Merging two IRA accounts into a single account

Try using the Quicken investment transaction, "Shares transferred between accounts", to "move" the Quicken holdings from one Quicken IRA account to the other.

If you have any cash in the FROM account, you can move that with a Quicken "Cash transferred out of account" transaction, though Quicken might ask you if the "deposit" in the TO account is a "contribution". I don't think it matters if Quicken thinks it's a "contribution" (I can't find any evidence of what Quicken does with that info), but there is a way to avoid the question altogether.

You can create a dummy security, call it "Dummy Cash Security", for example (any name that will never be the same as any real security). Use the cash in the FROM account to "buy" shares of "Dummy Cash Security" at $1/share. Do that before you do the "Shares transferred between accounts" transaction, so the dummy cash security will get transferred along with all the other securities.

Then in the TO account, "sell" all shares of "Dummy Cash Security" (at $1/share) to put the actual cash into the TO account.

John,

Thanks for the response. I know what to do now. however, it seems that when the shares are transferred you loose the original transaction date. Is the a way to keep the date? I have restored to my original file because of this problem.

Oldman

The "transaction" date for the transfer is, correctly, the date the transfer occurred.

But if you "Edit" the "Shares Added" transactions in the TO account, you will see that Quicken retained the original "Acquisition" date for each lot you transferred.

John,

Thanks. I had not looked in the to account when I finished.

Oldman

It is an IRA so transaction dates should not matter because sales are tax free.

Eric

True, but one might want to know some of the statistics about the securities, like gain/loss or return, etc.