I am utterly confused by how I should be handling Reinvested Dividends in Investment and Retirement

f_stopblues

These past couple of weeks, I have been trying to figure out the best way to handle reinvested dividends. When the reinvested dividends automatically get transferred into my investment account, it comes in as Action: Div, and then an associated Action: Bought after that. However, I would much rather like to categorize this Bought as a Action: ReinvDiv instead. This way, when looking at my investing module, I can see how much of the current market value is made up of Reinvested Dividends, vs how much the original investment was.

The problem with this is, A ReinDiv does not draw down the Cash Balance, and the Action: Div brings up the Cash balance. I was thinking about deleting the Action: Div associated with the reinvested dividends, but then I would not be able to see how much YTD _DivInc I have for tax planning purposes. Is there a way for ReinDiv to be drawing down from the Cash from the account?

EDIT: Actually, nevermind. I just realized that for the action ReinDiv, it would be classified as _DivInc still, so I think I will classify all Reinvested Dividends as ReinDiv and delete the corresponding DIV action

q_lurker

You got to the right answer for what you wanted -- replace a Div + Bought with a ReinvDiv.  

But be aware of the long-term aspects of the Amount Invested & Amount Reinvested values.  If you convert the existing shares to another investment class, another investment or other similar changes, you will lose that distinction.  If you sell shares fewer than all the shares, the Amounts will not decrease.  I do not place much value in the Amount Invested and Amount Reinvested parameters.  YMMV.