Quicken and Transfering Mutual Funds?

So I tripped across an attractive feature in Quicken’s investment tracking feature (back in 2014). Quicken, in one transaction (well, it does the delete and add a transaction for you from what I can see), Quicken transfers mutual funds from one account to another. Big deal, you say? Well, for me, over the past few weeks, this has made my life simpler tracking my TD Mutual Fund Accounts.

Next question, why do you have TD Mutual fund accounts? Aren’t you a TD Direct Invest representative? I didn’t initially start with TD Mutual Fund accounts. Remember there are three different silos in TD, the Banking Side, The Mutual Fund Side and TD Investments. There is also insurance and a few other sides, but I shall leave them out for discussion. When I first opened RESPs and an “Emergency” account, I was a customer of Canada Trust. They didn’t have an “Investing Wing” (I wouldn’t have known what to do back then).

When TD purchased CT long ago, all my CT Mutual Fund accounts became TD Mutual Fund accounts. All of my CT mutual funds turned into I-series TD Mutual Funds (again, before I understood the higher MER Mutual Funds).

I finally got off my lazy derriere and have transferred all of those I-Series funds to E-series funds, using the same models as outlined in Ideal Portfolios  :

TDB909 – TD Canadian Bond Index (e-Series)
TDB900 – TD Canadian Index (e-Series)
TDB902 – TD US Index (e-Series)
TDB911 – TD International Index (e-Series)

To be able to use these Index Funds in your Mutual Fund account, you must Mail (by Canada Post, no Faxes allowed) the following:

Your TD e-Series Funds account is opened after your original, signed application, and TD e-Series Funds Understanding and Consent form are received by TD Investment Services Inc. (TDIS). Unfortunately, we are unable to accept applications by fax.

This all assumes you already have an account. If you don’t have an account, might I suggest going straight to TD Direct Investing? TD Mutual fund account allows you to purchase only TD Mutual Funds. This limitation seems evident in the name but needs to clarify.

Once you get all of your “OK, you can use them” confirmations, you can go online and use Quicken transfer mutual funds to move the associated I-series fund to an E-series fund (and thus save on MERs and such).

Finally, we have reached the Quicken part of the discussion. If you have your Mutual Fund savings account set up in Quicken (and why wouldn’t you?), you would go to the account and choose Enter Transaction.

If you search down the list of possible transactions (once the dialogue box comes up), select Mutual Fund Conversion, and the dialogue box will then only ask you for:

• Date of the Transfer
• The Mutual Fund it is coming “from”
• The New Mutual Fund to use (you may have to create that in Quicken)
• How many shares were created of the New Fund
• How much the price was (per share) of the new fund

And let it run its merry way. Quicken removes the holdings of the old security and adds the new security holdings to your account. After this, you are now tracking the suitable funds.

I have always been pretty lazy when it comes to tracking my investments, but I am trying hard to keep a closer track of all of my various investment vehicles (as I close in on retirement).