[moneydance] How do I add pre-existing securities to an investment account?

[Michael Casteel]

I think the only way in MD to add shares to an account is with 'buy' or 'buy & transfer'. Here's one approach that seems simple and straightforward to me.

Figure out the value of your IRA at the starting date you want. Create the account in MD with that dollar value. Create the securities and link them to that account, then enter 'buy' transactions as of the start date with the amount you figured for each security. Each buy will reduce the dollars in the account by that amount, so when you have entered all the buys, the cash balance in the account will be reduced to zero. If you have any rounding errors and end up a penny or so off, edit the account and tweak the beginning balance appropriately.

As a result, you will have all the shares in the account at the value you want, and no cash balance (or whatever the cash balance was supposed to be). Moving forward from there, I expect that you will record cash transfers into the account for subsequent IRA contributions, and buy/sell transactions as you have managed the portfolio. That would bring it up to date. MD's stock quote synchronizer plug-in will let you calculate the current value of the account by downloading quotes, assuming you set up each security with the proper stock symbol.

The original buy dates shouldn't be a problem since they are held in an IRA and the stock trades don't have to be put on a tax return. (Not tax advice, just my understanding).
-- 
Mike Casteel
mac at casteel.org                   Seattle, WA