Q2005 Mutual Funds

Eric Lipkind took time on 05/02/23 17:42 to scribe:

Does this mean they've somehow dealt with the rounding errors in this version? I always enter the price, number of units, and cost and let it record the rounding error, if any, in the commission field.

Your method is fine because you are entering the number of shares. This is the important number.

When people let Quicken calculate the shares, you get a number like

365.4120122 shares. When they sell the position, they sell 365.412 shares, and can't understand why the position is still showing in their portfolio. It's because Quicken still thinks there are .0000122 shares left. By entering the correct number of shares, you don't get these rounding errors at sell time.

Fred Smith took time on 05/02/24 16:29 to scribe:

Not exactly. I reconcile my brokerage statements to Quicken and because of the rounding errors, they have a tendency to not match. It's rather annoying.

What rounding errors? There can't be any rounding errors if you enter the correct number of shares at each transaction. Rather than adjusting for rounding errors, I would look for, and correct, the offending transactions.

Fred Smith took time on 05/02/25 05:02 to scribe:

While recording the three values as described results in exact totals for those amounts, the market value for the entry is at times off by a penny or two. This comes about as commission, positive or negative, is added to cost to arrive at the market value. At times the positives offset the negatives in the cumulative totals for the fund but not always. Furthermore, these inaccuracies are carried through to the market values of account and portfolio. I know. I know. I'm nit-picking. Just thought Quicken might have added the option to 'throw away' the rounding error.

Excuse me. I hope the above is just a typo. The comission and cost of your stock is the /basis *cost*/ of your investment, not the market value.

Mike B took time on 05/02/25 17:07 to scribe:

Hi, Mike. Thanks for the correction. This is the first time I've tried to come up with an explanation for what I see in the portfolio view. I hadn't given it much thought up until now. Apparently I'm having a difficult time with it.

Let's try this again but with an example. We buy $60,000 of Fund A at $72.0074/unit and receive 833.248 units. When it is entered into Quicken, a 'commission' of .02 results (to account for the rounding up of the units received). But when this is displayed in the portfolio view, Quicken calculates the market value (unit price x units held) and comes up with $60,000.02 even though the cost was $60,000. It was this difference I was referring to. But now that I've worked it out on (virtual) paper, I realize the difference (though it looks funny) is not an inaccuracy at all. My fault. D'OH! Still, perhaps there could be a better way for Quicken to record the difference other than as a commission.

There is, you enter only the number of shares and total for the transaction. To use your example, you enter 833.248 shares in the Number of Shares field and $60,000 in the Total Cost field. Quicken then displays the price as

72.007374. You'll then find that the Commission is 0.

The layout of the Enter Transaction form doesn't make this obvious. The price that is displayed shows your effective cost per share and is displayed if a quote for the transaction date isn't available.

Hope this helps

Mike

Problem is that the statements I receive from Fidelity Investments does not allow me to do this. Fidelity tells me a dollar amount only for each of dividends received, short term capital gains, and long term capital gains. Then they provide the total dollar amount of the entire reinvestment, the total number of shares reinvested, and the price per share.

I need Quicken to calculate the number of shares for each of the individual transactions. I can't even do it easily on the Enter Transaction screen, because Quicken 2005 only provides a calculator on the Amount field, not on the Shares field.

So, how can I easily enter these transactions using Q2005 without having to resort to pulling out a calculator? If I need a calculator, what's the point of having a computer with software?

I've run across this one from my broker. Instead of using the reinvest transactions, use the normal ("cash") ones which will leave you with a balance in your register. Use this to purchase the total number of shares from your statement.

That should give you the right cost basis.

Mike

I see. Thanks.