Hi all,
I've been lurking a while and this is my first post. I suspect many of you are in the same boat as I am. Over the years I've accumulated multiple accounts of different types, and for the moment have a total of six brokerage accounts. This is the minimum that I can have at the moment (401k, Roth for myself and wife, TSP and Taxable). I've weighing various actions to simplify my life, and try and maintain a target asset allocation.
From reading various posts, I'm aware that some of you use a spreadsheet for this. I'd rather not have to manually allocate my various securities into different sectors and manually aggregate all the data from my various accounts each month or quarter. I've tried this, and I find it to be time consuming. I would like to automagically download all my account balances, and see my asset allocation similarly updated. The tool would also have to support some manual entry, since I have a TSP account, and that doesn't seem to have a web API for import of data. Being able to split security purchases into lots for tax purposes could be helpful. There's not a lot of churn in my taxable portfolio at the moment, but when I rebalance, I'd like to minimize tax consequences.
So part (a) of the question is, do you have any tips for a tool to do the above? I've been looking at personal capital (initial impressions - somewhat limited functionality). IAM3 (seems to do what I want), and Quicken (from what I can see may be helpful, and may also help with budgeting and general financial planning).
Part (b) is more fuzzy. At the moment, I'm doing budget analysis and planning using a custom spreadsheet that is tailored to my specific financial plan and potential life events. Yet I realize there is probably something that I've overlooking or not aware of. I am already semi-retired, and am trying to attain a comfort level with pulling the trigger and retire fully. So also having something that would allow me to look at my retirement plan from a different angle might be helpful too. I'm sure there are some expenses I'm overlooking, or some other gotchas related to taxes, SS, medicare, etc. So a suggestion for a tool or resource here would be helpful. I've seen the basic stuff that's out there on the web, and it's much less detailed than my spreadsheet, so I am looking for something a little more in depth and detailed.
Thank you!
Looking for tool to manage multiple accounts, rebalance, help with taxes and planning
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Re: Looking for tool to manage multiple accounts, rebalance, help with taxes and planning
Welcome to the forum, kingcrimson!
I don’t have a tool recommendation for you — I use a custom spreadsheet for portfolio tracking, and even though I have six accounts there’s only eight investments so it’s easy enough to rebalance. But I wanted to bump the thread to get it better visibility and maybe some answers.
One general tip I found helpful is to make use of Target Date funds for at least some of my portfolio. I use one such fund for my Trad IRA (about 35% of portfolio). It rebalances daily, and in doing so helps keep my overall portfolio balanced for a longer period than if I was using separate funds for US stocks, Intl stocks, US bonds, etc.
Re: Looking for tool to manage multiple accounts, rebalance, help with taxes and planning
I have multiple accounts, but most of them have no transactions in them and thus the number of shares doesn't change enough from month to month to matter. That is, manually changing the number of shares is easier than downloading the information from somewhere.
I use MS Money on a laptop running MS Windows. MS Money is a free download found on the web somewhere.
Most brokerage firms including Vanguard have a way to use outside accounts in their asset allocation tools. I have accounts at Vanguard, Fidelity, and TDAmeritrade which all have tools that give me the same answer when I ask the tools to analyze my portfolio of multiple accounts.
It is not as simple as talking to Alexa, "Alexa, what's my current portfolio asset allocation?" though.
See also: viewtopic.php?t=150267
I use MS Money on a laptop running MS Windows. MS Money is a free download found on the web somewhere.
Most brokerage firms including Vanguard have a way to use outside accounts in their asset allocation tools. I have accounts at Vanguard, Fidelity, and TDAmeritrade which all have tools that give me the same answer when I ask the tools to analyze my portfolio of multiple accounts.
It is not as simple as talking to Alexa, "Alexa, what's my current portfolio asset allocation?" though.
See also: viewtopic.php?t=150267
Re: Looking for tool to manage multiple accounts, rebalance, help with taxes and planning
I have never found an alternative to a spreadsheet that I have built myself for my unique needs and preferences for rebalancing across accounts, however I don't track at the transaction level in the spreadsheet. I have that in Quicken (and have had it there for 25 years so I'm very familiar with the pros and cons of Quicken). Entering TSP contributions into Quicken is a bit of a hassle. Updating the share price is not much of a hassle. It only takes a few seconds.
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Re: Looking for tool to manage multiple accounts, rebalance, help with taxes and planning
Thanks to all. I did read the thread at viewtopic.php?t=150267
Plenty of good info there. Will keep searching for a solution. I will be thankful for the day when I can simplify my financial life a bit more.
Plenty of good info there. Will keep searching for a solution. I will be thankful for the day when I can simplify my financial life a bit more.
- CyclingDuo
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Re: Looking for tool to manage multiple accounts, rebalance, help with taxes and planning
PC can track it all.kingcrimson wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 4:37 pm Thanks to all. I did read the thread at viewtopic.php?t=150267
Plenty of good info there. Will keep searching for a solution. I will be thankful for the day when I can simplify my financial life a bit more.
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