Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

[adrian2]

Don't you mean XOut, to remove the amount that RtrnCap added to the account?

It depends whether the RtrnCap is positive or negative.

[adrian2]

if I wanted to "diddle" my ACBs, it's what I would use.

Diddle, fuddle duddle, shiddle diddle!

[Added later] Google Doogle!
(see this for more info)

[adrian2]

Now that I'm fully migrated to Quicken 2011, whose Canadian version does not support the US-style accounting of specifying lots when selling, I had to find a good solution for superficial loss tracking.

Say you have traded in and out of a stock ABC, starting February 10, 2011 and ending November 20, 2011. All your sells in between were superficial losses, ergo capital gain/loss for 2011 should be zero.

Here is how I set up Quicken:
1. open a Quicken investment report on year 2001, security ABC. It should show a Quicken calculated loss for the year. We need to bring it to zero.
2. on a date prior to Feb 10, enter a fictional Return of Capital for security ABC. Play around with its amount until the report from step #1 shows $0
3. on a date post November 20, enter a fictional negative Return of Capital for security ABC (mirror amount of step #2). Note that in Quicken 2011 you cannot initially enter a negative ROC, enter it first as a positive amount, then edit the transaction and change the amount to the negative value.
4. create a fictional security called "Superficial Loss"
5. on the date from step #2, enter a fictional buy of Superficial Loss, at a price of $1, number of shares equal to the $ value of step #2
6. on the date from step #3, enter a fictional sell of Superficial Loss, at a price of $1, number of shares equal to the $ value of step #3

Your Quicken account balance would thus keep the correct value throughout the year. The transactions on "Superficial Loss" security would show a zero CG, as would the total CG for ABC for the year.

[Bylo Selhi]

Now that I'm fully migrated to Quicken 2011...

You don't find the user interface buggy beyond usability?

For example go into the transaction register for a US$ investment account. (Maybe also other account types.) Now select an existing transaction by clicking on the date. Don't change the date. Just cursor up or down a few transactions using the up and down arrow keys. When I do that I eventually get the following message:

Image 1.png (4.93 KiB) Viewed 977 times

Worse, the date field—remember I haven't explicitly changed it—gets blanked out so I can't even restore it to its original value because that's lost. Even worse when this happens I can't use the ESC key or similar to abandon the transaction. My only option is exit Quicken and hope it doesn't auto-save anything it shouldn't. So I'm stuck in the situation where I have to provide a date for an old transaction even if I have no idea what it was.

Another similar situation arises in the transaction register when I use the arrow keys to move the cursor up and down to get to a specific transaction:

Image 2.png (4.89 KiB) Viewed 977 times

In this case the date remains unchanged as, from what I can see, do the rest of the transaction fields. I have no idea what Quicken thinks has changed that it wants me to save and I don't want to save in case something really has changed whether I can see it or not.

I find these sorts of situations intolerable. They've rendered Q11 unusable for me. I'm surprised that you apparently haven't encountered this sort of stuff or if you have, don't seem to mind it.

[adrian2]

Now that I'm fully migrated to Quicken 2011...

You don't find the user interface buggy beyond usability?

I'm migrating from Quicken 4, which is an antediluvian version (note the lack of the year in version #).

For example go into the transaction register for a US$ investment account. (Maybe also other account types.) Now select an existing transaction by clicking on the date. Don't change the date. Just cursor up or down a few transactions using the up and down arrow keys.

I have not experienced similar issues. Note that I'm not using the multiple currencies feature of Quicken, I manually convert everything to CAD (as I used to do with Quicken 4).

Do you have any changes to your Windows format of dates? I remember, years ago, I was toying with having Windows display the "European" format of numbers (period and comma switched) -- it caused too much grief with Quicken (some places it expected it one way, in others the opposite) so I've decided it to keep it vanilla in the North American format.

My only option is exit Quicken and hope it doesn't auto-save anything it shouldn't.

As you well know, working in Quicken auto-saves to hard disk any of your changes. So you don't necessarily have to manually save your work before you exit. Don't know what happens if you have a prompt like you describe -- if you kill the process most likely it will not save any data for which there is a dialog box open asking for a confirmation.

[tedster]

I am using Quicken 2002. It works very well. I usually get a call from my acct to find out what I paid (and sold) for a list of stocks in my non reg'd portfolio.

I assume he has a list from the bank (?). This year I thought I might be ble to print a report from Quicked which would indicate which stocks were sold in 2011 so that I could have this all ready for him. However, I don't seem to be able to find this on my Quicken. Can it be done?

[westinvest]

I am using Quicken 2002. It works very well. I usually get a call from my acct to find out what I paid (and sold) for a list of stocks in my non reg'd portfolio.

I assume he has a list from the bank (?). This year I thought I might be ble to print a report from Quicked which would indicate which stocks were sold in 2011 so that I could have this all ready for him. However, I don't seem to be able to find this on my Quicken. Can it be done?

Don't know if this works the same in Q2002, but in Q2010 I go to Reports => Investing => Capital Gains, and then subtotal by security

[tedster]

Thanks, will give it a try Monday. Ted

[tedster]

Thanks, it worked. I am ahead of the game

[Bylo Selhi]

We want you to be aware that as of May 31, 2012 online services and live technical support will no longer be available with this version. To continue your services without interruption, you need to upgrade to Quicken 2012.

In order to make this transition as easy as possible, we are offering a 10% discount when you upgrade today. Plus, new Quicken 2012 features make it easier than ever to organize your money, pay bills on time and find ways to save more.

We appreciate your business...

[tightwad]

I received additional units of a mutual fund upon disposition of all units of a fund. What is the best way to record this in Quicken? First thought was to add the additional units to Quicken but it seems cleaner to simply record the money as a dividend using a Div transaction and to note the extra units received in the memo. Is there a better way?

[fisab]

I received additional units of a mutual fund upon disposition of all units of a fund. What is the best way to record this in Quicken? First thought was to add the additional units to Quicken but it seems cleaner to simply record the money as a dividend using a Div transaction and to note the extra units received in the memo. Is there a better way?

I use the "ReinvDiv" action to record the fund distribution. Then you can sell any or all units. The cost base of the investment recorded by Quicken is then of correct value.

[AltaRed]

I use the "ReinvDiv" action to record the fund distribution. Then you can sell any or all units. The cost base of the investment recorded by Quicken is then of correct value.

Ditto.

[tightwad]

Thanks for the replies. To clarify. I sold all the units I was holding in the fund but did not receive the additional units until after the 'Sell' transaction was entered into Quicken. The corresponding 'Sell' transaction in the brokerage account includes the additional units. So are you suggesting I should reinvest the additional units into my fund in Quicken using the price of the units on the day of the sale, then issue the 'Sell' with all the units?

[AltaRed]

Thanks for the replies. To clarify. I sold all the units I was holding in the fund but did not receive the additional units until after the 'Sell' transaction was entered into Quicken. The corresponding 'Sell' transaction in the brokerage account includes the additional units. So are you suggesting I should reinvest the additional units into my fund in Quicken using the price of the units on the day of the sale, then issue the 'Sell' with all the units?

It is now not clear to me what happened. The importance is to mimick the actual sales transaction. In the actual sales transaction, did you sell all units you held, including the additional units as one sale (only not necessarily knowing that at the time)? That is what governs the correct aggregate ACB of the sale and the proceeds received. Your entries in Quicken should precisely match what the actual transaction was.

If you entered the Quicken transaction after the fact, and then saw additional units... then the thing to do would be to correct your Quicken entries by:
1) deleting your Quicken sales entry, then
2) entering the correct re-investment of distributions of additional units, then
3) lastly entering the correct sales entry of all units.

[tightwad]

I sold all my units not knowing I would be receiving additional units as a consequence. The brokerage did not generate separate entries for the original and additional units - only one (sell) transaction for the combined unit total. It's debatable whether the additional units were actually received then redeemed or whether they were included in the total to account for extra cash received.

Doing as you suggest, the reinvested units are to be priced as of the sell date? I see no other choice.

Edit:
A conversation with a brokerage rep about the situation suggests the additional units were not reinvested before redemption.

[AltaRed]

I still find your explanation confusing. The broker can only sell units that are in your account and owned by you on the date of sale. If the broker sold all units, both original and reinvested units, then the additional re-invested units were 'received' first. Those re-invested units should show on your statement and they will show both the number of re-invested units and the price they were re-invested at. That is the information you would record in Quicken, i.e. the data on your statement.

The only likely time the units are likely to have the same re-invested price as the sell price, is if both transactions DID happen on the same day or under some coincidence that the daily NAVs were the same. Regardless, the re-invested distribution should still show on your broker's statement as they have to reconcile the correct number of units anyway in back room accounting. I'd seriously question the broker's QC if the re-invested units do not show on your statement in some form.

[tightwad]

The brokerage executed the sell 'all units' order by selling the whole units leaving a fractional unit in the account, as described in this thread in another forum.

I just sold some mutual fund on BMO Investorline for the first time. I wanted to sell all of it but instead I am stuck with 0.76 unit.
...
I talked to a Investorline CSR and apparently partial units fall off a couple days after the transaction. The figures are meaningless because all the money has already been deposited into the account after the full units were sold.

This also happened in my case. From the fractional units remaining on account at the brokerage I conclude my Quicken total matched theirs at the time the sell order was executed. Yet the only transaction generated by the brokerage include a slightly higher unit total. Since this is an income fund, the closing of the position included the dividend earned to-date but not yet distributed by the fund. This is why I'm thinking it was actually a cash dividend rather than the issuance of additional units prior to the execution of the sell order. The additional units are, in a sense, virtual - for recording keeping purposes only. I hope this makes sense.

I find this confusing as well. I'd like to know how other brokerages handle a 'sell all units' order.

[AltaRed]

Since this is an income fund, the closing of the position included the dividend earned to-date but not yet distributed by the fund. This is why I'm thinking it was actually a cash dividend rather than the issuance of additional units prior to the execution of the sell order. The additional units are, in a sense, virtual - for recording keeping purposes only. I hope this makes sense.

Had you said earlier about simply a fraction of a unit that ultimately disappeared off the broker's books after the 'sell all' order, that would have been considerably more clear in earlier posts.

My past experience with mutual funds is the NAV of the fund on any given day of the month reflects undistributed distributions earned to date, not the creation of additional units earned but not yet distributed. Additional units generally only come about once the distributions are distributed and the NAV per unit is reduced accordingly. Thus, I've always seen the 'sell' units equal to the units on the books immediately before the sale.

So, on the surface, I don't accept that explanation, but since some mutual funds such as income funds may behave differently, I suppose anything is possible. Other posters with experience in income funds may know differently for the specific fund in question if you wish to disclose it. Regardless, in this case, I would agree for ACB purposes to simply price the fractional unit at the sales price. It will have no material effect on whether CRA wins/loses on a few cents of capital gains/losses.

[tightwad]

My past experience with mutual funds is the NAV of the fund on any given day of the month reflects undistributed distributions earned to date, not the creation of additional units earned but not yet distributed. Additional units generally only come about once the distributions are distributed and the NAV per unit is reduced accordingly.

That's my understanding as well and so was surprised by what happened.

Let me further illustrate with some fictitious numbers. I own 1000.347 units of a fund which matches that on record at the brokerage. I issue a 'sell all' order on the fund. The brokerage sells the whole units, 1000, leaving .347 on the account to be cleared out. One transaction is created by the brokerage with 1000.551 units, .204 more than expected; this is the portion I refer to as 'additional units'.

I hope I didn't stir up the mud any further. Thank you for your patience.

[AltaRed]

The brokerage sells the whole units, 1000, leaving .347 on the account to be cleared out. One transaction is created by the brokerage with 1000.551 units, .204 more than expected; this is the portion I refer to as 'additional units'.

Actually the broker sells all units, 1000.347 units plus whatever wierdness has occured internally for the additional 0.204 unit which still defies logic to me. It usually shows as 2 entries on an account statement, one entry for whole units, and one entry for 1000ths of a unit. Always thought that was a stupid way of accounting but it seems all (most?) brokers do it that way (has been the case with every broker I have been with over 20+ years).

[IdOp]

If the difference is only a small fraction of a unit, it could be that the broker doesn't keep track of the holding as accurately as the fund company. E.g., TD Waterhouse only tracks mutual fund holdings to 3 decimals of units, while some fund companies track units to 4 decimals. The fund company's records are, of course, official. Due to the rounding off of transactions at the brokerage, a discrepancy could build up between what the broker reports you to have (and thus what you may think you have), and what you really have (fund company's records). When you go to sell all units, the fund company sells the true total amount and you get the cash for it. At some point the broker ends up cleaning up their records.

If this is the case here, then it's hard to know how to accurately do the ACB since the "extra units" could have been bought in tiny pieces over many prior transactions at various prices. [Edited to delete half-baked idea.]

[tightwad]

I think I've solved the mystery. The fund is a CIBC index fund which under the old system qualified for a management fee rebate. The dollar value of the additional units appears to be the rebate earned to-date in the month. It looks like the software for issuing the rebate hasn't been disabled. Under the circumstances I think it should be recorded as a cash dividend.

@IdOp, perhaps you can corroborate the theory; I think you closed positions in some of your CIBC index funds earlier this year.

[IdOp]

I think I've solved the mystery. The fund is a CIBC index fund which under the old system qualified for a management fee rebate. The dollar value of the additional units appears to be the rebate earned to-date in the month. It looks like the software for issuing the rebate hasn't been disabled. Under the circumstances I think it should be recorded as a cash dividend.

@IdOp, perhaps you can corroborate the theory; I think you closed positions in some of your CIBC index funds earlier this year.

I was wondering if this was from exiting a CIBC fund.

Yes, I believe the extra amount is the management fee rebate up to the date of sale. At TD Waterhouse, they list the dollar amount on the statement as a "CDS Entry" described as "Fund Company Rebate". There is then another CDS Entry in which the dollar amount is re-invested to purchase extra units.

When I put in an order to sell all the units, the amount of units sold (again, as shown on the TD-W statements) agrees with the number of units I had on record going into the sale plus the number of units arising from the rebate reinvestment.

In my own records I followed this scheme and reinvested the distribution. You could not bother to do that, and the capital gain would, I believe, be the same, because you're just adding the same amount to the costbase and proceeds (since you buy and sell the extra units at the same price). But the advantage of doing it with the reinvestment (as I did) is that I expect this will give the same number of units disposed of, for me to report, as what TD-W will report to CRA on the T5008. (And of course the total proceeds of disposition likewise.)

Hope that helps.

[tightwad]

Thanks for the confirmation. The brokerage could have been more transparent on what actually took place by creating multiple transactions instead of lumping everything into one. Made entries as you suggested. Thanks.