Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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adrian2
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

Post by adrian2 »

IdOp wrote:OTOH, if you can edit what's reported to CRA at the final step, all you need to do is set the costbase of the sold shares equal to the proceeds of disposition by hand "on the tax form", with no kludge needed in Quicken.
I'm reporting to CRA one consolidated line for all gains/losses for securities in the TDW C$ sub-account, another line for TDW US$, and I'm trying to make my life simpler by matching each of those lines with reports from Quicken. Excluding certain securities from the reports is feasible, but tedious and error prone. I can store ("memorize") reports in Quicken, maybe that's a partial solution.
IdOp wrote:Next, if permissible, the amount of the loss can be added to the "costbase of the substitute property" at "some point", so ...

a) Does Quicken support costbase adjustment? (Probably not or you wouldn't be asking about this. :) )

b) If not, you could do a purchase of, say, 1 unit, for a cost equal to the amount of the loss. This would get the costabase right, but you'd have too many units; so then just consolidate back to the right number of units and things should be in order.
a) I was using return of capital transactions to adjust the cost base; one positive ROC before the superficial loss to ensure the loss is neutralized, and a matching negative ROC after the superficial loss to restore the cash balance and cost base. My problem is that Q 2011 has decided that negative ROC is not allowed; this has previously been available in recent versions of Quicken, I'm not sure when it was discontinued or if there is a tweak to re-enable it in Q2011.

The beauty of the matching positive+negative ROC transactions was that it solved both issues at once: the report of annual capital gains per account and the proper cost base thereafter. My additional complication is that sometimes I have quite a few superficial losses in the same security, (buys / sells on a daily or weekly basis), so I can't just take the cost base per share before the first superficial loss and reset it to the same value after the whole series has ended.

I've thought about using a variant of (b) by adding a variable number of shares to the account at $1 cost base before the transactions, and remove the same number of shares at $1 cost base after the transactions. Shouldn't this do the same trick as the matching +/- ROC's?

Thanks for trying to help.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

Post by triker »

adrian2 wrote: My problem is that Q 2011 has decided that negative ROC is not allowed;
After a lot of messing about with various suggested methods of entering iShares end of year virtual distributions, I settled on Bylo's RtrnCapX kludge as the easiest way to do it. I then discovered that it didn't work in Quicken 2011 due to that negative Return of Capital problem.

Fortunately Quicken bugs/features are sometimes inconsistent. Instead of entering the data on a new line in the register, I used the top left "Enter Transactions" button which brings up a pop-up edit screen, and that screen allows me to enter a negative ROC.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

Post by IdOp »

(Looks like this may be moot as triker has found a workaround.)
adrian2 wrote:(b) by adding a variable number of shares to the account at $1 cost base before the transactions, and remove the same number of shares at $1 cost base after the transactions. Shouldn't this do the same trick as the matching +/- ROC's?
I took a quick look at one simple example and this approach looks interesting. If I understand it right, you basically (ignoring the $1) split from N shares to N+X with

X = nC/P - N

where C is the original costbase, P the proceeds and n shares are sold. This leads to a capital gain of zero, so you don't have to ignore the Quicken report. Then, after the sale, you consolidate from N-n+X shares back to N-n and the costbase turns out right.

So this seems to do it the way you want. Also, since it doesn't introduce any cash flows, it shouldn't wreck a return calculation. A small disadvantage is you have to calculate X yourself. The only minor tweak I can think of at the moment is to use split and consolidation (as above) rather than messing with the $1.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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triker wrote:Fortunately Quicken bugs/features are sometimes inconsistent. Instead of entering the data on a new line in the register, I used the top left "Enter Transactions" button which brings up a pop-up edit screen, and that screen allows me to enter a negative ROC.
Thanks a lot. I've checked that it also works when using the Edit button which appears in the bottom right corner of the transaction.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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IdOp wrote:I took a quick look at one simple example and this approach looks interesting. If I understand it right, you basically (ignoring the $1) split from N shares to N+X with

X = nC/P - N

where C is the original costbase, P the proceeds and n shares are sold. This leads to a capital gain of zero, so you don't have to ignore the Quicken report. Then, after the sale, you consolidate from N-n+X shares back to N-n and the costbase turns out right.

So this seems to do it the way you want. Also, since it doesn't introduce any cash flows, it shouldn't wreck a return calculation. A small disadvantage is you have to calculate X yourself. The only minor tweak I can think of at the moment is to use split and consolidation (as above) rather than messing with the $1.
Calculating X shouldn't be a problem (I'd just use an iterative "try and see" approach).
The $1 I was using was actually the share unit price for the added / removed shares, so their cost would be $N (not negligible).

The big problem, for me at least, is if it would work for a series of transactions in between where you don't necessarily end up with the same number of shares (could be less, equal or more). Without doing the math, I kind of doubt it.

Thanks again to both of you for your help, much appreciated.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

Post by max88 »

For those who purchased quicken 2011 post boxing week, have you updated to Release R7 (20.1.7.4)? I am trying to update my CD version Release R1 (20.1.1.43) to R7 but the sucker did work.

WTF? :evil:
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

Post by Bylo Selhi »

max88 wrote:Release R7 (20.1.7.4)...
...applies only to the US version of Q11. The Canadian version has no updates.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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OK thanks. If it aren't broken don't fix it.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

max88 wrote:OK thanks. If it aren't broken don't fix it.
Based on my experience with Quicken 2010, if its broken and the US version is fixed, they still won't fix the Canadian version :evil:
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

Post by Bylo Selhi »

max88 wrote:If it aren't broken don't fix it.
Intuit Canada's motto is "If it's broken, just hope no one notices. And if they do, deny, deny, deny."
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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just got this message when I launched my quicken2008. Please see the attached.
Damn,...what do I do now?
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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If you do not use any download services including daily, weekly or monthly pricing of your securities, do nothing. It will still work for many years to come.

If you do use download services regularly, do like the rest of us. Hold your nose and upgrade every 3 years.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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AltaRed wrote:If you do not use any download services including daily, weekly or monthly pricing of your securities, do nothing. It will still work for many years to come.

If you do use download services regularly, do like the rest of us. Hold your nose and upgrade every 3 years.
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2. Turbotax Suite $109.99

Does one have an advantage over the other?
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

Post by Germack »

I am trying to categorize my spending's in Quicken. How do I best categorize my transfers to other bank accounts? When I categorize them as Transfers it changes the balances of the account I transferred too. Is there any way to avoid this? If possible I would like to have them not count as spending.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

Post by Jaunty »

I created my own category called "Transfer" for this purpose (or, I am pretty sure I created it as it is there in my day-to-day banking account, but not in my other banking account where I would not need it). The Category field is under the Payee field and entering "Transfer" here won't affect your other account. I leave the "Num" column blank for these transactions, rather than class it as a Transfer in this column. I also include a Memo to myself so that later I know why I moved the money around. To make it not look like spending, when/if you create a report (like cash flow), customize the report so it does not include this category.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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The system I implemented some years ago works like this. I opened a new Quicken account and called it for example Germack's Spending. I don't care where the money comes from as I take care of that in other accounts by for example cash withdrawals and credit card bills.So that the account won't show a negative balance once a year I make a lump sum pseudo deposit into it.
I use this account for categorization and all reports and information about my spending.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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I use Quicken to record my mutual fund data. Minor discrepancies have developed over time between my book values and those at the brokerage due to an accumulation of rounding errors. I would like to make correcting entries to re-synchronize the numbers. It appears a RtrnCapX entry could be used to change the ACB without altering anything else by using a positive transaction amount to reduce the cost and a negative one to increase it. Would this be correct?
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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Bylo Selhi wrote:Looks like Q11 isn't rolling off the shelves as fast as Intuit might like. It didn't take them long to cut the price some more. From an e-mail I just got... [offering Q11 for $50]:..
Looks like Q12 H&B isn't faring any better. Via a new e-mail:

Image

Available at Staples, FS/BB, London Drugs, amazon.com (Office Depot seems to have decamped Canada in 2011.)

I won't be upgrading because the Q11 I bought last year still doesn't work properly :(
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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tightwad wrote:It appears a RtrnCapX entry could be used to change the ACB without altering anything else by using a positive transaction amount to reduce the cost and a negative one to increase it. Would this be correct?
That is definitely one option to use. At the end of the day, you really can use any mechanism you wish to bring ACBs into line.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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Thanks for the confirmation. Are there other ways that are as simple as this one?
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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tightwad wrote:Thanks for the confirmation. Are there other ways that are as simple as this one?
I have no idea. It is the one I have used.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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tightwad wrote:Thanks for the confirmation. Are there other ways that are as simple as this one?
Older versions of Quicken may not support RtrnCapX transactions; in that case you just need to split it into two entries, RtrnCap and XIn from the same account ("money out of thin air").
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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tightwad wrote:Minor discrepancies have developed over time between my book values and those at the brokerage due to an accumulation of rounding errors.
Whose numbers are the correct ones? Brokerage-maintained ACBs are notoriously inaccurate for a variety of reasons. Perhaps Quicken's ACBs are the correct ones.

BTW in practice, I doubt CRA is going to challenge your numbers unless they suspect a major discrepancy. They often see estate returns where someone has owned a DRIP'ed stock for many years, i.e. there are dozens of small quarterly ACB changes, without keeping records of each DRIP. In these situations they accept reasonable estimates. Life is too short and time is too precious for them (or your accountant) to rehash years of history in order to find a few dollars of ACB errors.
It appears a RtrnCapX entry could be used to change the ACB without altering anything else by using a positive transaction amount to reduce the cost and a negative one to increase it. Would this be correct?
It would and, if I wanted to "diddle" my ACBs, it's what I would use.
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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adrian2 wrote:Older versions of Quicken may not support RtrnCapX transactions; in that case you just need to split it into two entries, RtrnCap and XIn from the same account
Luckily my Q2002 has the capability. Don't you mean XOut, to remove the amount that RtrnCap added to the account?
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Re: Miscellaneous Quicken Questions

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Bylo Selhi wrote:Whose numbers are the correct ones? Brokerage-maintained ACBs are notoriously inaccurate for a variety of reasons. Perhaps Quicken's ACBs are the correct ones.
I don't think either set of numbers is incorrect; the calculations are just different so that every now and then a transaction is out a penny. The brokerage records a logical transaction with two actual transactions, one for the whole units and then another for the fractional units. So two calculations instead of one in Quicken. In any case the difference over the years in each fund is only pennies - the largest was $0.16. Nothing to worry about.
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