How do I enter a negative amount for a dividend. The minus sign doesn't work anymore

Stephen Fisher

At year end for. many of my securities I have to enter a negative amount for a dividend.  I have the subscription version of QM, up-to-date.  In past years I just enter a dividend with a minus sign. No prob.  

This year, the data entry screen will not accept the a minus in front of the number. It always displays a positive number (or a zero). This is a big deal for me because I have many REITS and partnerships where I have to reverse the annual dividends, once I receive y/e info that they were really ROC or CapGains or foreign income. Does anyone know a workaround?

Simply erasing all the earlier entries is not feasible for many reasons.  I should just be able to enter one negative number once to reverse that portion of the dividends entered that are not really dividends. 

The same difficulty applies with reversing accrued interest on January 1st which one has to do to bring the cash back to the correct amount after the J/E for accrued interest.  But this is not as big a problem because there is just one transaction to deal with instead of 12 with monthly dividends x the number of REITS in the portfolio. 

J_Mike

Yes, QMac will not accept negative values for dividends.

My work-around is;
Create a new expense category - e.g., Inv Exp Misc with subcategory Dividends.
Assign the regular dividend tax line item (Schedule BLDividend income).

To record in the register - under Type, select Miscellaneous Expense.
For category, use the above new category (Inv Exp Misc:Dividends
Enter the Amount - a positive number.
The register entry will display the amount as a "Cash Out".

The entry will properly show as a debit to dividends in the Tax Schedule Report.

Stephen Fisher

J_Mike said:

Yes, QMac will not accept negative values for dividends.

My work-around is;
Create a new expense category - e.g., Inv Exp Misc with subcategory Dividends.
Assign the regular dividend tax line item (Schedule BLDividend income).

To record in the register - under Type, select Miscellaneous Expense.
For category, use the above new category (Inv Exp Misc:Dividends
Enter the Amount - a positive number.
The register entry will display the amount as a "Cash Out".

The entry will properly show as a debit to dividends in the Tax Schedule Report.

Thanks for your response.  I don't assign tax line items items.  And anyway I'm in Canada. But it looks like it could work even omitting that step. Which still begs the. question why would Quicken remove a feature which was available since the 80s? And which I used as recently as last tax season.

I'll report back after trying this

Stephen Fisher

It worked pretty darn well.  For a Category report if I choose the new expense category and Dividend Income as the two Categories, I get the correct cash total which is good. For an Income report of course  the dividends are not negated. I guess that's why they call it a workaround. 

I delved into the Tax reports.  The Dividend Income here in Canada is reported as Schedule 4, line 120 so I chose that as the Tax category for the new Inv Exp. At first the new expense did not appear on the Tax Schedule report.  But that was user error. Being new it was not checked off to be included in the tax report.  I checked the box and the negative entry came up right under the 12 dividends reported for that security last year.

Not ideal that Quicken is so obtuse, but thanks for a useful workaround.

Stephen Fisher

What I will do for future years is use a custom income category for these distributions I receive each month.  Such as for eg "Tax paid dividends" for these sums.  Then hopefully Quicken will permit me to use a negative number to reverse them.  

Well I just tried that. Q will let me create Misc Incomes in the Category window but will not recognize them for purposes of date entry in the Investment accounts. That is shameful. 

I'm really angry with Quicken for exerting so much control on what I am allowed to do.  I had entered negative divvies since DOS versions in the early mid-80s.

Stephen Fisher

Above not quite correct.  You can enter misc income or misc expense.  You can't reverse them. 

NotACPA

@Stephen Fisher, please help me to understand the situation.  WHY do you need to report a "negative dividend".  Do they take money back?  I've not heard of such in the US.

OR, is this merely a recharacterization of a prior dividend, for which the proper procedure would be to edit that prior dividend and split it to reflect the info provided at Year-end.

Stephen Fisher

NotACPA.  When I receive monthly distributions on REITS or Partnerships during the year I have to enter a category.  Whether I use the "Dividend" Category, or a custom one which I make up, such as "Trust Distribution" or "Tax Paid Div " or whatever, I need to be able to reverse it after year end when I receive the statements from the issuer telling me what part of this income is Capgains, ROC, business income, eligible dividend etc.  I have been doing this with various versions of Q since ~1985 for DOS(!).  Suddenly in 2019 negative income is not permitted to reverse the entry, no matter what Category name I chose. 

CPAs reverse entries all the time.  This is not such an exotic idea.  I also need to reverse accrued interest on bonds to bring cash back to the correct amount.  That is standard accounting practice.

Short answer: you are right it is a recategorization.  But one that Q has always permitted me to do in the past. And I have not found a completely effective workaround.  And editing 12 payments per year x the score of REITS I hold is not appealing. And the arithmetic would be really hard too. 

MikeChicagoIL

Please see my separate post today on the same topic with subject "Allowing Negative Dividend Entries."  Sorry I didn't look/post it here. Mike