Income

Gary wrote in news:4ee74c6a$0$19701$c3e8da3$c8b7d2e6 @news.astraweb.com:

Reports|Investment|Investment income.

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Thanks for your comment, but if you look at it you will see it is a very badly conceived report. The report allows you to generate various types of income for various "breaks", but if you want to see the income generated for each security, they put each security as its own column. That turns out to be a great many columns.

If the report were to show the rows as columns (and allowed you to select, e.g., to not show the transfers), and the columns as rows, that would be a vast improvement. I had promised myself I'd try to generate the report into a csv file and input it to Excel to figure out if the report could be transposed. But it seems like a daunting task.

Gary wrote in news:4ee76cb1$0$2208$c3e8da3$ snipped-for-privacy@news.astraweb.com:

Then you have 2 more choices: Wait until youhave your 1099's or go to your brokers' websites.

Portfolio has a "Dividend Yield" column.

Info for that is from "Security List" > pick one and "Edit" > "Other Income" and under "Est Income" enter annual amount = (last quarterly dividend) * 4 / shares

This looks hopeful, but I don't understand it.

"Portfolio has ?" refers to Portfolio. What's that? I cannot figure out if it's a report, and if so, from where, or a tool, or what.

Could you kindly be a bit more specific?

Thanks in advance!

Under "Investing" > "Portfolio"

Pick anyone under "Show" (I suggest one of the Custom views to play with) and then "Customize" and set that view the way you want.

Now goto Security list and add info to one and then back to Portfolio to see it.

Thanks for your comment, but if you look at it you will see it is a very badly conceived report. The report allows you to generate various types of income for various "breaks", but if you want to see the income generated for each security, they put each security as its own column. That turns out to be a great many columns.

If the report were to show the rows as columns (and allowed you to select, e.g., to not show the transfers), and the columns as rows, that would be a vast improvement. I had promised myself I'd try to generate the report into a csv file and input it to Excel to figure out if the report could be transposed. But it seems like a daunting task.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appreciating that I'm neither an Excel nor a Quicken maven but as an experiment I found that exporting to .txt and an Excel data import and transpose wasn't really that bad at all. It amounted to only a couple of clicks.

Open Excel and get Help on "switch rows for columns". You'll see it's really quite easy. It's a transpose option of paste. You select the rows and columns; position to a different, un-selected cell and do a paste special and chose transpose. That's pretty much it with a little cosmetic cleanup like deleting the original selection; Home/Format/Autofit Column Width etc. Try it - it might be what you're looking for. Geo.

I really like the Investing > Portfolio view, especially the Income report. I'm a bit disappointed that Quicken will calculate "Est Income" from numbers I enter into a form, rather than calculating it from the actual dividends (or allowing me to enter a formula).

Thanks a lot for the clarification. This is a brand new area for me after using Q for about 20 years.

"Gary" wrote

Thanks for your comment, but if you look at it you will see it is a very badly conceived report. The report allows you to generate various types of income for various "breaks", but if you want to see the income generated for each security, they put each security as its own column. That turns out to be a great many columns.

If the report were to show the rows as columns (and allowed you to select, e.g., to not show the transfers), and the columns as rows, that would be a vast improvement. I had promised myself I'd try to generate the report into a csv file and input it to Excel to figure out if the report could be transposed. But it seems like a daunting task.

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I don't find the Investment Income report to be a badly conceived report. Given the task it's taking on, I think it's pretty well conceived.

- It's designed to allow you to see a consistent picture of investment Income/Expenses broken down many different ways (or not broken down at all). It is, after all, an "Income" report ... laid out similarly to other Quicken "income" type reports.

- Trying to get an idea of Income and Expense = Net Income when Income and Expense categories are stretched out horizontally would make the report virtually incomprehensible.

- It's possible to have just as many (or more) income/expense categories as there are securities in the data. So based on number possible of rows and columns, there's no reason to believe that one layout will be preferable to another for all, or even most, cases.

- I think a more useful improvement than switching the current columns and rows would be to use heading text that was not so wide (such as: put security names on 2 or 2 lines, allow ticker-symbol in place of security name, permit user-defined "descriptions" to be substituted for security names). It would probably also help to be able to adjust the column widths directly, as with some other Quicken reports.

- You *can* already exclude transfers. See the Advanced tab in the Customize dialog.

- I just read Excel Help for switching rows and columns, and it looks pretty simple to me. It just seems to be a special form of Copy/Paste. You could also modify the heading text to narrow the columns in Excel.

Gary,

The estimated income is derived from what you enter as the dividend in each security's "view". The actual income to-date can also be shown in the Portfolio view by including "Income" as a column (I have it placed next to Estimated to see how accurate I/Quicken have been). When you receive dividends/interest, you have to record them properly of course. If they aren't being categorized correctly, they obviously won't show up in the income column.

jo

I have been following your posts for many years ? you always seem to have something of great value to say about using Quicken. But on this subject I must respectfully disagree. The recommendation to use the Investment Income report is, IMHO, not nearly as useful as to use the display that Zaidy refers to (gotten to by clicking on "Investing", then "Portfolio"). I'm still struggling with how to get that report to show all the things its users say it can show, but I'm encouraged to go on because it will be worth it to get a direct answer to my questions about each investment (how much dividend income?).

jo:

I did whay you said ? put Income next to Estimated. My dividend transactions are reported correctly, I think (mostly as DivX transactions). Yet my Income column continues to read "0" for all rows. Any suggestions why?

Gary,

What "as of" date to you have at the top right of the portfolio view? You can get all kinds of effects if it isn't "correct". Off the top of my head I can't think of another reason why your current income shouldn't total. If the date is correct, check the Customize view screen again to see that you have all the right accounts and securities checked, although I don't see how they could be wrong if you are seeing them on the view, just not with any income. Maybe RC can come up with another possibility. He always has ideas, as you've seen.

It doesn't matter where you locate the column... I just mentioned where I put it, as an example.

BTW, don't know if you've already done this, but you can get to the Portfolio view a little faster by putting the icon on the Quicken Tool bar. (Edit, customize tool bar, .....), If there's a menu option I use all the time, I always put it on the Tool bar. It's been so long that I don't remember if it's there by default or not.

jo

jo:

Thanks for the toolbar tip.

Everything else seems OK ? the transactions, the date, etc. Could it be a bug in 2011 H&B?

"Gary" wrote

The recommendation to use the Investment Income report is, IMHO, not nearly as useful as to use the display that Zaidy refers to (gotten to by clicking on "Investing", then "Portfolio").

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My comments were intended to put the Investment Income report in better perspective than I thought your comments indicated: I was not suggesting that it would necessarily be better for your purpose than the Portfolio view.

Very mysterious. I'm still running H&B 2009, so can't check but would surprised if it were. You've checked everything in the Customize screen? Do you have any transactions that are straight DIVs not DIVX, or any interest bearing securities that are also not showing in in Income?

Rc, got any ideas??

Hi, Jo - and Gary.

Nope. I gave up on Quicken's Reports many years ago when I couldn't understand (or agree with) how they computed yields, ROI and such. I was frustrated - just as Gary is now - and soon stopped even trying to rationalize them. The reports have improved since then, I think, but I haven't made an effort to use them - except for the most mundane P&L statements. And sometimes a quickie (auto repairs for last year, or such) on a one-time ad hoc basis. More like a targeted one-time search than a report, really, and I rarely save one for reuse. These I can mentally adjust to suit myself. I almost never print out a report.

I do use the Portfolio View daily; it's a button on the toolbar. I've customized it by choosing columns and adjusting their order and width. This year I added the "Annual Dividend" column; dividends have become more pertinent since interest on CDs is so low now. But I haven't tried to have it compute yields.

Maybe I can help with one question, Gary:

If interest and dividends are entered as "banking" transactions, they don't get tied to the specific CD or stock that earned them. They have to be entered as "investment" transactions to make the connection. This has other consequences, such as the inability to schedule the transactions for the future. After many frustrating attempts over decades, I've given up and used workarounds. Briefly, I schedule the "banking" side, just as a reminder; after I manually make the "investment" entry, I "skip" the banking transaction so that I'll be reminded again next month. Not ideal, but it works - clumsily - for me.

Since "Tags" were added a few years ago, these could probably be used to tie interest and dividends to the specific securities, but I haven't tried to do this.

My oft-expressed conclusion is that no Quicken programmers - or their bosses - have ever owned CDs and tried to account for them in Quicken. :>( Yes, I know the Help file says that Quicken handles CDs, but it doesn't handle them very well.

I've never used H&B. Just Deluxe for most years.

RC

-- R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX (Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.) snipped-for-privacy@grandecom.net Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010) (Using Quicken 2012 Deluxe R 3 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)

Very mysterious. I'm still running H&B 2009, so can't check but would surprised if it were. You've checked everything in the Customize screen? Do you have any transactions that are straight DIVs not DIVX, or any interest bearing securities that are also not showing in in Income?

Rc, got any ideas??

RC,

We've been talking exclusively about the Portfolio View, not reports any longer. Gary isn't seeing any dividends showing up in the Income column and I can't think of a reason why it should't. I don't think Home and Business should not have anything to do with the investment side. I can't recreate a scenario in Portfolio in Vsn 2009 that doesn't catch all income transactions on the investment side, but don't have 2011 for a competely accurate comparison.

jo

Hi, Jo.

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RC,

We've been talking exclusively about the Portfolio View, not reports any longer. Gary isn't seeing any dividends showing up in the Income column and I can't think of a reason why it should't. I don't think Home and Business should not have anything to do with the investment side. I can't recreate a scenario in Portfolio in Vsn 2009 that doesn't catch all income transactions on the investment side, but don't have 2011 for a competely accurate comparison.

jo

Hi, Jo.

Well, I gave up on most of the columns available in the Portfolio View, too. But I see that I can add columns for Income and Income % - not for Interest or Dividends, but just for "Income received from security, including reinvestments". When I add these columns, Q12 populates them, but the numbers don't seem to make sense to me. Looks like this shows the total dividends I've received over the years I've held the stock, and what percent that total is of my current remaining cost basis - but it doesn't show figures for individual lots, or for one-year periods. Perhaps I could figure out what it's trying to tell me, and what it means to me - but I don't care to spend the time for this.

Gary's problem might relate to what I mentioned earlier: He may be recording dividends received in his Checking or other banking register, rather than as Investment transactions, so they might bypass Portfolio View and other investment functions. I don't think that he has told us HOW he records investment income.

RC

-- R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX (Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.) snipped-for-privacy@grandecom.net Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010) (Using Quicken 2012 Deluxe R 3 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)