Suppose that you enter a transaction in an investment or retirement account incorrectly. It can happen. And when it does happen, you will be glad to know, you can edit it by using the same techniques you use to edit a transaction in a checking account or savings account by going into the account register and making the change. To edit an investment or retirement account transaction, open its account register. Click the Portfolio button on the Navigation bar to go to the Your Portfolio window. Then click the name of the account with the transaction that needs changing to open its account register, find the transaction, click it, and click the Edit button in the transaction form. A fast way to open an account register where you track retirement or investment securities is to click the Work with Investments link in the Your Portfolio window and click the name of the security on the submenu that appears.

Updating the Price of a Security

By tracking changes in the value of a security, you can analyze the performance of your investments and the change in the value of your portfolio over time. Follow these steps to manually update the price of a security in your portfolio:

1. Open the Your Portfolio window. To get there, click the Portfolio button on the Navigation bar.

2. Click the Update Prices link and choose Update Prices Manually from the submenu

3. Click the arrow to open the Investment drop-down list and select the investment whose price you want to update.

4. In the Date box, enter the date that the price changed.

5. Enter the new price in the Price ($) text box.

6. Click the Update button. The new price is entered in the price history list. When you enter a price yourself, the column says “Update,” but it says “Online” when you get prices from the Internet.

7. If you want to record the price history of a security, keep entering new dates and new security prices; otherwise, select a new security from the Investment drop-down list and update its price.

8. Click the Close button when you’re done.

Recording Payments to and Disbursements from Brokers

It might seem kind of odd, but when you write a check to a broker or make a contribution to a retirement account, you do so by transferring the money from your checking account to the account where you track your investments or retirement savings. Go ahead and make out the check as you normally would. On the other side, in the investment or retirement account, the transfer is recorded as a deposit. The cash in investment and retirement accounts is used to pay for stock, bond, and other security purchases. Similarly, when you sell or collect interest on a security, the proceeds are recorded as a cash deposit in the Deposit column of the investment or retirement account. Suppose that you decide to take money out of an investment or retirement account. When the check comes from your broker and you deposit it in your bank account, record the transaction as a transfer from your investment or retirement account to your bank account. For example, if you sell a stock and make a $400 dollar profit, record the transaction as a $400 transfer from your investment account to the checking account where you deposit the $400. You can click the Cash Transactions link (found on the left side of the register window) when you are looking at an investment or retirement account to see money transfers in and out of the account.

Handling Stocks and Bonds

Keeping track of stocks and bonds especially stocks is probably the most problematic task you will ever undertake with Money. Merely figuring out what a short sell is, not to mention a margin buy and a stock split, is hard enough to begin with. How can you record these strange events in an investment or retirement account register? Read on, friend, and you can discover how to record everything from stock sales and purchases to short sells and margin buys.

Recording a purchase of more stocks or more bonds

When you purchase more shares of a stock you already own or more bonds of a type you already own, follow these steps to record the purchase:

1. Go to the Your Portfolio window. To get there, click the Portfolio button on the Navigation bar or choose Investing -> Portfolio.

2. Click the name of the security you want to work with. If you want to see a miniregister with other transactions that pertain to the security, click the plus sign next to the security’s name.

3. Click the Other Tasks link, choose Enter Transactions on the submenu, and then choose Record a Buy.

4. Click the New button.

5. From the Inv. Account drop-down list, choose the account where you track the investment, if necessary. If you selected the right security in Step 2, it isn’t necessary.

6. In the Date text box on the transaction form, enter the date you purchased the stocks or bonds.

7. In the Investment box, click the arrow and select the security from the drop-down list. Again, this isn’t necessary if you selected the right security in Step 2.

8. Select Buy from the Activity drop-down list.

9. Fill in the rest of the transaction form the Quantity text box, Commission text box, Price text box, and Transfer From text box. If you need help filling in these boxes, see the “Describing the Securities in Investment and Retirement Accounts” section, earlier in this article. 10.Click the OK button.

Recording the sale of stocks and bonds

Except for the problem of lots, recording the sales of stocks and bonds is pretty simple. A lot is a group of securities purchased at the same time for the same price (and also a nephew of Abraham whose wife got turned into a saltshaker, but that’s another story). Suppose that you buy 10 shares of Burger Heaven at $10 per share in January, and then buy 10 more shares of the same company at $20 per share in February. In March, you sell 15 shares. How many shares you sell from the $10 lot and the $20 lot is important in determining how much profit you make and how much you have to pay in capital gains taxes. Fortunately, Money offers a wizard for helping you decide which shares to sell. To see which stock lots you have purchased, click the plus sign to display the miniregister, click the More Investment Data button in the miniregister, and choose View Lots from the pop-up menu. Follow these steps to record the sale of stocks or bonds:

1. Go to the Your Portfolio window. To get there, click the Portfolio button on the Navigation bar or choose Investing -> Portfolio.

2. Select the name of the security you want to work with.

3. Click the Other Tasks link, choose Enter Transactions on the submenu, and then choose Record a Sell. You see the Edit Transaction dialog box.

4. Choose the investment account where you track the security, enter the date of the sale, and select the name of the security you sold from the Investment drop-down list. If you selected the right security in Step 2, all you have to do is enter the date.

5. In the Quantity text box, enter the number of shares or bonds that you sold; enter the price in the Price text box.

6. If a commission was charged on the sale, enter the amount of the commission in the Commission text box. Money enters the total amount of the sale in the Total text box. If the figure is incorrect, double-check the Quantity and Price text boxes to make sure that you entered the numbers correctly.

7. Click the OK button. That’s all there is to it unless you purchased the shares in different lots. In that case, you see the What Shares Should I Use? dialog box after you click the OK button. Unless you tell it otherwise, Money assumes that you want to sell the shares in the lot that you purchased first. To do that, simply click the Finish button. But if you want to sell shares from different lots, follow these steps to tell Money which shares you want to sell:

1. Click the first option, I Would Like to Specify Which Shares to Sell or Transfer, and then click the Next button. You see the Allocate Lots dialog box. In this dialog box, you can select shares yourself from the lots, as the following steps demonstrate; you can click the Maximum Gain button to sell lots and pay the most capital gains taxes; or you can click the Minimum Gain button to sell lots.

2. In the top of the dialog box, click one of the lots from which you sold shares.

3. Enter the number of shares you sold from the lot in the Enter Shares to Allocate from Lot Above text box.

4. Select another lot and repeat Steps 2 and 3 to tell Money how many shares you sold from it. After you’re done declaring which shares you sold, the Total Selected and Total to Allocate numbers in the dialog box should be the same.

5. Click the Finish button. Be sure to notify your broker of which shares you want to sell. If you forget to do that, your broker may assume that you want to sell shares beginning with the first lot you purchased.

Recording and reinvesting dividends

Most stocks pay dividends, which means that you have to record dividends as they arrive. And some stocks and mutual funds, rather than pay dividends, give shareholders the opportunity to buy more shares with their dividends as part of a DRIP (dividend reinvestment program). The advantage of reinvesting a dividend is that you often don’t have to pay a broker’s commission to purchase the new stock. To record a dividend or the reinvestment of a dividend, start from the Your Portfolio window and click the name of the security that paid a dividend. Then click the Other Tasks link, choose Enter Transactions from the submenu, and choose Record All Details of a Trade. You see the Edit Transaction dialog box. Select Dividend or Reinvest Dividend from the Activity drop-down list and do the following:

 -  Recording a dividend: In the Total text box, enter the amount of the dividend. Be sure to select the account into which you deposited the dividend from the Transfer To drop-down list. Click Enter when you’re done.

 -  Recording a dividend reinvestment: Enter the number of shares you purchased with the dividend in the Quantity text box, the price per share in the Price text box, and any commission in the Commission text box. Make sure that the total in the Total text box is correct before you click the OK button.