Initial data setup

[ed4588]

I have used several generations of Quicken for approximately 15 years to manage our investments. For most of that time, it served my needs, but the current version has frustrated me to the extent that I will not continue to use it. After looking at the issues related to importing my entire transaction base from Quicken to Fund Manager, I've almost decided to download the years of the incomplete transaction history available online from my investment companies and sacrifice the ability to sell individual lots of mutual fund shares. I would like to ask a couple of questions regarding the initial setup of my Fund Manager data. My sense from reading the tutorials is that there may not be a single correct answer, but there may be a best answer.

FIRST QUESTION: How should I structure my data? (i.e., portfolios and subportfolios)

Here are my holdings:

Mutual Fund Company A
Taxable account consisting of about 10 funds, one of which is a money market account used to receive distributions. (account # common to all 10 funds)
403b (tax deferred) account for me consisting of about 5 funds (account # common to all 5 funds, but different from taxable account)
403b (tax defferred) account for wife consisting of about 5 funds (account # common to all 5 funds, but different from taxable account and my 403b)

Mutual Fund Company B
Taxable account consisting of a single fund

Mutual Fund Company C
Taxable account consisting of a single fund

Mutual Fund Company D
Taxable account consisting of a single fund

SECOND QUESTION: How should I answer the question about a "default cash account" in the setup wizard?

My situation: In the taxable account for company A, I currently reinvest distributions on some funds and deposit distributions in a money market mutual fund (same company) for other funds. If I go back a couple of years in my transaction history, I was depositing distributions from some funds into a different money market mutual fund. My basic problem is that I don't see a single answer to this question.

Thanks in advance for any help that you can provide me.

Ed

[Mark]

Hi Ed,

Thanks for considering Fund Manager.

If you have all your historical data in Quicken now, I'd suggest trying to export from there, and import into Fund Manager, instead of retrieving partial history from your fund company. First, quickly try retrieving from your fund company to see if they offer your full history, but if they don't you should be able to import from Quicken. It is always nice to have the full transaction history if possible.

Question #1) I'd suggest a single portfolio file (*.mm4) that has a sub-portfolio hierarchy like this:

Code: Select all

Family Portfolio
   Fund Company A
      Taxable
      403b - self
      403b - wife
   Fund B
   Fund C
   Fund D

You could eliminate the level "Fund Company A" if you don't care about reporting at that level. For example, you could have it look like:

Code: Select all

Family Portfolio
   Taxable
   403b - self
   403b - wife
   Fund B
   Fund C
   Fund D

It is only necessary to create a level of hierarchy if you want to be able to report/graph at that level. You do want to create a sub-portfolio for each unique account number you have, so that you can retrieve for that account. If you want to analyze your holdings in more ways, you could create more hierarchy, like maybe taxable versus tax-free:

Code: Select all

Family Portfolio
   Taxable
      Fund A
      Fund B
      Fund C
      Fund D
   Tax-Free
      403b - self
      403b - wife

Also, you can change the hierarchy at any time, you're not locked into anything.

Question #2) If there wasn't a single cash account for the full history, I'd suggest leaving this set to "none" for the creation of the portfolio. After creation, you can go into the sub-portfolio properties and assign it to the current money market.