Managing an Investment Club with Quicken

[Mike van der Velden]

I've been a long time user of Microsoft Money, but I have now hit a wall
with that product. It's missing some features I need. So, I'd like to
consider Quicken. I've searched the Intuit web page and the unofficial
Quicken FAQ, but I can't tell if Quicken has this feature or not.

We just started an investment club, and would like to use my financial
software package to help manage it. I'm just curious what steps does
one need to go through to set this up. It's pretty easy to set up the
investments that the club buys and to get price updates and to valuate
the portfolio, etc.

What I want to know is how to manage the contributions that club members
make. These members aren't really buying external securities, they would
be buying into one of my Quicken portfolios. Let's do an example:

- The club has $1000 and has 200 shares outstanding, for a NAV of $5.
- Joe contributes $100, and receives 20 shares
- Rick contributes $75, and receives 15 shares
- Mary contributes $200, and receives 40 shares
- The club now has $1375 and 275 shares outstanding. NAV is still $5.
- The club buys 30 shares of Microsoft at $45, with $25 commission.
- The club now has 30 shares of MSFT, no cash on hand, is worth $1350,
with 275 shares outstanding, and a NAV of $4.91

OK. I can create an investment account for the investment club, and an
investment account for Joe, Rick, and Mary, It's easy for the club
investment account to enter a transaction for buying MSFT. How do the
investment accounts for Joe, Rick, and Mary buy shares in the club
investment account? How can I do this and transfer the money from the
individual investment accounts into the club investment account?

Currently, I pretend that the investment club is an external entity,
like MSFT, call it MYIC (My Investment Club). I manually need to figure
out the NAV of the portfolio, and add that as the purchase price for the
shares in MYIC. This should be able to be done automatically, right?

Can Quicken do this?

Mike

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[Peter J. Ricciardiello]

Mike van der Velden wrote:

<snip>

> Currently, I pretend that the investment club is an external entity,
> like MSFT, call it MYIC (My Investment Club). I manually need to figure
> out the NAV of the portfolio, and add that as the purchase price for the
> shares in MYIC. This should be able to be done automatically, right?
>
> Can Quicken do this?

Several years ago and several versions of Quicken ago, I was the treasurer
for our investment club. I used Quicken to track the lump contributions,
checking account activities, and stock purchases and market values for all
of the stocks. I then used MS Excel to track individual contributions,
individual's investment club fund values, and percentages (since we used
percentages to determine one's voting power, up to 20%).

I concluded after doing this for about a year that this method was too
cumbersome and that Quicken was not really the tool for this task. We
finally convinced the rest of the group to spring for the "official" NAIC
investment club accounting software, which made the monthly valuation task
quite painless.

Not exactly the answer you were questioning. Maybe someone else has a
success story.

--
Peter J. Ricciardiello (remove 'x' for email)

[Bruce]

Try www.bivio.com. The website does all the accounting and reporting
necessary for an investment club.

[Mike van der Velden]

Yes, we are currently using the NAIC software (demo version), and we are
rather unimpressed. That's why we are turning to other software like
Quicken or Money.

Our main problem is that NAIC assumes everything is in US dollars. It
has no concept of a world outside the US border. It is not capable of
handling multiple currencies. I know MSMoney can, and I assume Quicken
can as well. Our members make contributions in Canadian dollars, and
buy US and Canadian stocks. Our ROI is a combination of the stock
appreciation and currency fluctuations. We have to do all these
calculations manually external to the NAIC program, and then enter it
manually. It can't grab the latest quotes from an online source.

Another problem is that is only can handle one brokerage account. It
also can't share data between members, like on the web. We have a list
of about a dozen other deficiencies that make us think twice about using
it. The program looks like it was written 10 years ago, and for that
it is rather expensive.

Thanks for your suggestion, Peter, but no thanks to NAIC. Quicken and
Money have most of the features we want, except for the valuation and
the buying of shares in an internal investment account. I'm hoping
there is a way.

Mike

In article <MPG.14da0a779f706147989a10@news-server>,

[Mike van der Velden]

Thanks! That looks interesting enough to warrant a test drive.

(One deficiency that stands out right away is its inability to handle
multiple currencies.)

Mike

In article <4XYb6.42736$lh.19...@typhoon.mn.mediaone.net>,

"Bruce" <nos...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Try www.bivio.com. The website does all the accounting and reporting
> necessary for an investment club.
>
>

[Peter J. Ricciardiello]

Mike van der Velden wrote:

> Yes, we are currently using the NAIC software (demo version), and we are
> rather unimpressed. That's why we are turning to other software like
> Quicken or Money.

<snip>

As I said, it was about ten years ago when we used it. Maybe they have not
changed it since then. :) Good luck...

[stlc...@yahoo.com]

Speaking of NAIC -- has anyone created any of the forms electronically?
I know they want to sell the paper sheets to you on their website, and
I imagine that some or all of the software packages have printable
versions, but we are trying to create something like an excel
spreadsheet where you can plug it all in and email the group.

The form I am trying to replicate right now is the Stock Check List for
Beginning Investors, and I really don't want to reinvent the wheel..

Thanks for any insight you can provide!
Cathy in St. Louie