Must delete to make change

I can think of several possibilities.

Thanks for your suggestions on working 'around' the problem. I had hoped there was some parameter I could turn off to automatically solve it.

I had thought of 1) and hoped I could Edit at that point. I'll try it. I believe 2) is what I was trying, but I'll investigate. When I delete and add a transation of Xout, it is also a "MiscExp". On 3), I doubt I can get Vanguard to change what they do, but I may try.

Thanks again!

I doubt that this treatment is optional; my guess is that the MiscExp transaction now contains some data that can not be easily converted to some (or any) other transaction type.

Before attempting to process the downloaded MiscExp transaction, you could enter an XOut into the investment account, then delete the downloaded MiscExp transaction from the "Accept transactions into register". (I can't test this, but it is possible that if you manually enter the XOut transaction, the MiscExp "status" will change from "new" to "match", in which case you could just accept it. But I don't think that is likely).

A MiscExp transaction can be used to transfer cash from your investment account (it will become a "MiscExpX" if you enter a value in the "transfer account"); it is not necessary to change the action to XOut.

I can't understand this. While I do not have a downloaded MiscExp that I can test with, if I enter a MiscExp manually, then try to "Edit" the transaction to modifiy the "Action" to "Cash transferred out of account", I get the same message you did ... that I must delete the original and enter a new transaction. When I add that new "Cash transferred out of account" it is an "XOut" transaction, not a "MiscExp" transaction. If you are talking about the contents of the "Description" field, I think that is just eyewash, you can enter your own "Description" and "Memo" field data in your XOut transaction.

Sometimes, when it is the right thing to do, the fi's will listen if enough people ask. But this situation might be a bit iffy because it might depend on Vanguard being able to know whether you were removing money from your Vanguard account and depositing the money in another Quicken account. If the money was not going to another Quicken account, the MiscExp might be the better choice of transaction type.

My one comment on this: I had a problem with reinvested dividends showing up as "Shares Added." Clearly, the FI knows they are reinvested and that they are dividends, so there is not much question how these transactions should be designated. When I questioned the FI, they said after checking with the department responsible for online access that they do indeed designate the transaction as "Reinvested Dividends" (which may or may not be true, but I have in general had good communication with them) . So that would mean that Quicken is screwing it up. I have reported this to Intuit and asked the FI to also report it.

With Q04 and Q05, downloaded investment transactions seem to be nearly worthless (as opposed to bank/CC downloads which work exceptionally well). They require so many edits, deletions and insertions it is not much better than doing it all by hand. But it is still better and I still use it. Earlier versions made it much easier to change the downloaded transactions to what was correct.

Peter

I have one fi where I hold some stocks and some mutual funds, and I reinvest dividends in both the stocks and the mutual funds. The fi reports mutual fund reinvestments with a single "reinvestment" transaction, on both my statement and in the downloads. But the reinvestments of stock dividends are reported using 3 transactions: One "reinvestment" transaction showing the number of shares and a zero price/amount; one "dividend" transaction showing the amount of the dividend; and one more "reinvestment" transaction for the negative amount of the dividend. The same approach is used on their statements and in the downloaded transactions, and statements have been that way since before the fi began offering Quicken downloads.

While I consider the above situation to be unusual, I also do business with 3 other brokerages, and they usually report reinvested stock dividends as two transactions: one "dividend" transaction and one "buy" transaction.

All these fi's probably "know" that Quicken offers a single "reinvest dividend" transaction type that would work, but none have elected to send that for stock dividend reinvestments, though they usually do for mutual fund reinvestments. I think what they send tends to look like what happens in their own systems.

Can you do a web-connect download from them? And save the resulting file to your hard drive? If so, you could check for yourself.

Good. I find I have enough trouble dealing with the fi's ways of doing things; I would prefer that Quicken not add to the problem. I have not seen the problem you describe, so I am a bit surprised to think that Quicken is doing it. But if your comments to the two parties, get them both looking at the problem, perhaps it will get fixed.

So far, my experience has been somewhat better; I am definitely much better off than I was before I could download (two of my fi's only just started offering downloads within the last year, one only a few months ago).

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John,

Thanks for the info. It is definitely useful to have more "ammunition" when dealing with these "slippery" problems.

Peter

John,

Just an update. After your message, I queried my FI again and got a different story this time. Now they are saying they use SharesIn and SharesOut for everything because they are worried about problems with cash balances in Quicken. They did not say it is all Quicken's fault as previously. I have challenged them to improve this, particularly for reinvested income. I can see little reason behind their stance.

Peter