Asset Allocation and Bank Accounts

I have 8 investment accounts that have a checking counterpart, as in "Show cash in a checking account." Those checking accounts show up as -Cash- in my asset allocation. My stand-alone bank accounts are not included in -Cash-, but I don't keep very much in them, so they don't affect the allocation. I guess one could "trick" Quicken and set up "dummy" investment accounts with no investments, and all the action happens in the checking part.

Bob

"C and A" wrote in message news:482b5b81$0$5727$ snipped-for-privacy@roadrunner.com... Using Quicken 2008 Deluxe. Asset Allocation Reports don't include bank accounts. I would like them included as Cash. Is there a way to do that? One of my checking accounts is actually a money market fund against which I write checks.

"Bank accounts" should not be included in asset allocation. Please read up on the concept of asset allocation.

I think I understand the concept of asset allocation. I want to have an overall picture of my finances. When I used Excel to track my allocations using pie charts, I included the money market fund in my cash because it often contains a large amount of cash and I write large checks against it. I wanted to have the chart include it.

Now I want to do it with Quicken.

Are you saying that even though I use it like a checking account, I should put under Investments instead of under Cash and Bank Accounts?

Thanks, CB

Basically, yes; though as Bob Wang said, the "checking" account can be a "Cash Flow" account, and appear in Asset Allocation reports/graphs, if you have it linked to an investment account (but you can not link an existing checking account to an investment account).

Asset Allocation is a concept for maintaining a specified ratio of assets in various asset classes. Part of the concept includes switching assets from one class to another when the ratio's get too far out of kilter from their targets. The concept doesn't include using your household cash to rebalance your asset classes, so Quicken excludes such accounts.

Quicken investment accounts allow check writing, so offhand, I can't think of any reason why an investment account wouldn't work ... though if your "money market fund" is being used for everyday household expenses, it doesn't really belong in Asset Allocation.

I recently read another post that reminded me of something I forgot when I first answered this.

With newer versions of Quicken, you can change the "Account Group" of a "Cash Flow" "Spending" account to put it in the "Investing Center" as either an "Investment" account or a "Retirement" account. Doing so should cause Quicken to include that account in the Asset Allocation report/graph.