Anyone using Quicken Home & Business for personal finance?
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Anyone using Quicken Home & Business for personal finance? Hi all, I've been using Quicken to record my investment transactions for awhile now. It's not very intuitive, but I use it for my personal and business finance, as well. I'm looking for some help with entering my sales of call and put options. Does anyone here have experience with Quicken and options? If so, would you please contact me privately. I could use some guidance. Thank you, Lynn Ostrem, Minneapolis garbagecop@gmail.com www.bivio.com/crowriver Lynn, Quicken doesn't record option activity accurately. Quicken's handling of any securities issues other than a straight buy and sell has always been defective. In Quicken, you have to treat options transactions as independent from the underlying security. So if an option gets assigned, you treat it in Quicken as a buy or sale of the option to close the option position. And you treat the associated transaction in the underlying security as if the option didn't affect it.
Obviously, this makes Quicken's CG report useless for tax purposes. You would think that after decades of complaints, Intuit would have addressed this by now. Ira Smilovitz
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Lynn Ostrem <garbagecop@gmail.com> wrote: Hi all, I gave up on quicken after years of frustration. It is such an outdated piece of junk, IMO. It is not worth the effort to try to use IMO. I just printed checks with it the last few years I used it, everything else was too frustrating to use, especially portfolio management.
Managing Your Money was such a great personal software and I think Intuit bought them out and took it off the market. It is still a great portfolio manager if you have a PC old enough to run it. You just cannot get price updates like it use to do. Too bad Intuit did not just rename it and keep using it.
Rich
From:
club_cafe@bivio.com [mailto:club_cafe@bivio.com] On Behalf Of ira smilovitz
,
Quicken doesn't record option activity accurately. Quicken's handling of any securities issues other than a straight buy and sell has always been defective.
In Quicken, you have to treat options transactions as independent from the underlying security. So if an option gets assigned, you treat it in Quicken as a buy or sale of the option to close the option position. And you treat the associated transaction in the underlying security as if the option didn't affect it.
Obviously, this makes Quicken's CG report useless for tax purposes. You would think that after decades of complaints, Intuit would have addressed this by now.
Ira Smilovitz
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Lynn Ostrem <garbagecop@gmail.com> wrote: Hi all,
Ira, Ira, Rich and Jim: Thanks for the feedback, guys. I know Quicken stinks. I was just hoping to continue to combine my investments with my business and home accounts. But alas, now that I'm selling options, I guess I've outgrown the program. I'll probably just go with Quant IX software.
Thanks, Lynn O. On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Lynn Ostrem <garbagecop@gmail.com> wrote: Hi all, Between 2001 and 2004 I sold covered calls and puts and used Quicken Premier to assist me in tracking them. It wasn't a great way to track them, but it did allow me to track the balance of the account. Here is how I did it: 1) Create a security for each call or put that you buy or sell. Carefully name the security so that you can tell which option it represents. Example: A Yahoo March 25 Put might be named "YHOO Mar 25 PUT". The security type is "Option" (create this type if necessary), the asset class is "other", and the symbol MUST be preceeded with a plus sign "+" to get quotes for your options. (Be sure to check the "download quotes" check box.) 2) When you sell a call or put without owning one already (short sale), use the action "ShtSell". The quantity should be the number of shares of stock covered by the option. The price should be the option price per share. Example, 100 shares at $4.00 ($400 total before commission). Be sure to record the commission cost too! 3) When you buy the option back, use the action "CvrShrt". Of course, you must buy back the option in the same account in which you sold it. If you don't, Quicken will complain that you don't have any short sales available to cover. Again, be sure to record the commission! 4) If the underlying stock splits (or reverse splits), create a new option security as appropriate, record a cvrshrt of the old options, and then record a shtsell of the new options with appropriate quantities and prices. For example, if I had sold one Yahoo March 30 Call (100 underlying shares) for $4.00, and Yahoo split two for one while the call was still outstanding, then my call would be replaced by TWO Yahoo March 15 Calls (200 underlying shares) whose sale price was $2.00 each. I would cvrshrt 100 YHOO Mar 30 CALLs for $4.00 and Shtsell 200 YHOO Mar 15 CALLs for $2.00 each. 5) As you close out each option position, uncheck the "download quotes" check box for that option. If you don't, your database of option prices will quickly become quite large. 6) If you are a serious options trader, you will soon have a huge number of options securities defined in Quicken. Don't delete ANY securities that you have traded, options or otherwise, or you risk losing valuable data. Forget trying to get any decent options reports out of Quicken. It simply wasn't designed to handle options. You could also try using bivio for tracking your individual finances since it does allow you to track options, calculate gain/loss correctly and also calculate your portfolio performance. If you use an AccountSync broker, it would even read in your trades automatically. While you wouldn't need the Partnership tax return it prepares, it would allow you to generate the form 8949 you'd need for your personal taxes. Just a thought. Laurie Frederiksen www.bivio.com Laurie, how would I do that? Would it require that I set up a new bivio account? Thanks, Lynn O. On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 8:55 PM, Laurie Frederiksen <laurie@bivio.biz> wrote: You could also try using bivio for tracking your individual finances since it does allow you to track options, calculate gain/loss correctly and also calculate your portfolio performance. If you use an AccountSync broker, it would even read in your trades automatically. Hi Lynn, You would set up a new, single person "club" under your existing login. You can do that by choosing "My Site" from the drop down menu you'll find in the upper right corner of your screen when you are logged into bivio. Then, click on Clubs and you'll see a "Create Club" button you can use to create a new one. Laurie Frederiksen
Invest with your friends! www.bivio.com Become our Facebook friend! www.facebook.com/bivio Follow us on twitter! www.twitter.com/bivio Follow Us on Google+ Click here to Subscribe to the Club Cafe email list. Click here to Unsubscribe On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 11:33 PM, Lynn Ostrem <garbagecop@gmail.com> wrote:
Is this a new club for purposes of the annual fee? From: club_cafe@bivio.com [mailto:club_cafe@bivio.com] On Behalf Of Laurie Frederiksen Hi Lynn, Laurie Frederiksen On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 11:33 PM, Lynn Ostrem <garbagecop@gmail.com> wrote: Laurie, how would I do that? Would it require that I set up a new bivio account?
Thanks,
Lynn O. On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 8:55 PM, Laurie Frederiksen <laurie@bivio.biz> wrote: You could also try using bivio for tracking your individual finances since it does allow you to track options, calculate gain/loss correctly and also calculate your portfolio performance. If you use an AccountSync broker, it would even read in your trades automatically. Dear Susan, Yes. If you use bivio for your personal finances, it would be separate from your account for your club. Laurie Frederiksen
Invest with your friends! www.bivio.com Become our Facebook friend! www.facebook.com/bivio Follow us on twitter! www.twitter.com/bivio Follow Us on Google+ Click here to Subscribe to the Club Cafe email list. Click here to Unsubscribe On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:08 AM, Susan McClay <smcclay@bex.net> wrote:
Would you have to have president or treasurer status to create a separate personal account in bivio? From: Laurie Frederiksen <laurie@bivio.biz> To: club_cafe@bivio.com Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 6:47 AM Subject: Re: [club_cafe] Re: Anyone using Quicken Home & Business for personal finance? Dear Susan, Yes. If you use bivio for your personal finances, it would be separate from your account for your club. Laurie Frederiksen
Invest with your friends! http://www.bivio.com/ Become our Facebook friend! www.facebook.com/bivio Follow us on twitter! www.twitter.com/bivio Follow Us on Google+ Click here to Subscribe to the Club Cafe email list. Click here to Unsubscribe On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:08 AM, Susan McClay <smcclay@bex.net> wrote:
Dear Linda, No. Your login credentials belong to you. They are independent of your club. Laurie Frederiksen
Invest with your friends! www.bivio.com Become our Facebook friend! www.facebook.com/bivio Follow us on twitter! www.twitter.com/bivio Follow Us on Google+ Click here to Subscribe to the Club Cafe email list. Click here to Unsubscribe On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Linda Lee <lindalee0@yahoo.com> wrote:
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