Question about Quicken treatment of "business" investment accounts

Can you define "business investment account"?

I have 2008 H&B. When I go to create a new account my options are "Cash Flow", "Investment", "Property & Debt" and "Business". Under Business there is no option for "business investment account". The options under business are checking, savings, cash, house, vehicle, asset, liability, Invoices/Receivables and Bills/Payables.

Thanks for replying Laura.

Here's what I'm trying to determine:

1) When did Quicken first offer the ability to designate an account as a "business investment" account. No such capability existed in Q2004 H&B, for example.

In Q2009 RPM (and I will bet, in Q2009 H&B), when setting up a new account, during the setup process, the user is offered the option to designate the account as being for: "personal transactions", "business transactions", (or in the case of Q2009 Rental Property Manager), the option to designate the account as being for "Rental Property Transactions".

2.) Why would there be any need to designate a Quicken account as a "business investment" account. [Point being: is there any legitimate use of Quicken Home & Business that would require, or even benefit from, the ability to designate an investment account as being for "business"?

It is my belief that a "business" designation for investment accounts in Quicken are basically meaningless differentiations. I'd like someone to prove me wrong.

What I am looking for is: first, someone to tell me when Quicken first offered "business" investment accounts; and second; why a Quicken user would have any reason to distinguish a "business" investment account from a non-business investment account (remembering that - at least in Q2004 H&B, there was no such thing as a "business investment" account.

Why would Intuit believe it necessary to provide a "business" investment account?

Laura wrote:

As I indicated last night, it does not exist in 2008 H&B either. Have you seen it in 2009 or are you just speculated on its existance?

In RPM, it sounds like they are offering you the option for personal RE vs business RE. That's understandable. Property can be either Personal or business so that makes sense.

You don't have that same option in HB. As I posted last night your options of account types are "Cash Flow", "Investment", "Property & Debt" and "Business". Given those options the Investment option is not being designated as personal or business in nature in H&B.

Actually I can think of a legitmate use of a "business investment" account. I have a client, a Condo association, that has money in a Merrill Lynch account as part of their reserve funds. Part of the money is in CDs and part is in a Money Market fund. I don't see any reason why they could not have put some of the money into stocks or bonds. These would certainly fall into the investment type of account.

Of course, being a real business a company like that would probably never use Quicken to track their business expenses. They certainly should not be mixing it with personal transactions.

Yes, I have seen it. The account setup process in Q2009 RPM allows the user to designate any account as being for "personal", "business", or "rental property". I'm reasonably sure the H&B version doesn't allow the "rental property" option, and that Premier and Deluxe do not all the "business" or "rental property" options.

Thanks, that is what I thought. Q2009 is the first Quicken version to permit the creation of "business investment" accounts.

I understand that, but it's not quite what I'm asking about.

If one had an investment account that pertained to their business, they could (and should) limit its contents to transactions that pertained to the business. And they could name the account in such a way as to indicate that it held assets related to the business. It seems to me that Quicken users must have been dealing with this for as long as Quicken has been around ... and I don't recall a single request to have Quicken designate such an account as a "business investment" account.

My question is: what special treatment would a business investment require that would necessitate its being designated as a "business" account by Quicken? Does any legitimate Quicken "business" get different treatment of "business" investments, as opposed to "personal" investments? [I'm assuming Quicken is not intended for Corporations, for example.] What have Quicken H&B users needed for their business investment accounts all these years, that they have not had? How have Quicken H&B users handled whatever limitations not having a "business investment" account designation imposed? What workarounds have they had to employ?

Consider: Would (should) a Quicken business investment account be accorded different tax treatment than a Quicken personal investment account?

[To put some perspective on this: when a Q2009 investment account is designated as a "business" account, it appears (by default) in the "Business" group of accounts, along with accounts like customer invoice accounts and sales tax accounts. A natural grouping perhaps, but Intuit goofed and did not implement the "business investment" account correctly. It doesn't show "Holdings" on its "Overview" tab; it can be selected to appear in a Portfolio view ... but it doesn't actually appear; and it is unavailable for some reports like Schedule D and Capital Gains. My belief is that these problems can be overcome by either not designating the investment account as a "business" account (even though it is for the business), or changing its "group" to "Investing" instead of "Business". In other words: the difficulties with a Q2009 "business investment" account can be avoided by not treating it like a "business" account. What problems would that workaround pose?]