Support corporate acquisitions/mergers and divestitures/spin-offs in Quicken (Mac) (4 Merged Votes)
M C Crockett
Member ✭✭✭
The Capital Gains/Losses reported by Quicken (Mac) in its Tax Schedule Report and investment account Portfolio pages are incorrect. This is the result of not supporting the Corporate Acquisition (Merger) and Corporate Divestiture (Spin Off, Split Off) investment transactions that have been present in Quicken (Win) for years.
As an example, Dow and DuPont merged last year to form DowDuPont. As a result of Quicken (Mac) not supporting corporate acquisitions and the OFX Specification not providing a way for a brokerage to report the merger that would preserve existing lots and adjust their cost basis, I have lost all information about my prior holdings. This also changes my holdings from long term to short term.
This year DowDupont spun off new Dow and Corteva businesses and renamed DowDupont to DuPont. Information regarding the 12 lots and their cost basis that I now hold in each of these businesses has disappeared from Quicken due to the lack of support for corporate acquisitions and divestitures.
I know that the absence of support for corporate acquisition and divestiture transactions is not an issue for Quicken users that invest only in mutual funds. However, there are "Old Fogies" like me that still buy and sell individual stocks that need support for these transactions.
I will grant that without support for corporate acquisition and divestiture transactions does accurately report investment account balances. The Tax Schedule Report, however, is totally useless without support for the transactions.
When will support for corporate acquisitions and divestitures be available in Quicken (Mac)?
As an example, Dow and DuPont merged last year to form DowDuPont. As a result of Quicken (Mac) not supporting corporate acquisitions and the OFX Specification not providing a way for a brokerage to report the merger that would preserve existing lots and adjust their cost basis, I have lost all information about my prior holdings. This also changes my holdings from long term to short term.
This year DowDupont spun off new Dow and Corteva businesses and renamed DowDupont to DuPont. Information regarding the 12 lots and their cost basis that I now hold in each of these businesses has disappeared from Quicken due to the lack of support for corporate acquisitions and divestitures.
I know that the absence of support for corporate acquisition and divestiture transactions is not an issue for Quicken users that invest only in mutual funds. However, there are "Old Fogies" like me that still buy and sell individual stocks that need support for these transactions.
I will grant that without support for corporate acquisition and divestiture transactions does accurately report investment account balances. The Tax Schedule Report, however, is totally useless without support for the transactions.
When will support for corporate acquisitions and divestitures be available in Quicken (Mac)?
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Comments
I reiterated that this is a pretty basic function and this capability should be incorporated into a future Quicken Mac version. (Support suggested that I submit this feature request via the Quicken Community...)
I bemoan this limitation today as I had to deal with a spin off in one of my Stocks. There was no option to select Spin off under actions so I had to do the manual thing.
I downloaded the transaction from the Fi , in my case WFA, the transaction with the security name change worked but was unable to recapture any cost basis info. What I decided to do in order to maintain the Cost basis for each lot was to update the name of the previous security to the new one. This maintained the cost basis info in the portfolio view but alas all the lots in the register understandably now show the new security. I made a note under the Account setting showing the dates of the original lots & the date when the new Stock began trading.
This is one of those few instances where a placeholder showing up might have provided an opportunity to enter the lots manually, but not sure if it would have impacted the original security history in the register.
Any way that is my short opine for the day.
The product should be platform agnostic now, it /is/ 2020 you know.
"Feature parity" is, but certainly Quicken Mac was designed to run on a Mac and only a Mac.
And it is impossible to run Quicken Windows on a Mac because the old third party software it uses for its database and such isn't available on the Mac.
And if the original design goal was to create an "Quicken to replace them all", that would be even farther back in getting new features because it is harder to make an application that runs on multiple platforms.
Currently, I use "Add Shares" and "Remove Shares" to handle these types of events. For all of these events, I first use a single transaction to remove all my holdings in the original investment.
- if there is only a single new investment remaining: I add shares of the new investment to preserve my cost basis: I specify the date acquired and cost of the original investment but with the corresponding number of shares in the new investment. I add shares separately for each lot of the original investment.
- if the the event ends with are are multiple investments outstanding: I add shares of the new and/or old investments to preserve my cost basis. I allocate the original cost basis proportionally to each of the remaining investments. I add shares for each original lot for each investment outstanding: I specify specify the date acquired, the proportion of the original cost, and the corresponding number of outstanding investment shares. This even works for spin offs: you add back the original investment but with a reduced cost basis; the remainder of the cost basis goes to the spin off investments..
This approach is a nightmare if you use dollar cost averaging, employee stock purchase plan, dividend reinvestment, or you rebalance your portfolio regularly. You can easily end up with dozens of lots of the same investment. Quicken provides absolutely no help allocating the cost basis or number of shares to a particular transaction. I see mergers and spinoffs in my investments a couple times a year and they take an inordinate amount of my time to handle. Please give me some help here.
There is some precedent: Quicken for Mac already handles multiple lots when transferring an investment from one account to another. A similar approach would be great for mergers/spinoffs. The user could enter the before and after investments and the corresponding share ratios, quicken would handle the different lots and the allocations.
I pay yearly for Quicken Premier for Mac. Investment tracking and analysis is a key feature to me (there are plenty of other packages out there that will handle banking). I much prefer Quicken for Mac over Quicken for Windows; its far easier to use. It's sad that Quicken for Windows can handle this type of transaction but Quicken for Mac cannot. This lack is one of the reasons I cannot whole heartedly recommend quicken for Mac to other investors.
"I add shares of the new investment to preserve my cost basis: I specify the date acquired and cost of the original investment but with the corresponding number of shares in the new investment. I add shares separately for each lot of the original investment.
- if the the event ends with are are multiple investments outstanding: I add shares of the new and/or old investments to preserve my cost basis. I allocate the original cost basis proportionally to each of the remaining investments. I add shares for each original lot for each investment outstanding: I specify specify the date acquired, the proportion of the original cost, and the corresponding number of outstanding investment shares. This even works for spin offs: you add back the original investment but with a reduced cost basis; the remainder of the cost basis goes to the spin off investments.."
I'd love to try it, but I'm having a hard time following it. Would you mind posting an example using simple numbers? Like if the Acquired Fund is $2/share and Acquiring Fund is $3/share. And what about reinvested dividends over the time you owned the asset?
Thank you!
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> I'd love to try it, but I'm having a hard time following it. Would you mind posting an example using simple numbers? Like if the Acquired Fund is $2/share and Acquiring Fund is $3/share. And what about reinvested dividends over the time you owned the asset?
Unless Corporate Acquisition (Merger) and Corporate Divestiture (Spin Off, Split Off) investment transactions are manually entered, Capital Gains/Losses reported by Quicken (Mac) in its Tax Schedule Report and investment account Portfolio pages will be incorrect.
This example shows how to enter merger transactions in Quicken for MAC and preserve cost basis and lot information for investments. It can be adapted to other transaction types. The example takes advantage of the the “transfer” transaction built into quicken to minimize typing and hand calculation. This greatly simplifies data entry and minimizes mistakes.
Quicken for Windows has support for merger and divestiture transactions built in. Based on experience with the Quicken for Mac Investment “transfer” function, it shouldn’t be a big stretch to provide comparable function for the Mac.
Meanwhile, the procedure in this example should facilitate correctly entry of merger and divestiture transactions as quickly and efficiently as possible.