The first step in tracking investments is to create a new account for each institution or brokerage house that you trade securities with. After you set up an investment account, you describe the securities that the account tracks.
Spread the last statement from the bank or brokerage house across your desk and follow these steps to set up an investment account:
1. Click the Investing tab to go to the Investing window.
After you set up your investment account, its name appears in this window.
2. Click the Portfolio Manager link.
You see the Portfolio Manager window (refer to Figure 8-1). You can also reach this window by clicking the Investment Tools button and choosing Portfolio Manager on the drop-down menu.
3. Click the Work with Accounts link and, on the submenu that appears, choose Add an Account.
The Choose an Account Type window, shown in Figure 8-2, appears. This is your starting point for creating investment, retirement, and employee stock option accounts.
Figure 8-2:
Setting up an investment account.
The Select a Bank or Brokerage window appears. In this window, you tell Money the name of the brokerage house or bank where you maintain your investment account.
Money has made arrangements with some brokerages and banks so that you can enter investment-account transactions into your Money investment-account register by downloading transaction records from your bank or brokerage house. This spares you the trouble of entering the transactions yourself. If your bank or broker has this arrangement with Money and you want to be able to download transactions from your bank or broker, you may be asked to supply the password that your broker or bank gave you in the steps that follow.
Regardless of whether Money has made an arrangement with your broker or bank to download transactions, everyone can update the price of securities online as long as the securities are publicly traded (Chapter 9 explains how to update security prices online). In other words, everyone who uses Money can update the price of the securities he or she owns by downloading the prices from the Internet. The only advantage of being able to download directly from a broker or bank is that you don’t have to enter buy or sell transactions yourself.
5. Click the first letter in the name of your brokerage house or bank, select the name from the list, and click the Next button.
What happens next depends on whether your brokerage house or bank is on the list and whether you can download transaction information straight from your bank or broker:
•Name on the list, can download directly:You see the Do You Already Have Sign-In Information? window. Collect the User ID and password information you received from your bank or broker and click the Yes button. In the windows that follow, you enter your User ID and password, and you tell Money what kind of data you want to download from your bank or broker.
If you don’t have your User ID, password, or other necessary infor-mation, click the Finish Later button. After you obtain this informa-tion, go to the Account List window and click the Provide Sign-in Information link next to your investment account’s name. Then fill in the windows to provide the information.
•Name on the list, settings change needed: You see the Settings Change Required for Online Updates at This Bank window. Click the Update Your Accounts Manually link. You see the Choose an
Account Type window. Select the Investment option and click the Next button. The New Account dialog box appears. Go to Step 6.
(Later, to make the required settings changes, click the Provide Sign-in Information link next to your investment account’s name in the Account List window.)
•Name on the list, can’t download directly:You see the Choose an Account Type window. Select the Investment option and click the Next button. The New Account dialog box appears. Go to Step 6.
•Name not on the list:Click the My Bank or Brokerage Isn’t Listed link (it is located at the bottom of the window). The Choose an Account Type window appears. Select the Investment option and click the Next button. The New Account dialog box appears. Go to Step 6.
6. Enter a name for your account in the New Account dialog box and click Next.
The name you enter will appear in the Account List window after you finish setting up the account. For convenience’ sake, you may want to enter the name of the brokerage house where you keep the account.
7. Click the Taxable or Tax Deferred or Tax Free option button to specify whether the money you track in this account is tax deferred; then click the Next button.
Tax deferredmeans that you don’t have to pay income tax on the money that the account generates until you begin withdrawing it at retirement age. Probably the option to select is Taxable. Most tax-deferred accounts are retirement accounts (how to set up a retirement account is
explained shortly).
8. In the next dialog box, click the No, I’ll Do This Later option button;
then click Next.
Chapter 9 explains how to record security transactions in an Investment account.
9. In the next dialog box, enter the approximate value of the account in the Investments text box, as shown in Figure 8-3.
Don’t worry about being accurate with these figures — they are used for planning and estimating purposes only. You can get the estimated value of the investments in the account from your most recent statement.
Don’t include cash in the estimated value of the account if you keep cash as well as investments in the account. If you recently sold a secu-rity or made a deposit in the account, it likely includes a bit of cash.
10. Enter the amount of money in the account in the Cash text box.
As the dialog box explains, you can estimate the amount of money in the cash account if you want. The amounts you enter in the dialog box are used for planning purposes.
11. Click the Finish button.
You go to the Portfolio Manager window, where your new account is listed. Of course, it’s also listed in the Account List window.
After you set up the investment account, right-click its name in the Account List window and choose See Account Settings on the shortcut menu. You go to the Change Account Settings window, where you can enter the name and phone number of your broker. You need that infor-mation in case you need to call your broker. You can enter other useful information in the window as well.