Add Investments to Your Microsoft Money Portfolio

Tracking a portfolio in Microsoft Money involves three steps:

1. Setting up an investment account
2. Adding investments to investment accounts
3. Adding investment transactions (buy, sell, splits, etc.)

This tutorial addresses step two. You must be connected to the Internet to add investments to Microsoft Money as the program looks up each investment entered to ensure the symbol is accurate.

Manual Data Input in Microsoft Money

If you find your financial institution is not listed when setting up an account in Microsoft Money, you will need to follow these directions to complete the account setup. Since the institution wasn’t listed, it doesn’t offer investments or transaction downloads into Microsoft Money and these can be manually entered.

Enter an Investment in Microsoft Money

1. Click on the Investing tab at the top of the screen.

2. Click on Portfolio Manager under My Investing Tools on the left.

3. Under Common tasks on the top left, click on Work with investments.

4. Select Set Up New Investment. Select the account where the investment will be held and click Next.

5. Select either Add an Investment, Add a Ticker Symbol or Add an Index then enter the investment name or ticker symbol. It is easiest and most accurate to enter the symbol. Click on Next.

6. Enter the number of shares you currently own of an investment in the New Investment window. You can optionally enter the date acquired, commissions and fees. See note below.
7. Microsoft Money asks if you would like to add another investment to this account, click on Yes and follow the above steps to add more investments or click No and Finish.

In your Microsoft Money portfolio, the investment now appears under the account in which it is held. You can add transactions to the investment to keep the investment holdings current and record special activities like a transfer, stock split, spin-off, or company merger.

A Note About Optional Investment Data

If you acquired an investment on various dates, either enter the total number of shares and leave the optional information empty, or enter each purchase individually by repeating these steps. Entering the optional stock price, quantity, and date helps Microsoft Money estimate your actual gains or losses for each investment, but you decide on the level of detail with which you want to track your portfolio.