Can't we have 4 Lot Identification default choices? (+6 Merged Votes)

JoeG

There was talk last January about an update that added default Lot Identification choices. There are 4 Lot ID choices; First In, Last In, Minimum Gain and Maximum Gain. Yet there are only 2 default choices; First In and Last In. Let's finish the job!

Jim_Harman

And the choices should be worded the same as in the Specify Lots Sold dialog:
First Shares In
Last Shares In
Minimum Gain
Maximum Gain

Currently the first choice is "Quicken Default (First shares in for Equities)" which is confusing - the choice is for all securities, not just equities, and when making this selection it is not helpful to know that this is the default in the Specify Lots Sold dialog.

RedCab

I agree completely!! For me, "minimum gain" is my default behavior.

NotACPA

I'll mention that if you DON'T specify exact lots to your broker when selling ... the brokerage is almost certain to select First In, First Out (AKA, FIFO) for all securities being sold.

Bahamas811

Quicken currently only allows you to specify a First In/First Out or Last In/First Out default for investment transaction downloads. This is not very helpful. Users should be able to specify "Minimum Gain" or "Maximum Gain" as a default. The download and accepting process becomes very tedious for dozens of transactions since this functionality is not present.

UKR

Just for reference ... this is where these settings are made, individually by account:

Everyone, including the person who initiated this discussion …
If you would like to see this enhancement made in a future version of Quicken please don't forget to vote on it. Locate the big blue box near the top of this webpage (or page 1 for long discussions) and click the "Up" triangle under the voting count.

Wait a moment for the vote count to be registered and updated before you continue.
The little triangle changes from grey to black when you have registered your vote.
Adding extra comments helps, but does not automatically increment the vote count.

Every vote counts!

For additional information about idea posts please read  https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7849425/creating-and-voting-for-ideas-in-the-community#latest

Bahamas811

Thank you for your response, but you clearly did not read my comment. As I stated, Quicken allows you to specify either First In/First Out or Last In/First Out as the default share allocation, but it does not allow you to specify Minimum Gain or Maximum Gain. This creates a large problem when you have dozens of transactions to download and accept since you have to manually specify the lots for each and every trade. Please vote for my comment/suggestion.

RedCab

nothing new on this? The lack of this feature costs me about an hour a month and a sore wrist from a lot of clicking through. I have a managed account that always sells lots chosen for minimum gain. I have to go thru them one by one...
click accept
click specify lots
click minimum gain
click ok
wait

rinse and repeat...

RedCab

totally agree... it takes 4 clicks on every transaction to manually specify the lots to achieve minimum gain (or max gain if that's of your interest). 25 transactions? That's 100 clicks. Please add this.

DRHayes

[Removed - Unhelpful] This has been an issue for a long time. Should be able to select minimum gain to be the automatic default. A lot of time is being wasted having to specify this for each transaction. Sometimes a single sale of 100 shares is split into as many as 10 transactions. Perhaps there could be an additional button that you could select instead of the tedious "Accept", then "specify method", then "minimum gain", then wait 5 seconds while the assignment and screen update occurs.
[Removed - Unhelpful]

pmas

I agree, It is painful downloading and accepting sold tranactions from Fidelity. Minimum gain is their default.

NotACPA

pmas said:

I agree, It is painful downloading and accepting sold tranactions from Fidelity. Minimum gain is their default.

Unlikely.  FIFO is the default in the brokerage industry unless the customer specifies otherwise at the time of sale.

BTW, I'm a Fidelity client also, and have confirmed this with my "Private Client" advisor.

RedCab

Agree with all. Needs automation. This is why we pay for subscriptions... please add this basic capability. At a minimum make the selection of 1 of the 4 strategies part of the first pop up asking if you want to identify lots. That will cut the mouse clicks by half.

tchalupny

I have several managed accounts at JP Morgan and these generate a lot of transactions and default is Minimum Gain as they do loss realization for tax benefits. I waste A LOT of time having to identify lots and selecting Minimum Gain for each lot. There can be several hundred sell transactions to select lots for in just a month. We really need to have all lot section options to pick from as default for an account setup for transaction download. Not having this feature is probably my biggest frustration and complaint with Quicken. PLEASE update Quicken to allow additional lot selection options for transaction downloads settings.

JM2008

Please add this functionality. We need to be able to select Minimum Gain category for lot identification in the automated settings. It takes HOURS to do this one by one.

JM2008

Please, Please add this functionality. It takes hours to do manually every month. FIFO and LIFO are choices, please make minimum gain an option too.

lpreinhold

I agree with all of the above. I have a lot of different taxable investment accounts and all of them are set by the money managers to be minimum gain (sometimes called highest in, first out "HIFO") by the brokerages. I should be able to set this as the default quicken setting for my taxable accounts. The FIFO setting is fine for retirement accounts since basis does not matter.

Rocket J Squirrel

There is another factor to consider. Minimum Gain (Highest Cost Basis) might not be the most tax-efficient choice. Minimum Gain might include short-term lots when your intent is to sell long-term lots.

Morgan Stanley somewhat recently added a new choice, Minimum Tax. I think this is what we really want.

lpreinhold

Yes, I use several platforms, one of which is Merrill Lynch who also has something called Best Tax Lots which supposedly takes into consideration your goals for a year. I would like Quicken to start with the basics, like HIFO (or Highest Cost in MS terminology) and then they could think about more advanced tax strategies.

hdesai

It is painful to accept and specify the minimum gain manually. I ended up writing RPA bot using Automation Anywhere to automate accepting the lot with minimum gains.

RPaul

I would add that there should be an option to set an account to default for Average Cost.

In a retirement account, eg Roth, it doesn't matter what the cost basis is, but yet every downloaded sale transaction (individual stocks) requires me to select Average Cost or Lot Identification. This takes anywhere from 1-2 minutes per transaction.

In addition, I have experienced cases where selecting Average Cost brings up a pop-up about switching cost basis methods, and this will take several minutes for Quicken to recalculate the entire cost basis for the stock position.

Quite annoying!!!