IRA in Quicken 2017 Premier is asking to specify lots for sales of some stocks

Pamela Ryan

I have Windows 10, Quicken 2017 Premier, Ver R15.13, Build 26.1.15.13 When my Merrill Lynch IRA account sells stocks, Quicken is asking me to specify the lots. I shouldn't have to do this in an IRA. It doesn't do it for ALL the stocks  but about 95% of them. I have compared the stocks that it asks for a lot with ones it doesn't and can't find any difference. What is going on? There is a lot of buying and selling in the account and it is terribly time consuming to specify a lot for each sale.

Jim_Harman

You can just select FIFO and it will pick the lots for you.

UKR

Sorry, there isn't a global automatic setting available for this situation for Stocks. Mutual Funds typically are "Use Average Cost" so you don't have to specify lots
Just select "First in, first out" on the Lot selection window.

q_lurker

IF you are downloading a sale of a stock
AND
IF your holding of this stock in this account has more that one lot
AND
IF you are selling less than your entire holding in this account
THEN
when you accept the downloaded transaction, Quicken will prompt you to specify the lots being sold for this transaction.

IF you are manually entering this transaction, you will not get the prompt. (Quicken defaults to FIFO.)
IF there is only one lot available to sell,  you will not get the prompt. (Quicken knows what to select.)
IF you are selling the entire position, you will not get the prompt. (Quicken knows what to do.)

IF you are willing to treat the sale as FIFO (first in, first out, i. e., selling the shares in the order you bought them)
THEN
you do not need to actually go into the specify lots process.  You can click the OK (or however worded) at the first prompt and move on.  That is, it is one extra click to continue forward and should not be terribly time consuming.  I know of no reason not to go the FIFO route within an IRA.