Adjusting Cost Basis

BikerBear

Hi Folks,

Ok, all set up in QMac20!

Regarding the cost basis for investments, is there a way to adjust them? When I linked QMac with my brokerage firm, none of the cost basis information displays correctly in QMac (the info is correct on my brokerage firm portal).

I seem to have discovered that because there are no "buy" orders for these investments (purchased thru a different brokerage firm, then transferred to current brokerage), QMac doesn't set the cost basis; even though it correctly displays on the brokerage firm's portal.

I'm not sure if I should simply enter the original "buy" transactions for each security/mutual fund in the portfolio transaction register..... don't want to corrupt the file by doing something silly.

I hope this make sense...???

Thanks in Advance!

Richard

BikerBear

Me again.... I have everything fixed now.... it was the "Add Shares" transactions that didn't have any total cost figures on the transaction. As soon as I entered that information, all reported correctly!

Thanks again for your assistance!

John_in_NC

Howdy, Richard:

No, there is no "Adjust Cost Basis" command-it will be calculated off all of your investment transactions. And if you are missing a cost for a single one (lot), it won't calculate the total. This, I think you have figured out. 

Yes, you can enter in all the previous transactions. That is what I did for my investment accounts, but I might have more OCD that other people do.

Alternatively, depending on whether you have Add transactions or Placeholders (more likely the latter-these are the light gray transactions at the beginning of the register), you can edit those transactions and they have a spot to enter the cost.

You might have to pull out a calculator to find out the difference to make the final cost match, but it is doable. The only thing is that you won't see the individual lots from those older transactions. That might not matter to you. It probably doesn't for most people.

jacobs

It's also worth noting that Quicken Mac does NOT support average cost basis -- only LIFO or FIFO -- even though I'm pretty sure more people use average cost for their brokerage accounts. I find this a significant shortcoming, as what Quicken shows to be my basis will never agree with the correct values shown by Vanguard because my accounts use average cost basis. If your brokerage accounts are all set up to use LIFO or FIFO, you can get Quicken to match; if not, you need to use the clauses provided by your brokerage account. 

BikerBear

Hey Guys.... Thanks so much for your feedback! I use FIFO versus average cost, but still need to check out how it is set up at my brokerage firm.

How would I go about fixing this, knowing that I use LIFO? I'm with you John, quite OCD about this sort of thing; I like to see that my borkerage firm & QMac20 match. I use the reports to give to my accountant at tax time, etc.

Thanks again!

BikerBear

Me again.... I have everything fixed now.... it was the "Add Shares" transactions that didn't have any total cost figures on the transaction. As soon as I entered that information, all reported correctly!

Thanks again for your assistance!

John_in_NC

Good. That is what I meant about pulling out the calculator to add the amount needed to either the Add Shares or Placeholder transaction.

If you do decide to add in older transactions to sate your OCD needs, you still can. You likely will have to adjust hat cost basis amount if you do so. But, at least you know what is going on and can figure it out.

Austin@

Somewhat related question... my cost basis is also not matching what my brokerage website says, as of the past couple of weeks when I was charged a fee. When my transactions downloaded into Quicken, there was a "Remove Shares" transaction in the amount of the deducted fees. Ever since then, the cost basis has been off roughly that amount, and if I delete the Remove Shares transaction, the cost basis is correct again. It was my understanding that Remove Shares transactions don't affect cash balance, which is what I though the cost basis was pulling from. Am I way off in my thinking?

FraFa

I think I have the same problem, before I had the Windows version of Quicken Deluxe and everything worked fine. The calculation of the average price was correct. In the Mac version, when buying a security, the price calculation is correct. But when you make a partial sale it is not the rule of the average price that is applied but FIFO or LIFO.... And this makes the average price wrong. That is a big problem. And that makes Quicken unusable for people who trade in Canada. I hope that there will be an update in order to correct this problem and allow us to choose how to process the information by ACB (average cost basis) or FIFO...

jacobs

@FraFa. Yes, this is what I noted higher up in this thread: for some reason, Quicken Mac uses only FIFO or LIFO, but does not offer Average Cost Basis. I know that's an issue for all Canadian users, and it's an issue for me and many US users who have mutual funds on an average cost basis (which is the default for many large brokerages).

If FIFO works for you, you can select that in the account setup window.

If you need ACB, like I do, then Quicken won't calculate your gain/loss correctly. I don't find this makes Quicken "unusable"; I still use it to track all my investments, but I know that at tax time, I must rely on my brokerage for tax reporting, not Quicken.

What's crazy is that Quicken does calculate the Average Cost per Share: it's a column you can display in the Portfolio Value view. But there's no way to direct Quicken to use that valuation when selling shares. 

I have been trying to encourage users who want to see this functionality added to vote for the enhancement Idea request which you can find here. I'm surprised that this Idea request has garnered only 34 votes; I would think that if all Canadian users, as well as US users who use ACB for mutual funds, voted for this idea, it would have many more votes. 

PeterHoltan

The ability to easily adjust the cost basis of a particular tax lot would be super useful for when I need to correct my cost basis due to option exercise or assignment. It would also be helpful for when I need to adjust my cost basis due to a wash sale. I know there are work arounds, but they're clumsy and involve too many steps.