What are the different ways to report investment fees?

Roland@

Hello,

I have a few accounts that will periodically sell shares to cover asset fees. Through searching this site and my own experimentation, I've identified the following ways to record these transactions. Can someone help me understand the differences and benefits to one over the other? Here's what I've gathered so far:

- Removed Shares transaction. The easiest, but seems to mess up IRR reporting
- Sell shares with an empty price. Also easy, IRR reporting is correct, price history doesn't get messed up, but apparently can't see the 'cost' of these removed shares anywhere
- Sell shares with total price, and...
- offset total price in commission field. somewhat easy
- or, add a separate MiscExp transaction. extra work, where's the payoff?
- both above options may mess up price history

Are there others? Which is the best? What ends up being 'wrong' with the others?

Thanks

bmciance

in my account the transactions are downloaded and come in as a share sale and corresponding miscexp. I would think this is how you should record it as it reflects what is actually happening.  Is that the activity that you see online or on your statement?

Jim_Harman

Also if you use the Sell and MiscExp approach, with a recent enhancement to Quicken, you can decide whether or not the fees should cause a drag on performance in Quicken's IRR calculations.

Set up a special Category for the fees, and if you want the fees to show as a drag on performance, go to the Category List, edit the Category, and tick the newly added  "Affects investment performance" box.

In the MiscExp, assign the fees to this Category and if the box is ticked, the fees will reduce the account level performance accordingly.

Roland@

The transactions download as simple Removed Shares transactions. My goal is to 'fix' it with the simplest approach possible.

How does the MiscExp approach differ from the offsetting Commission/Fee approach? Surely the latter 'affects investment performance'.