How to Record an Investment Purchase in Your Quicken Account

After you set up an investment account in Quicken 2010 and describe the securities in the account, you can record an initial purchase of a share investment.

Of course, you need to know the original price of those first shares. So dig through that kitchen drawer where you stuff bank statements, financial records, and those kooky birthday cards from Aunt Enid.

When you find the proper paperwork that shows the number of shares you purchased and the price per share, here’s what you do:

1. Open the investment account, if it isn’t already open.

   
   

   Display the Investing tab, or window; then open the investment account by clicking the account name in the Accounts bar.

   
   

   If the Investing tab isn’t shown, chose View→Show Tabs→Investing.

   
   



2. Tell Quicken you want to enter cost basis data.

   
   

   Click the Enter Cost hyperlink in the Cost Basis column. If the Cost Basis column doesn’t show the Enter Cost hyperlink, click the plus (+) symbol next to the Security Name you choose for the mutual fund. After you click the hyperlink, Quicken displays the Enter Missing Transactions dialog box.

   
   



3. Click the Enter Missing Transaction button.

   
   

   Quicken displays the Buy - Shares Bought dialog box.

   
   



4. In the Transaction Date text box, enter the date you first purchased the fund shares.

   
   

   Move the cursor to the Transaction Date text box and enter the date by using the MM/DD/YYYY format.

   
   

   You don’t have to enter a two-digit month or day number if a single digit makes sense. Enter July 18, 1989, for example, as 7/18/89. You may also select the date from the pop-up calendar.

   
   



5. (Optional) Enter a memo description.

   
   

   If you want to tie the purchase to a confirmation order number, for example, enter the data in the Memo text box.

   
   



6. Indicate the size of your purchase.

   
   

   To enter the total number of shares, move the cursor to the Number Of Shares text box. (Fractional shares are okay.)

   
   



7. Indicate what you paid per share.

   
   

   With the cursor in the Price Paid text box, enter the amount you paid for the lot. After you supply Quicken with the adjusted cost basis, it calculates the total cost.

   
   



8. Record the initial purchase of mutual fund shares by clicking the Enter/Done button.

   
   

   Quicken redisplays the Enter Missing Transactions dialog box.

   
   



9. (Optional) Repeat Steps 2–8, if necessary.

   
   

   You need to repeat Steps 2–8 to record any other lots you purchased.

   
   

   After you describe each lot that makes up your holdings of the mutual fund investment, the Enter Missing Transactions dialog box shows that there aren’t any placeholders for missing transactions because the Shares placeholder and the Cost placeholder should both equal zero. You can click Done.

   
   

If you make a mistake entering a transaction, you can click the Edit or Delete button to the right of the transaction to change or remove the erroneous data.

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