Getting Started Tutorial

Retrieve Historical Transactions:
In this tutorial section we will go through the following steps:

1. Create a new sub-portfolio using the Portfolio Editor
2. Retrieve historical transactions
3. Retrieve historical pricing
4. Reconcile the account balances

Create a New Sub-Portfolio Using the Portfolio Editor:

First, close any sample data that you may have open by selecting the menu command "File / Close Portfolio".  If the Portfolio Editor window is not already displayed, open it with the menu command "View / Portfolio Editor".  Right mouse click on the top level sub-portfolio (Master Portfolio) and choose "New Sub-Portfolio" from the popup menu as shown here:

Type in a name for the new sub-portfolio, and press the "Transaction Retrieve Settings..." button to enter your broker or mutual fund account info.  An example is shown here:

Press OK twice to get back to the Portfolio Editor window.

Retrieve Historical Transactions:

Select your new sub-portfolio and then choose "Edit / Internet Retrieve / Transactions..." from the menu.  Your dialog should look similar to the following picture:

Each sub-portfolio can have its own default cash account assigned to it.  When a sub-portfolio has an assigned default cash account, any transactions recorded in that sub-portfolio will automatically have corresponding entries recorded in the cash account.  For example, if you buy some shares of an investment, the proceeds will come out of the default cash account.  For mutual fund accounts it is usually not necessary to use a default cash account, but for brokerage accounts you usually do want a default cash account.

If you choose the first option: "Create A New Cash Investment" Fund Manager will create a new investment and assign it as the default cash account for the specified sub-portfolio.  If you choose the third option: "Use Existing Investment" you can pick from any of the existing investments in this sub-portfolio to be the default cash account.  If you choose the second option: "Do Not Use A Default Cash Account", no cash account will be used for this sub-portfolio.  You can always modify the default cash account assignment at any later time by selecting the "Properties..." of the sub-portfolio.

Click OK after making your selection.

Retrieve Historical Pricing:

We will now update our account with historical pricing data.  Fund Manager can retrieve prices from a variety of quote servers.  In order to get historical prices we will select the "Yahoo (Historical)" quote server.  Choose "Options / Internet Settings..." from the menu and choose this quote server as shown here:

Press OK.  In the Portfolio Editor, select all the investments in this new sub-portfolio.  To do this, select the sub-portfolio on the left side of the editor.  All the investments in this selected sub-portfolio will be listed on the right side of the editor.  Left mouse click on the first investment, hold down the "Shift" key, and left mouse click on the last investment.  All investments should now be selected.  Right mouse click on the selection and choose "Retrieve Selected Prices":

For more on selecting items with the Portfolio Editor, see the Portfolio Editor tutorial and documentation.

A dialog will come up asking you for a date range for retrieving historical prices.  Enter the dates you would like prices for, and select OK.  You will see Fund Manager connect to the quote server and retrieve prices.

In this tutorial we used the "Retrieve Selected Prices" menu command to retrieve prices for only the selected investments.  You can also use the "Edit / Internet Retrieve / Prices..." menu command to retrieve prices for all investments in all sub-portfolios.  In this case it is not necessary to select any investments before retrieving prices.

Use "Options / Internet Settings..." to switch the quote server back to your desired daily default quote server.  Yahoo is often a good choice here.  Once you have historical pricing, it is best to use a "daily" quote server instead of a historical one for faster retrieves.

Reconcile the Account Balances:

Reconciliation compares the share balances in Fund Manager with the statement from your broker or mutual fund company.  You can make sure all your transactions up through the statement date are recorded properly by reconciling your accounts.  To reconcile this account, choose the menu command "Edit / Reconcile...".  Select this sub-portfolio from the list of available sub-portfolios.  For the "Statement Source" choose the "Retrieve From Broker/Fund Company" option.

One common problem for an initially incorrect share balance can occur when the transaction retrieval did not provide all the historical transactions back to the inception of your account.  Some brokers/mutual fund companies only provide transactions back to a certain date.  If this is the case, your share balances will be off by the amount of shares you owned on that date.  You can either record a single purchase on that date for the missing shares, or you can manually record (or import) all the transactions from inception up to that date.

Click "Finish" to complete the reconciliation.

Now we will save our data.

Background on Fund Manager Data Files:

There are 2 types of data files used by Fund Manager:

1. Investment files
2. Portfolio files

Investment files have the file extension of *.dat.  Investment files store pricing, transaction, and the properties for that investment.  (more info)

Portfolio files have the file extension of *.mm4.  Portfolio files store all of your sub-portfolios, which investment files belong in each sub-portfolio, which windows you have open, and all of your options.  Portfolio files can be thought of as saving your whole workspace.  When you re-open a portfolio file, all of the included investments are also opened.  The windows you had open when you last saved the portfolio file are also re-created, and all your settings are restored to their values when you last saved the portfolio file.  In short, everything is restored to the same state as when you last saved the portfolio file.  (more info)

In many cases you will only need to have a single portfolio file, but you will have many investment files.

Choose the File / Save All Investments menu command to save your investments.  Choose File / Save Portfolio As... to assign a portfolio filename and save it.

The next time you start Fund Manager, the last portfolio file you had open will automatically be opened for you.  Now exit Fund Manager by choosing File / Exit.  Restart Fund Manager by choosing Start / All Programs / Fund Manager / Fund Manager, and you will see your portfolio again, just as you last left it.

Now that we've created some data let's examine our investments with various reports and graphs:

Reports Tutorial
Graphs Tutorial

See Also:

• Portfolio Editor Tutorial
• Data Register Tutorial

Import Historical Transactions:
In this tutorial section we will go through the following steps:

1. Import historical transactions
2. Retrieve historical pricing

1.  Import Historical Transactions:

First, close any sample data that you may have open by selecting the menu command "File / Close Portfolio".

Before importing, you must obtain the file containing your transaction history.  This can be obtained in a variety of ways, but some common ways include:

1. Export from prior software, such as Quicken or Money
2. Download from your broker or mutual fund company's web site
3. Advisors can obtain a file from any of our supported broker/dealer interfaces

For more details on any of the supported file import formats see the Importing Transactions topic in the documentation.

Once you have your transaction history file, select the appropriate menu command from the "File / Import / Transactions" menu:

For this tutorial we'll use the "Quicken (*.QIF)" format.  Once you select one of the above menu commands, you'll see the appropriate transaction import dialog:

In the second section you can choose whether to import all available securities, or only a specific one.  We'll import all securities.

In the third section you can choose to only import transactions for a certain date range or all dates.  We'll import transactions for all dates.

In the "Import into Fund Manager Portfolio" section, you specify the sub-portfolio where transactions will be imported into.  Select a specific sub-portfolio, or have Fund Manager match the account from the importing file with the sub-portfolio property.  When this "matching" option is selected you can choose the "Create New Sub-Portfolios as Needed" option to have new sub-portfolios created when a matching sub-portfolio cannot be found.  The method used to determine an account / sub-portfolio match varies depending on the type of data you are importing.  Usually this is based on account number.  Since we don't have any sub-portfolios created now, Fund Manager will create them for us.

In the "Import Options" section you can choose to have Fund Manager skip over transactions already in Fund Manager.  This is useful when re-importing a file that may have already been imported.  Matching transactions are based on an exact match of date, price, and shares.  You also have the option of creating new investments automatically.  With this option on, Fund Manager will automatically create any needed new investments.  Normally this option is left on.

Press "Next" to perform the import.  The import results will be available for previewing:

When importing transactions there is an option "Automatically Record Corresponding Entries In Default Cash Account".  When this option is turned on and a transaction is in a sub-portfolio with an assigned default cash account, Fund Manager will automatically debit/credit this cash account for any transaction that generates or uses cash.  If your importing data already includes these cash account transactions, you would want to turn this option off, so as to not double enter these transactions.  Whenever a new sub-portfolio is created due to an import, you will be prompted to assign a default cash account, as shown in the next picture.

Press "Finish" to complete the import.  For each new sub-portfolio that is being created, you will be prompted for how you would like to handle the default cash account:

Each sub-portfolio can have its own default cash account assigned to it.  When a sub-portfolio has an assigned default cash account, any transactions recorded in that sub-portfolio will automatically have corresponding entries recorded in the cash account.  For example, if you buy some shares of an investment, the proceeds will come out of the default cash account.  For mutual fund accounts it is usually not necessary to use a default cash account, but for brokerage accounts you usually do want a default cash account.

If you choose the first option, "Create A New Cash Investment", Fund Manager will create a new investment and assign it as the default cash account for the specified sub-portfolio.  If you choose the second option, "Do Not Use A Default Cash Account", no cash account will be used for this sub-portfolio.  If you choose the third option, "Use Existing Investment", you can pick from any of the existing investments in this sub-portfolio to be the default cash account.  You can always modify the default cash account assignment at any later time by selecting the "Properties..." of the sub-portfolio.

Click OK after making your selection, and repeat for each new account/sub-portfolio.  You will then see the main window look something like this:

2.  Retrieve Historical Pricing:

Some import file formats contain pricing data in addition to transactions.  For cases where you do not get prices imported, we will now retrieve historical pricing data.  Even if your import did contain pricing, it is okay to also retrieve prices.  Fund Manager can retrieve prices from a variety of quote servers.  In order to get historical prices we will select the "Yahoo (Historical)" quote server.  Choose "Options / Internet Settings..." from the menu and choose this quote server as shown here:

Press OK.  To retrieve pricing data for all open investments select the menu command "Edit / Internet Retrieve / Prices..." or choose the button on the toolbar.

A dialog will come up asking you for a date range for retrieving historical prices.  Enter the date range you would like, and select OK.  You will see Fund Manager connect to the quote server and retrieve prices.  You can view all the retrieved pricing data in the Data Register.

Use "Options / Internet Settings..." to switch the quote server back to your desired daily default quote server.  Yahoo is often a good choice here.  Once you have historical pricing, it is best to use a "daily" quote server instead of a historical one for fast retrieves.

In this tutorial we used the "Edit / Internet Retrieve / Prices..." menu command to retrieve prices for all investments.  You can also retrieve prices for only select investments by selecting them in the Portfolio Editor, right mouse clicking, and choosing: "Retrieve Selected Prices".

Now we will save our data.

Background on Fund Manager Data Files:

There are 2 types of data files used by Fund Manager:

1. Investment files
2. Portfolio files

Investment files have the file extension of *.dat.  Investment files store pricing, transaction, and the properties for that investment.  (more info)

Portfolio files have the file extension of *.mm4.  Portfolio files store all of your sub-portfolios, which investment files belong in each sub-portfolio, which windows you have open, and all of your options.  Portfolio files can be thought of as saving your whole workspace.  When you re-open a portfolio file, all of the included investments are also opened.  The windows you had open when you last saved the portfolio file are also re-created, and all your settings are restored to their values when you last saved the portfolio file.  In short, everything is restored to the same state as when you last saved the portfolio file.  (more info)

In many cases you will only need to have a single portfolio file, but you will have many investment files.

Choose the File / Save All Investments menu command to save your investments.  Choose File / Save Portfolio As... to assign a portfolio filename and save it.

The next time you start Fund Manager, the last portfolio file you had open will automatically be opened for you.  Now exit Fund Manager by choosing File / Exit.  Restart Fund Manager by choosing Start / All Programs / Fund Manager / Fund Manager, and you will see your portfolio again, just as you last left it.

Now that we've created some data let's examine our investments with various reports and graphs:

Reports Tutorial
Graphs Tutorial

See Also:

• Portfolio Editor Tutorial
• Data Register Tutorial

Manually Enter Historical Transactions:
In this tutorial section we will go through the following steps:

1. Create a new sub-portfolio using the Portfolio Editor
2. Create a new investment
3. Create/assign a new investment for the default cash account
4. Manually enter transaction history
5. Retrieve historical pricing

Create a New Sub-Portfolio Using the Portfolio Editor:

First, close any data that you may have open by selecting the menu command "File / Close Portfolio".  If the Portfolio Editor window is not already displayed, open it with the menu command "View / Portfolio Editor".  Right mouse click on the top level sub-portfolio (Master Portfolio) and choose "New Sub-Portfolio" from the popup menu as shown here:

Type in a name for the new sub-portfolio and any other information you would like to remember for this account.  An example is shown here:

Press "OK" to create the sub-portfolio.

Create a New Investment:

To create a new investment in this sub-portfolio select "File / New Investment..." from the menu.  Fill out the dialog with the details of this investment, as shown here:

When creating a new investment you choose which sub-portfolio to place the new investment in.  In this example we have placed it in our new sub-portfolio "My Brokerage Account".  You can also specify an initial purchase in the "Opening Data" section.  In this example we will just start off with 0 shares, and we'll record our purchases separately.  Press "OK" to create the investment.  You will be prompted for a filename to assign to this investment.  Each investment is stored as a *.dat file.  Pricing and transaction data for this investment will be stored in this file.  You can give the investment any filename you want, and store it anywhere you want.  The default filename is based on the symbol, but you can change it to anything you'd like.  Assign the investment a filename and save it.

Create/Assign a New Investment for the Default Cash Account:

Now we'll create another investment that we will use as our default cash account in this sub-portfolio.  Select "File / New Investment..." again and fill out the dialog to look something like this:

When creating cash accounts they are normally kept at a constant share price of $1.  In this example we started the cash account off with a balance of $10,000 on 1/1/2006.  Press "OK", assign a filename to this investment, and save it.

To assign this cash investment as the default cash account, right mouse click on the sub-portfolio in the Portfolio Editor window and choose "Properties..." from the popup menu:

This will bring up the "Portfolio Properties" dialog, where you can select the "Money Market" investment we just created as the "Default Cash Account" for our sub-portfolio:

Choose OK to confirm the changes, and now the "Money Market" investment is assigned as the default cash account for this sub-portfolio.  From now on, whenever you record a buy, sell, or distribution in any investment in this sub-portfolio, the money will come out of, or go into, this cash account.

An important point to note about your cash account is that proceeds are only automatically transferred to/from the cash account after you've specified which investment is your default cash account.  When you are just starting out, you may want to create your cash account first, and assign it as your default cash account, prior to entering all of your other investments with their transactions.  This is not a requirement, but if you'd like corresponding entries in your cash account, then you would want to do this.

Manually Enter Transaction History:

When we initially created the "Intel" investment we started it off with 0 shares.  Now, we will go back and manually fill in the transaction history for that investment.  We will manually enter the following transactions for the "Intel" investment:

• Bought 1,000 shares on 5/10/2006 for $19.60 per share ($9 commission fee)
• Received a $100 dividend on 8/3/2006
• Sold 500 shares on 10/13/2006 for $21.40 per share ($9 commission fee)

For viewing/editing/adding transactions you'll use the Data Register by choosing Edit / All Data... from the menu or selecting the button on the toolbar.  You can also access the Data Register or record any transaction for an investment by right mouse clicking on that investment, and choosing the appropriate menu command.  The Data Register looks like this:

To start entering our transactions for Intel, set the "Portfolio" combo box to "My Brokerage Account", set the "Investment" combo box to "Intel", and set the "Data Type" combo box to "Investments (all)" as shown above.  You will notice under the "Data Type" combo box there are 5 top level data types: Prices, Investments (all), Distributions (all), Splits, and Alerts.  You can also select one of the sub-categories, like "Purchases", which is a sub-set of "Investments (all)".  When you select "Investments (all)", all purchases, reinvestments, and redemptions are shown.  The same concept applies to "Distributions (all)" and its sub-categories.

After making these selections, choose the "New..." button and enter the initial purchase information as shown here:

After pressing the OK button you will see your purchase listed in the Data Register.  Next, to enter the distribution, change the "Data Type" to "Distributions (all)" and select the "New..." button, and then fill in the dialog as shown here:

Once you click the OK button you will see your distribution added into the Data Register again.  Next, to record the sell transaction, select the "Investments (all)" data type (you could also choose the "Redemptions" sub-category data type), and then choose the "New..." button and fill in the dialog as shown here:

Choose OK and we've completed entering the transactions for Intel.  Close the Data Register by pressing "Done".

Recording Transactions Without Rounding Errors:

Often there can be small rounding errors on your transaction summary statement, as provided by your broker or fund company.  Improperly recorded, this can lead to small differences between the share balances reported by Fund Manager and your statements.  To prevent rounding errors, record the Value and Shares fields in Fund Manager as displayed on your fund statement.  Then, press the Tab key to move the input focus to the Price field.  Fund Manager will automatically adjust the Price field to be consistent with the Value and Shares. This method records the Value and Shares as displayed on your statement.  If there are rounding errors on your statement, the Price recorded by Fund Manager will be adjusted to the correct price (consistent with the Value and Shares).  Fund Manager always ensures that Value = Shares * Price.

You can move the input focus around on a dialog box by pressing the Tab key on your keyboard.  The order that the focus moves around on a dialog box is referred to as the "tab order".  The transaction dialogs in Fund Manager have their tab order set to facilitate this recording method.  The tab order in transaction dialogs moves from the Value, to the Shares, and then to the Price controls.

When recording transactions in investments that have had splits occur, record the transaction data as it occurred on the date of the transaction.

Retrieve Historical Pricing:

We will now update our investments with historical pricing data.  Fund Manager can retrieve prices from a variety of quote servers.  In order to get historical prices we will select the "Yahoo (Historical)" quote server.  Choose 'Options / Internet Settings..." from the menu and choose this quote server as shown here:

Press OK.  To retrieve pricing data for all open investments select the menu command "Edit / Internet Retrieve / Prices..." or choose the button on the toolbar.

A dialog will come up asking you for a date range for retrieving historical prices.  Enter the dates you would like prices for, and select OK.  You will see Fund Manager connect to the quote server and retrieve prices.  You can view all the retrieved pricing data in the Data Register.

Use "Options / Internet Settings..." to switch the quote server back to your desired daily default quote server.  Yahoo is often a good choice here.  Once you have historical pricing, it is best to use a "daily" quote server instead of a historical one for fast retrieves.

You may have noticed that pricing data for the Money Market account was not retrieved.  This is because this investment was created as a "Cash" investment type, and these have the investment property to retrieve prices turned off by default.  To see this, right mouse click on the investment and choose "Properties..." and select the "Internet Retrieve" tab.  Normally you would not want to retrieve prices for cash investments as their price is kept at a constant $1.

Now we will save our data.

Background on Fund Manager Data Files:

There are 2 types of data files used by Fund Manager:

1. Investment files
2. Portfolio files

Investment files have the file extension of *.dat.  Investment files store pricing, transaction, and the properties for that investment.  (more info)

Portfolio files have the file extension of *.mm4.  Portfolio files store all of your sub-portfolios, which investment files belong in each sub-portfolio, which windows you have open, and all of your options.  Portfolio files can be thought of as saving your whole workspace.  When you re-open a portfolio file, all of the included investments are also opened.  The windows you had open when you last saved the portfolio file are also re-created, and all your settings are restored to their values when you last saved the portfolio file.  In short, everything is restored to the same state as when you last saved the portfolio file.  (more info)

In many cases you will only need to have a single portfolio file, but you will have many investment files.

Choose the File / Save All Investments menu command to save your investments.  Choose File / Save Portfolio As... to assign a portfolio filename and save it.

The next time you start Fund Manager, the last portfolio file you had open will automatically be opened for you.  Now exit Fund Manager by choosing File / Exit.  Restart Fund Manager by choosing Start / All Programs / Fund Manager / Fund Manager, and you will see your portfolio again, just as you last left it.

Now that we've created some data let's examine our investments with various reports and graphs:

Reports Tutorial
Graphs Tutorial

See Also:

• Portfolio Editor Tutorial
• Data Register Tutorial

Retrieve or Manually Enter Starting Positions:
To create a new sub-portfolio with starting positions we will use the New Portfolio Setup Wizard.  With the New Portfolio Setup Wizard you can either retrieve or manually enter starting positions.

First, close any data that you may have open by selecting the menu command "File / Close Portfolio".  Select the menu command "File / New Portfolio Wizard..." to start creating our new portfolio and investments.  You will be presented with the New Portfolio Wizard dialog.  We will first assign properties for our new portfolio.  Fill in the fields of this dialog as shown here:

If this account is held at a broker or mutual fund company that support retrieving positions, select the "Transaction Retrieve Settings..." button and enter these details.  If you have entered these details you will be prompted if you'd like to retrieve starting positions when you click the "Next" button.  If you do not choose to retrieve the starting positions or your account is not available for online access you can manually enter your starting positions on the next page of the wizard.

You can choose the "Advanced..." button to choose a filename and location where your new portfolio will be saved.  If you don't select the "Advanced..." button Fund Manager will choose the location for you.  For this tutorial we'll let Fund Manager select the location, so you don't need to press this button.

Any of this data can always be edited later, so if you make a mistake, don't worry, you can correct it later.

Press the "Next" button once you're ready, and you will see the "Add New Investments" page of the wizard.  Fill in the fields as shown in this picture:

This dialog page allows you to create new investments and establish their starting positions.  If you retrieved positions it will be filled in for you.  To add an investment, select the "Add" button for that row, and fill in the information.  If you want to start your investment with a certain number of shares and cost basis, enter that information here.  (Notice the cost basis is a total dollar value, not a per-share amount.)  Fund Manager will record a single purchase on the specified date for the cost basis.  If you'd prefer to enter your full transaction history to have a more detailed record, just record 0 for the shares now, and add in your transactions later.

You can press the "..." button at the end of each investment row to modify more properties for each investment.  For example, press the "..." button to the right of the "Money Market" and set the "Type" on the "General" tab to "Cash" and on the "Internet Retrieve" tab turn off the option to retrieve pricing for this cash investment.  Cash investments should keep a constant $1 share price, so they don't need to be set for price retrieval.

You can press the "Advanced..." button to select a folder where your investment files will be saved.  For this tutorial, we'll just accept the default location, so you don't need to press the "Advanced..." button.

You can add as many investments as you want.  If you have more than will fit on the current page, when you select "Next" you will get another page to continue entering your investments.

Press the "Next" button once you're ready, and you will see the "Price Retrieve" page of the wizard:

Here you can either have Fund Manager retrieve prices for your new investments, or if you select "No", you can manually enter a price for each investment on the next screen.  For this tutorial we will retrieve historical prices from the internet.  You can use the "Advanced..." button to select which quote server to use.  The default server when using the New Portfolio Wizard is the Yahoo - Historical server.  We will just accept all the defaults for this tutorial, so you don't need to press the "Advanced..." button.

Press the "Retrieve Now..." button, and you will be prompted for the date range to retrieve:

Select a date range to retrieve prices, and press the OK button.  If you have a slower internet connection, you may want to choose a shorter time period than shown here.  A dialog box will show the status of the internet retrieve as it is happening.

Once the retrieve is complete press the "Next" button until you see the "Default Cash Account" page:

If you have a cash account in this sub-portfolio select it from the list.  Otherwise, leave the selection set to "(none)".  When a sub-portfolio has a default cash account assigned whenever you record a buy, sell, or distribution in an investment in this sub-portfolio, the money will come out of, or go into, this cash account.

An important point to note about your cash account is that proceeds are only automatically transferred to/from the cash account after you've specified which investment is your default cash account.  If you decide later to change the default cash account you can assign it under the "Properties..." dialog for any sub-portfolio.

Press the "Next" button so that you see the "New Portfolio Location" page:

Choose the option to create this new sub-portfolio beneath the existing Master Portfolio, and press the "Finish" button.

Now we will save our data.

Background on Fund Manager Data Files:

There are 2 types of data files used by Fund Manager:

1. Investment files
2. Portfolio files

Investment files have the file extension of *.dat.  Investment files store pricing, transaction, and the properties for that investment.  (more info)

Portfolio files have the file extension of *.mm4.  Portfolio files store all of your sub-portfolios, which investment files belong in each sub-portfolio, which windows you have open, and all of your options.  Portfolio files can be thought of as saving your whole workspace.  When you re-open a portfolio file, all of the included investments are also opened.  The windows you had open when you last saved the portfolio file are also re-created, and all your settings are restored to their values when you last saved the portfolio file.  In short, everything is restored to the same state as when you last saved the portfolio file.  (more info)

In many cases you will only need to have a single portfolio file, but you will have many investment files.

Choose the File / Save All Investments menu command to save your investments.  Choose File / Save Portfolio As... to assign a portfolio filename and save it.

The next time you start Fund Manager, the last portfolio file you had open will automatically be opened for you.  Now exit Fund Manager by choosing File / Exit.  Restart Fund Manager by choosing Start / All Programs / Fund Manager / Fund Manager, and you will see your portfolio again, just as you last left it.

Now that we've created some data let's examine our investments with various reports and graphs:

Reports Tutorial
Graphs Tutorial

See Also:

• Portfolio Editor Tutorial
• Data Register Tutorial
• List of Available Tutorials

Import Starting Positions:
In this tutorial section we will go through the following steps:

1. Import starting positions
2. Organize imported accounts into client sub-portfolios
3. Retrieve historical pricing

1.  Import Starting Positions:

First, close any sample data that you may have open by selecting the menu command "File / Close Portfolio".

Before importing, you must obtain the file containing your starting positions.  This can be obtained in a variety of ways, but some common ways include:

1. Export from prior investment software
2. Download from your broker or mutual fund company's web site
3. Advisor's can obtain a file from any of our supported broker/dealer interfaces

For more details on any of the supported file import formats see the Importing Positions topic in the documentation.

Once you have your position file select the appropriate menu command from the "File / Import / Positions" menu:

For this tutorial we'll use the "TD Ameritrade" format.  This format is available to investment advisors with accounts at TD Ameritrade.  Once you select one of these menu commands you'll see the appropriate transaction import dialog:

In the second section you can choose whether to import all available accounts, or only a specific one.  We'll import all accounts.

In the "Import Options" section you can specify where to save newly created investments, and whether or not to put all imported positions into a new sub-portfolio.  We will leave this option off, to create new accounts right at the top level of the sub-portfolio hierarchy.

Press "Next" to perform the import.  The import results will be available for previewing:

When positions are imported they are recorded as "buy" transactions for the date specified in the position file.  Some position file formats contain the cost basis for your positions, but some formats do not.  If cost basis data is not available in the importing file, the basis will be $0.  If you have the cost basis data, you can manually edit these buy transactions later to reflect the correct cost basis.

Press "Finish" to complete the import.  For each new sub-portfolio that is being created, you will be prompted for how you would like to handle the default cash account:

Each sub-portfolio can have its own default cash account assigned to it.  When a sub-portfolio has an assigned default cash account, any transactions recorded in that sub-portfolio will automatically have corresponding entries recorded in the cash account.  For example, if you buy some shares of an investment, the proceeds will come out of the default cash account.  For mutual fund accounts it is usually not necessary to use a default cash account, but for brokerage accounts you usually do want a default cash account.

If you choose the first option: "Create A New Cash Investment" Fund Manager will create a new investment and assign it as the default cash account for the specified sub-portfolio.  If you choose the second option: "Do Not Use A Default Cash Account", no cash account will be used for this sub-portfolio.  If you choose the third option: "Use Existing Investment" you can pick from any of the existing investments in this sub-portfolio to be the default cash account.  You can always modify the default cash account assignment at any later time by selecting the "Properties..." of the sub-portfolio.

Click OK after making your selection, and repeat for each new account/sub-portfolio.

2.  Organize Imported Accounts Into Client Sub-Portfolios:

Next, we'll use the Portfolio Editor to organize our imported accounts/sub-portfolios into another level of hierarchy, organized by client.  If the Portfolio Editor isn't already open, select "View / Portfolio Editor" to display it:

In the above picture the Portfolio Editor window is "maximized", so it is displayed over the whole Fund Manager window.  You can minimize, restore, or maximize this window by using any of the buttons in the upper right corner of this window.  You can also use the commands under the "Window" menu to organize or arrange all of your open windows.  In Fund Manager there are 3 types of windows: Portfolio Editor, Graphs, and Reports.  All open windows will be listed under the "Window" menu.

The Portfolio Editor works a lot like Windows Explorer does in Windows.  You can create new sub-portfolios, copy or move by dragging/dropping, and copy/paste.

For this tutorial we will assume we have 2 clients: John Smith, and Mary Brown.  Accounts "11111111" and "22222222" belong to John, and the account "33333333" belongs to Mary.  We must first create sub-portfolios for John and Mary.  Right mouse click on "Master Portfolio" to create a new sub-portfolio:

Fill out the "Portfolio Properties" dialog for John Smith's sub-portfolio, like this:

Press "OK" to create the sub-portfolio.  Repeat this for Mary by right mouse clicking on "Master Portfolio" and filling out the "Portfolio Properties" dialog again.  The Portfolio Editor will now look something like this:

We now want to move accounts "11111111" and "22222222" into John's sub-portfolio, and move account "33333333" into Mary's sub-portfolio.  Left mouse click on "Master Portfolio" to select it on the left.  This will display the contents of the "Master Portfolio" on the right.  Select both "11111111" and "22222222" on the right by left mouse clicking on "11111111" and then hold down the "Ctrl" key while selecting "22222222".  You can use the "Ctrl" key to select additional items, or the "Shift" key can be used to select a range of items.  When both accounts are selected the Portfolio Editor will look like this:

Left mouse click on the selected accounts, and while holding down the left mouse button, drag the accounts over onto the "John Smith" sub-portfolio:

Once the cursor is over John's sub-portfolio, let go of the left mouse button to complete the move of these accounts.  (In addition to "moving", you can also "copy" sub-portfolios with drag/drop by holding down the "Ctrl" key).

Repeat this for Mary:  Select "Master Portfolio" on the left, select "33333333" on the right, and drag it over onto Mary's sub-portfolio on the left.  Your sub-portfolio hierarchy will now look like this:

You may also want to edit the sub-portfolio properties of "Master Portfolio" to name it something more meaningful to you, like "My RIA Practice Inc".  Organizing your sub-portfolios in this manner allows you to report or graph at any level: account level, client level, or your whole practice.

3.  Retrieve Historical Pricing:

We will now update our investments with historical pricing data.  Fund Manager can retrieve prices from a variety of quote servers.  In order to get historical prices we will select the "Yahoo (Historical)" quote server.  Choose 'Options / Internet Settings..." from the menu and choose this quote server as shown here:

Press OK.  To retrieve pricing data for all open investments select the menu command "Edit / Internet Retrieve / Prices..." or choose the button on the toolbar.

A dialog will come up asking you for a date range for retrieving historical prices.  Enter the dates you would like prices for, and select OK.  You will see Fund Manager connect to the quote server and retrieve prices.  You can view all the retrieved pricing data in the Data Register.

Use "Options / Internet Settings..." to switch the quote server back to your desired daily default quote server.  Yahoo is often a good choice here.  Once you have historical pricing, it is best to use a "daily" quote server instead of a historical one for fast retrieves.

In this tutorial we used the "Edit / Internet Retrieve / Prices..." menu command to retrieve prices for all investments.  You can also retrieve prices for only select investments by selecting them in the Portfolio Editor, right mouse clicking, and choosing: "Retrieve Selected Prices".

Now we will save our data.

Background on Fund Manager Data Files:

There are 2 types of data files used by Fund Manager:

1. Investment files
2. Portfolio files

Investment files have the file extension of *.dat.  Investment files store pricing, transaction, and the properties for that investment.  (more info)

Portfolio files have the file extension of *.mm4.  Portfolio files store all of your sub-portfolios, which investment files belong in each sub-portfolio, which windows you have open, and all of your options.  Portfolio files can be thought of as saving your whole workspace.  When you re-open a portfolio file, all of the included investments are also opened.  The windows you had open when you last saved the portfolio file are also re-created, and all your settings are restored to their values when you last saved the portfolio file.  In short, everything is restored to the same state as when you last saved the portfolio file.  (more info)

In many cases you will only need to have a single portfolio file, but you will have many investment files.

Choose the File / Save All Investments menu command to save your investments.  Choose File / Save Portfolio As... to assign a portfolio filename and save it.

The next time you start Fund Manager, the last portfolio file you had open will automatically be opened for you.  Now exit Fund Manager by choosing File / Exit.  Restart Fund Manager by choosing Start / All Programs / Fund Manager / Fund Manager, and you will see your portfolio again, just as you last left it.

Now that we've created some data let's examine our investments with various reports and graphs:

Reports Tutorial
Graphs Tutorial

See Also:

• Portfolio Editor Tutorial
• Data Register Tutorial