01-30-2014, 10:07 PM
I have a pretty complicated number of accounts too.
About 10 years ago I could already see the mess I was heading for, so I really tried to eliminate, simply and consolidate as much as possible. Then right before I made the jump to Quicken on windows, I closed as many accounts as I could. For instance, I bundled all CDs into 1 account and just had each CD as a separate security ($1 per share) and the interest was essentially a reinvested dividend. That works so much better than a separate account for each CD. I also tried to un-diversify too many ETFs as most index funds already give you plenty of diversity. When I switched, it was really nice starting fresh with fewer accounts, fewer securities, fewer categories and the wisdom to know how to plan for the future.
Fast forward to today and I've still got way too many accounts! Oh well. There are some good legal loopholes in the tax code that allow IRAs conversions (with the option of undoing them) or recharacterization traditional IRA contributions to Roth, etc and I can't resist them, so a lot of my accounts have small balances and many are already closed. At least Quicken 2011 lets me hide the ones I don't want to see. I don't know if this makes sense, but I try to reuse the account after a few years of zero balanced have passed.
I also go back and rename securities that I've sold to start with a "z" so that they are at the bottom of reports. And of course Hide as many of them as you can and go through and delete the download data you don't need anymore such as price history.
Good to hear the Quicken Essentials for the Mac can download from all the same sources. If I ever need to "nuke and pave" my quicken account again, I'll check it out.
About 10 years ago I could already see the mess I was heading for, so I really tried to eliminate, simply and consolidate as much as possible. Then right before I made the jump to Quicken on windows, I closed as many accounts as I could. For instance, I bundled all CDs into 1 account and just had each CD as a separate security ($1 per share) and the interest was essentially a reinvested dividend. That works so much better than a separate account for each CD. I also tried to un-diversify too many ETFs as most index funds already give you plenty of diversity. When I switched, it was really nice starting fresh with fewer accounts, fewer securities, fewer categories and the wisdom to know how to plan for the future.
Fast forward to today and I've still got way too many accounts! Oh well. There are some good legal loopholes in the tax code that allow IRAs conversions (with the option of undoing them) or recharacterization traditional IRA contributions to Roth, etc and I can't resist them, so a lot of my accounts have small balances and many are already closed. At least Quicken 2011 lets me hide the ones I don't want to see. I don't know if this makes sense, but I try to reuse the account after a few years of zero balanced have passed.
I also go back and rename securities that I've sold to start with a "z" so that they are at the bottom of reports. And of course Hide as many of them as you can and go through and delete the download data you don't need anymore such as price history.
Good to hear the Quicken Essentials for the Mac can download from all the same sources. If I ever need to "nuke and pave" my quicken account again, I'll check it out.