Tracking

Tracking Cash Accounts, Other Assets and Liabilities

Within MI, Cash Accounts can be thought of as any cash based account including bank savings accounts, checking accounts, money market mutual funds, certificates of deposit and brokerage cash management or sweep accounts. MI maintains a complete transaction history of all deposits and withdrawals.

Cash transactions are entered by choosing the Cash Accounts button on the Portfolios & Transactions page. Choose Deposits & Withdrawals then choose the cash account for which you want to enter a transaction. When the menu of existing transactions appears, choose a transaction to edit or click the New button to enter a new deposit or withdrawal. When the Savings screen is displayed, enter the transaction date, amount (plus or minus) and any “Memo” text you may need to describe the transaction. Click the Save button to save the transaction.

The present balance of savings accounts may be viewed by selecting Status Reports then Holdings-by-Type then Cash Accounts on the Reports and Charts page. A ledger of deposits and withdrawals can be viewed by clicking the Transaction Details button and choosing Cash Accounts. Similar reports are available for other assets and liabilities.

Other assets are generally property based and may include real estate, cars, rare coins, stamp collections and any other property that has a quantifiable value. The value of such assets may be tracked in the same way that cash accounts are tracked.

Liabilities are any cash amount or property that you owe to someone else. They include the mortgage on your house, car loans, installment debt, etc.

Tracking Security Transactions

The MI program provides complete tracking of security transactions with automatic computation of capital gains, unrealized gains and return on investment. Security transactions are entered using options on the Portfolios & Transactions page.

To record a purchase of a stock or mutual fund click the Stocks button and choose Buy. Choose the Stock or Mutual Fund you want to buy followed by the portfolio in which you want the share lot to reside. When selecting the stock and portfolio, you have the option of defining a new stock/mutual fund or portfolio if needed. Once you have chosen the stock and portfolio, you can enter the trade date, number of shares and cost information then save the record.

Each time a new security transaction is entered and saved, MI offers an option to withdraw funds from a cash account to pay for the purchase or deposit funds to a cash account when shares are sold. Clicking the “Yes” button on the Sweep Funds dialog allows you to select a savings account for the deposit or withdrawal.

MI allows you to designate the cost basis accounting method to be used when selling shares of a stock or mutual fund that you own. When computing capital gains, MI uses the cost basis (including commissions) and the net sale amount (after commissions) to determine the gain. MI also separates gains into long, mid and short term based on the holding periods in your preferences. View a capital gains report by selecting Income Reports / Capital Gains - All. More detailed information, including commission amounts, is available in the Transaction Details reports. Data in a form convenient for filling out IRS Schedule D is available in the Schedule D Gains report.

Tracking Prices

Options on the Quotes & Splits page are used to maintain current and historic price and volume data for stocks, mutual funds, market indexes, bonds and options. Price and volume data may be entered manually, imported from data files or downloaded from the internet. MI is capable of maintaining daily price histories on each security. This price history forms the basis for computations of net worth, return on investment, portfolio valuations, unrealized gains, etc. In fact, the current and historic prices are used in nearly all of the reports produced by MI.

To enter or edit price and volume data for a stock or mutual fund, click the Stocks, Funds & Indexes button on the Quotes & Splits page. On the Quotes window click the Stock button and select one of the listed issues. Enter the date of the price quote, the volume, open, high, low and closing prices. If you enter a date for which a price quote already exists, the existing quote will be displayed. You may also click the Browse/Edit button to view a list of existing quotes for the selected stock or fund.

When you have finished entering or editing a price quote, click the Save button to save the quote to disk. You may then select other securities or click the Done button to return to the main menu.

Tracking Investment Income

The Income button on the Portfolios & Transactions page provides options for entering and editing income derived from your investments. Income can be in the form of interest, dividends, long, mid and short term capital gains distributions from a mutual fund or other income. Note that MI automatically tracks capital gains from the purchase and sale of securities. Manual entry of capital gains is required only for capital gains distributions from a mutual fund.

To add interest income from a savings account click the Income button then choose Cash/Savings Accounts. After selecting one of the listed accounts the Choose a Transaction window will appear. Click the New button to add a new income item and fill in the Income form. The income type can be changed by clicking the down arrow in the Income Type box. Click the Save button to save the transaction.

Each time a new income record is added you will have the option to reinvest the income.

If the income was derived from a cash account or other asset account the program will display a dialog box asking if you want to deposit the income into the account from which it was derived. If the income was derived from a security, you will have the opportunity to reinvest the income in additional shares of that or sweep the income into a cash account.

Options under Income Reports button on the Reports & Charts page provide summaries of interest, dividend and other income entered using the options in the Income menu.