that I can set
   up) that won't show as an expense in my budget?

   Thanks,

   Doug

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