Sunday, October 23, 2005

Adding I-Bonds to Quicken

I am sort of a n00b when it comes to tracking anything other than deposits, withdrawals and mutual funds in Quicken so I was quite vexed about how to track the I-Bond I will effectively purchase on Monday.

My google-fu was hurting on this one and didn't really turn up much. I originally had trouble finding what I wanted in Quicken Help ... primarily because a wrong turn quickly led me to their horrific support site which turned up nothing relevant.

After I stumbled on how to do it myself, I did find their instructions in the application help file, under Contents -> Investing -> Tracking Bonds and CDs -> How do I... -> Buy a Bond (though you will have to add the bond to the security list before executing the "buy a bond" steps if you are adding a US Savings Bond).

The way I did it was essentially the same, but in more of a streamlined manner (well, I thought so anyway):
  1. I added an account, chose "not a financial institution" and called it US Treasury
  2. Once in the US Treasury account window, I chose "Enter Transactions"
  3. I used 200510I for the security name
  4. I used 100 for number of shares (this differs from Quicken instructions)
  5. I used 1 for cost per share (this differs from Quicken instructions) for a total cost of $100
  6. Quicken prompted me to add 200510I to the security list, I left ticker symbol blank and clicked next
  7. On the next screen I chose "add manually" and security type of U.S. Savings Bond
  8. On the next screen I entered the maturity date (+30 years on the first of the month) and accepted the asset class of "domestic bonds"
I repeated the steps for my pending 11/21 purchase and obviously added a security of 200511I etc etc. I'm sure it will be interesting when it comes time to add accrued interest. Quicken...sigh.

4 comments:

  1. This "fakie" security thing is annoying but a necessary evil.

    One thing to add:
    basically DUPLICATE the effort from Quicken here:
    http://wwws.publicdebt.treas.gov/BC/SBCPrice

    Save the web page when done and reopen it to update the "worth"
    of the bonds.

    Then copy/paste the info into Quicken's portfolio.

    Foob

    ReplyDelete
  2. google-fu - gotta remember that one =)

    Heck I can barely reconcile my checking account in Quicken, but thanks for doing the hard thinking for me :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now I'm trying to remember how I did this. I'm still using Quicken 2003 so the options might have been different. I have an account called Treasury Direct, and then I think I just put in the bonds as deposits of cash. I haven't bothered to check how much interest I could add by now, I still just show them at face value, so I can have a pleasant surprise someday.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is a comment to a 5-year old thread, so maybe you've already figured this out. If you edit the I-Bond security (the Security Detail View window with security details) and select Update pull-down you can choose to "Edit Price Hsitory"

    I've been increasing the value of my I-bonds at each interest accrual period by adding an entry in the price history by hand.

    Maybe you've already figured that out :)

    ReplyDelete

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