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enter reinvestment dividend transaction

unknown

When i enter a dividend reinvestment it doesn't update my account balance and there is an "edit" indicator in the first column...what is that for?

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John_in_NC

Which version of Quicken for Mac is this?

unknown

Quicken 2016 3.5.2

John_in_NC

Thanks.

A reinvest dividend transaction shouldn't change the account (cash)balance as the dividend will be used to purchase more shares of the same fund. The transactions will show as $0.00.

What I don't understand is what you mean by the "edit" indicator in the first column. Granted you can move your columns around, but I still don't quite understand what you are trying to describe. Are you talking about the portfolio view? The edit function in that view is normally when you have unaccounted for shares/cost.

unknown

I don't expect the cash balance in the account to change but I do expect the account balance to change in the sidebar when I enter a dividend reinvestment (as it does in Quicken for Windows). What am I missing?

John_in_NC

Yes, the value should go up. Did the share balance go up as expected? Make a backup to be safe, but delete the reinvest and check if the balance share balance changed. (Immediately hit command+z afterwards to undo the delete.)

If the share balance remained the same, I would be looking if a placeholder is tampering with your balances (it is creating an offset to adjust the balance to what is reported by the brokerage house. These will show up in light gray at the beginning of the register.

volvogirl

The value might not change. Sometimes when a dividend is paid (or is it just when capital gains are paid out?) the price per share goes down. You will have more shares but at a lower price so the value stays the same.

volvogirl

Found an article on it,
https://www.scottrade.com/knowledge-center/articles-insights/long-term-strategy/how-dividends-affect...

Let’s say you have $1,000 invested in XYZ at $10 per share. Then, XYZ decides to issue a dividend payment of $2.00 per share. After the dividend is paid, you have $800 invested in XYZ and $200 in cash. If you reinvest your $200, you’d still have $1,000 invested in XYZ but you’d own more shares in the company – because your $200 is buying shares at $8 instead of $10 – which could work to your advantage if the stock price increases.

So you had 100 shares at $10 = 1,000
You got a $200 Dividend and the price dropped $2/share to $8
The $200 dividend bought you 25 more shares
Now you have 125 shares at $8 which still = $1,000

NotACPA

This is entirely true for Funds ... but not for stocks. It's true for Funds because their NAV, before the Div is actually paid, consists of securities and cash. When they pay out the cash, their NAV drops by the $/sh paid in cash. You now own (in volvogirl's 2nd step) 100 shs of fund (at $8) and $200

unknown

Many thanks for all your comments. Am completely familiar with the math involved in Dividend Investments but appreciate you notes nonetheless.
Have given up trying to solve my problem. Don't know if using a file I converted from Quicken for Windows has anything to do with it. Sometimes account balance is adjusted and sometimes it isn't. If I add a dividend reinvestment it sometimes adds and sometimes doesn't and when I try to delete a transaction the balance isn't adjusted anytime. I will probably just drop Quicken for Mac and stay with Quicken for Windows....

unknown

Having same problem. Last evening moved from Quicken for Windows 2014 (user going back to the 1990s) to Quicken for Mac 2016. Conversion seems to have gone smoothly. Trying to do some data entry and cannot get entry of reinvested dividend to work. Transaction entry appears to go OK, but share count does not go up on Portfolio view and when I list trans there, it says cost basis info is missing. When I click on that link, it shows shares purchased thru dividend reinvestment as negative number and offers to generate transaction to essentially reverse my entry. Have tried this on more than one of my accounts. What am I missing?

smayer97

have you looked for placeholder entries? Look up a few posts for more details about that.

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

unknown

Thanks. I did find the references to placeholder entries and that was, indeed, the issue in most cases. Anyone know why the placeholder entries are generated?

On one investment account, I also had a mysterious, negative cash balance. Never did find a placeholder entry to account for it. I made a manual adjustment entry to zero it out and all appears well now.

Are these things that only occur at the point of conversion? I hope that placeholder entries don't just keep popping up on an ongoing basis.

And thanks for the help.

J_Mike

Arlene wrote "Are these things that only occur at the point of conversion? I hope
that placeholder entries don't just keep popping up on an ongoing basis."

Once deleted they do not come back.

Somewhere there is an explanation for the QMac placeholders - but can not find it :<((

unknown

What is a "placeholder?" Where are they found? How are they dealt with?

NotACPA

Search Q Help for the answer to your question about placeholders.

unknown

I am having exact same issue as sjfazio1 and Arlene Mitchell. Have been Q user with windows since early 90s. Just purchased iMac and bought Q software for mac. File transfer went fine. Now entering recent transactions on fund accounts for reinvestment of dividends and the transaction shows up fine, but the total share balance does not increase. Same placeholder entry looking for "cost basis". i even tried the option to guesstimate a cost basis and that did not fix anything - the share balance remains unchanged. Don't see how i can continue using this product for my personal finances. shame as have been a customer for 25+ years.

unknown

Scott, I found the placeholder entries they speak of and when I deleted them my share balances rose as I expected. Now they match my statements. Reading between the lines, it appears that Q thinks the share balance at conversion was already balanced to that date (thru online activity, I suspect), so when I tried to enter share activity from earlier dates (I was manually entering info from third quarter this year), it was making entries to keep the share count unchanged. Silly Quicken.

Anyway, scroll to bottom and look for entry (my were in light gray) that negates the entry(s) you just made. If you find it, delete it. Then things balance.

unknown

Awesome! Thank you Arlene! i will give that a try. Glad to hear there is a work around, even if it means a lot of clean up when i get quarterly statements. i will have to give electronic updates another try, but last time i attempted this it did not go well (it has been a couple of years)

unknown

Scott, Glad I could help. I don't do electronic transaction updates. Never had. I have stock/fund prices download automatically, and software updates, but that's it. (I spent way too many years being paid to create, test, implement, and then support interfaces (and conversions, which are really one-time interfaces) between data systems. I know how tricky it can be. I always tread lightly and cautiously with them.)

Picture a room where a native English (American) speaker, someone from Great Britain, and someone from France who speaks English as a second language have all come together to swap information. Throw out a couple of American idioms and watch the conversation go sideways. Ditto for the Brit who asks about a "lift" and gets directed toward a forklift, and I don't know what the French person will say in English that gets misunderstood, but it has to happen. You can see best intentions aren't quite enough to avoid confusion. That's a data interface. Everyone thinks they are speaking of the same thing, but . . . . . Before I retired I got paid to translate and mediate these data conversations. It's amazing I survived some days.

unknown

Same here! Glad to hear it - i guess i will stay the course.
i have teams that report into me from Shanghai, Tokyo, Sidney, Amsterdam, and Sao Paulo.
i know that sports analogies do not go over very well!! So i get it!
thanks again!

unknown

Arlene,

I also
had the same issue with Q for Mac, your explanation worked perfectly! Thanks
for taking the time to help me (us) out.

Larry

unknown

Arlene,

I also
had the same issue with Q for Mac, your explanation worked perfectly! Thanks
for taking the time to help me (us) out.

Larry