My cost basis is messed up

Question

Cost basis is messed up in many securities.  I just need a simple way to enter the correct avg cost basis without needing to edit every transaction.

Tom Young · Accepted Answer

Generally "average cost" is not an acceptable method for valuing securities for tax purposes except for mutual funds, so you may want to actually correct your accounting transactions.
But if you're content to simply have "X" number of shares at an average cost of "Y", assuming that you know those two unknowns, do a "Remove" action to eliminate all shares of each security, then do an "Add" action, entering "X" and "Y" as appropriate.

Jim_Harman · Accepted Answer

To build on Tom's answer, you should also enter date Z in the Date acquired for the Added transactions, which will set the date for the tax lot and thus determine whether your gains or losses are long or short term.

If you use this technique, you can help make Quicken's performance measures more accurate by setting the date for the Removed and Added transactions to the same date.
 
Back up your data file first, in case the results are not what you expected.