Cash refund from company stock purchase account (ESPP)

Rick56

I have an ESPP deduction on my paycheck that goes into a company cash holding. This cash is displayed on the ESPP account in Quicken.

Twice a year, the company sends an amount of that cash for a stock purchase to Fidelity so they can purchase an amount of stock. The leftover portion of cash (held in the company account) at the time of purchase is refunded on my paycheck. This cash holding is not held at Fidelity, it is held at my company so Fidelity has no idea how much cash is in the account, they only know what they are sent for purchase.

I have no problem with recording the paycheck refund BUT I do not see a way to deduct the cash refund amount from the ESPP account in Quicken. This makes the cash balance incorrect in Quicken. It would seem that a transfer function would do the trick (in on my paycheck and out on my ESPP cash).

I do not see this type of transaction available to record on my paycheck so that it automatically deducts from the cash total in the ESPP account in Quicken.

Hope this makes sense. Quicken Deluxe 2018 R7.5, Windows 10 Home build 16299.

mshiggins

I, too, have a similar situation for my ESPPs. When the company refunds my residual ESPP contribution, I record it in my paycheck using the ESPP accumulation account enclosed in square brackets as the category. This acts as a transfer from the ESPP accumulation account to my checking account.

Rick56

I used the "bracket" ESPP account for the category on a salary transaction on my paycheck. However, I do not see a corresponding transaction in my ESPP accumulation account subtracting the refund amount. Did you do a different transaction? 

Rick56

I did that but did not notice before that rather than giving me a separate transaction for the refund, it subtracted the refund from the contribution. I would rather have the transaction of my contribution and a separate transaction showing the refund on a different line but........

Unknown

I am assuming you've set up the ESPP deduction as one of your cash accounts in Quicken, and recording the paycheck ESPP withholding into that cash account.  I am also assuming that you are informed of the amount of the 6-month transfer to Fidelity.  In Quicken, this would be a "Transfer Money" transaction from the ESPP cash account to your Fidelity brokerage account.  Quicken will put this into 'cash' in the brokerage account.  Then you record the stock purchase at Fidelity as any other stock purchase.  Any residual cash after the stock purchases remains in the brokerage cash category, and will be commingled with any subsequent dividends, and future 'Transfer Money"
 transactions.

mshiggins

Rick56 said:

I did that but did not notice before that rather than giving me a separate transaction for the refund, it subtracted the refund from the contribution. I would rather have the transaction of my contribution and a separate transaction showing the refund on a different line but........

My residual does not get combined with the contribution. I'll have a look at my set up tomorrow and post back with any findings.

Rick56

My contribution goes into the ESPP account and shows as cash. The Oracle ESPP purchases come directly from the cash in the ESPP account. Until recently, this comingled in Quicken with the dividend and interest cash from Fidelity. I had Fidelity start reinvesting the dividends. I also created a "dummy" money market like account with the previous dividends accumulated at Fidelity and made a purchase to the dummy ($1 per share). That separates the Oracle cash from the Fidelity cash. Downside is that the totals on the ESPP account in Fidelity is off by the amount of cash Oracle holds outside of Fidelity and I have to perform a transfer when I get interest on the Fidelity cash to the dummy account. 6 of one, half dozen of another.........

mshiggins

Rick56 said:

I did that but did not notice before that rather than giving me a separate transaction for the refund, it subtracted the refund from the contribution. I would rather have the transaction of my contribution and a separate transaction showing the refund on a different line but........

I see I was incorrect. My ESPP residual does get combined with the ESPP contribution in my ESPP cash accumulation account even though they are separate split line items in the paycheck.


The only transactions in that account are the contributions in and the twice yearly transfer out to the Fidelity brokerage account to purchase the ESPPs, so the residual amount shows as the balance just prior to the combined residual-contribution transaction. So it's pretty obvious that the amounts were combined. Never occurred to me to be concerned about it.

Rick56

Rick56 said:

I did that but did not notice before that rather than giving me a separate transaction for the refund, it subtracted the refund from the contribution. I would rather have the transaction of my contribution and a separate transaction showing the refund on a different line but........

Thanks for the response. I am not sure that I am concerned about it other than a hit on my OCD. In any case, I have a couple of ways to compensate for that in my financial records.

mshiggins

Rick56 said:

I did that but did not notice before that rather than giving me a separate transaction for the refund, it subtracted the refund from the contribution. I would rather have the transaction of my contribution and a separate transaction showing the refund on a different line but........

Yeah, that OCD can hang you up big time ;-)