Support corporate acquisitions/mergers and divestitures/spin-offs in Quicken (Mac) (4 Merged Votes)

PMOb

Totally agree. Seems like they’re more interested in making the program look pretty but not in making it actually useful, especially in tracking transactions required to be tracked for tax reporting purposes. If there is a manual way to adjust share values and holdings to report a corporate spinoff or merger, and the fact that the windows version has had this ability for years, it should be a relatively easy thing for a programmer to program this function into quicken for Mac.

PMOb

I’m beginning to wonder if anybody from quicken actually reads these. There have been several updates to the application since October 2022, but nothing really useful for tracking investments; mostly cosmetics.

Ramias

this would be a very useful feature.

Richard Kennedy

A very needed feature that needs to be prioritized.

jacobs

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20344134#Comment_20344134

Yes, they definitely read them. They just don't have the capacity to act on all the requests. Exactly how they determine their priorities is something we're never privvy to. Has this not gotten acted on yet because they think it affects only a small percentage f the user base? Because it's a big coding project which would take a lot of time away from other priorities? We just don't know.

Dr_B

I would like to thank @jz for the very helpful example posted on page 1 (aug 2020). I found it a very helpful workaround.

Quicken really should prioritize restoring this very important feature (spinoffs, mergers) that was available in Quicken Mac 2007 but was lost since then. The required algebra and coding in an ordinary procedural language appear trivial to me - is it harder to implement in sqlite or whatever db engine is being used?

I’ve had a GE dividend reinvestment account for over 30 years, I’d hate to have to manually manipulate all the lots in that with the spinoff of GE Healthcare.

MicroRay

Come on Quicken…this seems like a no-brainer.

Please add support Mergers and Aquisitions and Spin Offs!! Windows has, why not add it to the Mac version?!?!?

brad@roscoe.cc

I have just wasted hours trying to figure out how to take care of the GEHC spinoff. The recommendations at this site do not work. THe spin-off transaction does not work. Easy work around would be able to directly change the basis cost in specific lots, but that is not possible. WHy am I paying a yearly fee for quicken if they cannot even get something simple like this to work

Sandy Kraft

I concur with the suggestion that a more automated way to handle a spin-off is needed. As I reinvested dividends (rethinking that now that I see how painful it is to track), this means that for each spin-off, I have to manually make an entry for each lot. For just one stock (GE), they have had two spin-offs since 2015. I hate to envision what the other stocks in my portfolio may have done. At this point, it's debatable whether this is worth my time. I wish I realized how manual/time-consuming it was going to be before starting this process.

cdalmeida

Another vote for the spin-off functionality for Quicken for MAC.

cdalmeida

I was reviewing the WBD spin-off from ATT and what I did in Quicken Mac was:

• A- recorded a return of capital on my T shares in the amount that the broker reduced my cost basis
• B- recorded a Buy transaction for the new WBD shares received in the amount that the broker assigned to the new shares received
• C - recorded the sale of any residual shares as reported by the broker
• A = B + C

Randy Chevrier

FOUR YEARS after this request was posted on this new board and we seem to be no closer to regaining many of the investment features we had in Quicken for Mac 2007. Oh, it's prettier but far less functional.

My frustration with current status is that there's no one at Quicken that even knows what QM2007 could do. We have other features (QuickMath anyone?) that we've requested that needed explaining to current staff because they can't even launch a copy of QM2007 to see what it can do. (If you find a copy, and an old machine, click on a security in your portfolio view and prepare to be amazed and the graph of that individual security; very helpful!)

So the logic to do these things was in a program that Quicken owns and should have access to and could use as a template for programing. Based on the actions of QM2007, the process for a merger, spinoff, etc. resulted in multiple entries that affected the transaction. It was almost like it used AppleScript to take user data and enter the corresponding entries. I'd think that project could get done much easier that the Quicken staff thinks.

As is I'm spending annually for a product that, as a whole, does less than the 2007 program did but does it with a pretty dashboard. (sigh)

Peter Lafferty

Are they working on being able to do Spinoffs?

Bob Togie

This is a critical feature if you are going to market this application as handling investments. It is table stakes. Please prioritize this feature. It will save your users time, errors, and frustration. Otherwise it needs to be described as limited functionality.

Bob Togie

This would work except the acquisition date of the spin off shares would be wrong and would impact LT or ST capital gains when you sell. You can use the add shares transaction, use the basis that you calculated in A, and then change the acquisition date to the original date of your purchase of the parent company.

ruthreeve

I am disappointed that quicken (mac) has no way to do a spin-off. I am not sure what I will end up doing. I have used quicken (win) for years, no issue. Maybe I should not use the Mac version? I hope quicken will figure out how to add spin-off soon? Has it really been three years?

DolphMason

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7855454/support-corporate-acquisitions-mergers-and-divestitures-spin-offs-in-quicken-mac-4-merged-votes

Still an issue today. I had BKCC ⇒ TCPC merger and have to manually do a work around, as others have mentioned. But my cost basis is now off.

jjsmjr

In Quicken Classic Deluxe for Mac, has anyone come up with a way to adjust the cost basis of a stock downward to reflect a spin off?

Susan Allen

MMM spun off Solventum. MMM shares don't change. When I try to just enter the Solventum shares as "added" Quicken goes back and adds in a bunch of weird transactions to add unrealized gains for both MMM and SOLV. These are duplicates for dividends already paid in 2022 and 2023. How can I get Quicken to stop putting in these weird transactions that have no basis in reality and are not coming from my broker?

I think I'll just add the Solventum shares and not mention the spin off part? Not sure what this will do to the tax implications if I ever sell any of these, but I'm a buy and hold person.

Peter Lafferty

How do you enter a corporate spinoff in Quicken Clasic Premier for Mac?

Quicken Anja

Hello @Peter Lafferty,

Your idea has been merged into this already active Idea thread regarding the same request which also contains a lot of useful information for you.

Thank you!

Randy Chevrier

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20389399#Comment_20389399

We have been given no indication that it’s even on the list for consideration. It’s evidently an “idea thread” for us users to discuss and lament over, but nothing else.

If I’m wrong, surely a Quicken rep will respond here to correct me.

jacobs

@Randy Chevrier I'm a fellow Quicken user, not a Quicken rep, but I can clarify how "Idea" threads work. These are the official mechanism for users to request new/improved features in the program. When an Idea topic passes a critical mass threshold, it gets sent to the developers and is marked as "Under Consideration". The developers then consider whether they think the idea has merit and fits with the program. Then they undertake a process to estimate how much time will be needed to design, code and test the feature. They also look at whether the change in one area would impact other areas of the program, or if there are multiple proposed changes in the same section of code which should be done in concert. They also evaluate who on the development team is needed (e.g. changing the database and building/modifying database queries, connectivity issues, user interface architecture, printing architecture, etc.). That analysis allows them to then look for a spot on their development calendar to schedule the work to be done. Only then do we see an Idea's status change from "Under Consideration" to "Planned".

Unfortunately, many Ideas languish in this "Under Consideration" state for a long time, like planes at an airport which have pushed back from the gate but have to wait to be scheduled onto a taxiway and runway. If the developers had decided it was a bad idea or outside the scope of what they planned to tackle, they would mark it "Not Planned." But "Under Consideration" can mean the work needed is still being analyzed, or more frequently, that there are other things filling the upcoming calendar and they don't yet have a time slot to schedule the work to be done.

This process can feel painful for us as users, because it can feel like nothing's happening (possibly true) and that nothing will ever happen (probably not true). It's just a reality that the Quicken program is actually quite complex, and that the Mac development team is quite small. Some of the most recent features released were in "Under Consideration" limbo for years before they were marked "Planned" and were finally just released. Last fall, the developers marked a fairly significant number of ideas related to planning and budgets as "Planned", and until those are completed and released, they likely aren't scheduling more features.

As we can see looking over the release notes over the past months and years, the developers are listening and are implementing features users have been asking for. The problem is that among all of us Quicken Mac users, there's little unanimity about the absolute priority rank of the many feature requests. The developers have to decide how many people they think a particular issue will affect, how big the affect is (e.g. does it make it easier to do something, or does it make it possible to do something which is currently impossible?) and how to parse their time (e.g. is it better to spend four months working on one big feature or tackle 6 smaller features requests in the same time?).

The lack of action so far on a mergers/spinoff feature is a bit of a head-scratcher for me, as it's a pretty fundamental issue in managing investments, presumably touches a significant number of users, is a feature which exists in the Windows version, and has no easy work-around. I would have thought this would have risen to the top of the list by now. But there are other fundamental investment features missing, such as being able to use average cost basis (or other cost bases than LIFO and FIFO). My guess is that they're waiting to tackle a bundle of investment feature requests together. If 2024 is the year of planning tools, maybe 2025 will be the year of investment tools?

I understand it's frustrating to wait year after year for a feature like this. It's a reality that there is more demand for enhancements than the development team can supply. I have no doubt they'll get to it eventually, but is that 6 months from now, 2 years from now, or longer? We don't know, and they don't provide any insight to guide our expectations.

DolphMason

@jacobs Your comments in the second to last paragraph illustrate the point. This particular feature exists. Why it can't be implemented for Mac is baffling to me (not an IT guy). And it has been brought up multiple times in the past. Exceptionally frustrating.

jacobs

@jacobs Your comments in the second to last paragraph illustrate the point. This particular feature exists. Why it can't be implemented for Mac is baffling to me (not an IT guy). And it has been brought up multiple times in the past. Exceptionally frustrating.

And the rest of my post tries to explain. It's not that "it can't be implemented for Mac" — it's that building this feature is competing with all the other feature ideas for the limited bandwidth of the development team. There are dozens, probably hundreds of features which exist in Quicken Windows which haven't yet been built for Quicken Mac. It would be great if they could snap their fingers and bring those features into existence, but each one needs to be built, and that will continue to take time. Looking backward, it's impressive to see how much Quicken Mac has improved and rounded out over what is now nearly a decade since it debuted; but here in the present, it's always frustrating that a strongly desired feature doesn't yet exist.

For this specific feature, we have no way of knowing if they have it slated to be part of a group of investment feature requests they plan to address at some unspecified future time, but that's my guess why it's still on hold. If there's a silver lining to be found, it's that this Idea thread has now reached 150 votes, which puts it in the top 10% of all Quicken Mac Idea threads. While that guarantees nothing, as some of the top voted Ideas get implemented, it those which remain are much more likely to move into position to get development attention.

Dr_B

Regarding the Solventum spinoff from MMM, following cdalmeida's post above can I simply:

1. Enter a return of capital using the percentages from the form 8937 data (15.52% to SOLV)
2. Use ADD shares to enter the shares spun off into SOLV with the opportunity to use the correct acquisition date (same as the original 3M shares). [Using BUY results incorrectly in a ST rather than LT capital gain for the cash in lieu of fractional shares)
3. Sell the fractional shares to reflect the actual cash received in my account as a result of the spinoff
4. Enter an uncategorized 'payment' as a balance adjustment to remove the return of capital cash amount.

This seems to produce correct accounting results but I really would prefer to find an alternative to the uncategorized balance adjustment hack.

NeonLeon

If having a lot of users requesting a particular enhancement increases the likelihood of its roll-out, then add me to the "posting spin-offs functionality in Quicken for Mac" list.

jacobs

@NeonLeon In addition to your comment, it's also important that you add your actual vote for this Idea. If you haven't previously done so, click the "1" icon just below this post, to take you to the first page of the thread. Scroll down a little until you see the yellow box. Under the vote counter, if the up arrow is black, click it to add your vote. (If it is light gray, it means you already voted for the Idea.)

rwxx

I used the old classic Mac Quicken back in the day and eventually moved to Banktivity. I've now moved back to Quicken and I'm totally shocked that this very essential feature isn't available. Maybe I should cancel my Quicken subscription before the 30 day money back guarantee expires and stick with Banktivity?

jacobs

@rwxx It's an unfortunate reality that there are many features not yet built in Quicken Mac, despite more than a decade of slow-but-steady development. This is one that surprises me, too, for being on the waitlist for so long. The small Quicken Mac development team has many more requests for features than they can get to, so as much as they do accomplish, there are many omissions users point to and complain about.

Maybe I should cancel my Quicken subscription before the 30 day money back guarantee expires and stick with Banktivity?

If you determine this particular feature is critical enough for your usage that Quicken Mac isn't suitable for your needs, perhaps you should cancel your subscription while you can still get a refund. I believe this functionality will be added to Quicken Mac at some point, but no one here can tell you where it lies on the development team's priority list and when it will be delivered.