How can I enter a cost basis for a stock in my portfolio?

biancapur@

I recently inherited some stocks and I need to change the cost basis in my Quicken file but cannot find any way of entering a number. I downloaded the portfolio from the brokerage but no cost basis came through. Thank you.

jr7107

An Add Shares transaction should get you there. Do you have lot information?

Jim_Harman

When you downloaded the portfolio, what transactions were recorded in Quicken to put the inherited stocks in your account?

If you received the stocks "in kind", i.e. the stocks were transferred directly to your account and not cash which was used to purchase stocks, you should see "Added" transactions that put the stocks in your account. You can edit those transactions to set the acquisition date and cost basis (usually the value as of the date of death)

Consult your tax advisor.

If there are Placeholders in your account for these securities, post back for more info.

jr7107

An Add Shares transaction should get you there. Do you have lot information?

Jim_Harman

When you downloaded the portfolio, what transactions were recorded in Quicken to put the inherited stocks in your account?

If you received the stocks "in kind", i.e. the stocks were transferred directly to your account and not cash which was used to purchase stocks, you should see "Added" transactions that put the stocks in your account. You can edit those transactions to set the acquisition date and cost basis (usually the value as of the date of death)

Consult your tax advisor.

If there are Placeholders in your account for these securities, post back for more info.

biancapur@

Oh wow, thank you! I had downloaded the stocks directly from the brokerage, and the cost basis was blank. Since it was easy enough to find the historical closing prices, I just deleted all the downloaded transactions and then re-
entered them all by hand, using the "Add shares" transaction as you suggested, and now everything is perfect. Thank you!

biancapur@

It was a complicated mess of stocks in an IRA that we had to distribute and transfer from one brokerage to another (after opening inherited IRA accounts), and that all business worked out perfectly in the end. It was just that in my Quicken portfolio, the downloaded transactions never had a cost basis and I couldn't figure out how to enter that number. But deleting the downloaded transactions and then just re-entering them by hand worked. Thank you both!