Removed shares transaction shows wrong investment amount

Randy

I downloaded my transactions from Vanguard, and among the transactions was a transfer of shares from one account to another. For the account where shares were reduced, the transaction has Action “Removed”, has Description “517.104 shares”, and has Inv. Amt “-5,953.50”. For the account where shares were increased, the transaction has Action “Added”, has Description “517.104 shares @ 12.57”, and has Inv. Amt “+6,500.00”. The latter transaction entry is correct, and the former has the wrong Inv. Amt. For the security transferred, the price history was wrong for the transaction date. (The correct price is 12.57 as is shown in the Added transaction.) I corrected the price in the price history dialog, and after that I tried to manually enter the transaction for the account with reduced shares, and what I got was an exact copy of the incorrectly recorded transaction.

I’m befuddled. Why doesn’t the “Removed” action dialog allow entry of the share price? How is it that the investment amount is wrong when the price history is correct (after my edit)?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Frankx

Hi @Randy

It is difficult to know exactly what went wrong with your entries, based on what you are saying. 

But it seems like you are somehow giving the incorrect data on the transactions that occurred, because the number of "Removed" shares (from one fund) is identical to the number of "Added" shares (in another fund).  In a pure transfer transaction, this can only be the case if the "per share value" of the fund from which the shares are transferred is identical to the "per share value" of the fund to which the shares are being transferred, which is highly unlikely.

In a "transfer" transaction within a mutual fund company like Vanguard the "amount" of each side of the transfer (i.e. the sell and the buy) should be equal - the number of shares and the per share price, will - in almost every transaction - not be equal.  I suggest that you take a close look at the transaction history in each Vanguard account to identify where the transactions do not match up with those in Quicken.

Frankx

q_lurker

Let's try to be clear about the real world first.  What type of 'transfers was this?  Too many possibilities for me to guess, so I won't.  

It sounds like you relied solely on Vanguard's downloaded actions.  Those may or may not have been truly correct.  I usually do not rely on the financial institution's downloads for such transactions.  

My common approach to transfer shares between Quicken accounts is to use the "Shares Transferred between Accounts" action via the Enter Transactions button.  That will generate the Remove Shares from the sending account and as many Add Shares in the receiving account as necessary to cover all lots that were transferred.  Cost basis and acquisition dates are thus maintained for the holdings.  

Using the Shares Transferred approach, the Remove and Add Shares transactions will reflect the original cost basis of the lots transferred in the transaction list.  By design, they do not use the market values at the tie of the transfer.  Some reports (when deemed proper) will show the transfer values as of the closing prices on the date of the transfer.  That particularly applies to the Investment Performance Report.

On what basis are you concluding that the Remove Shares value is 'wrong' as opposed to just being different from the Add Shares value? 

[Deleted User]

I have discovered that the "Removed Shares" function in Quicken is no longer adjusting the cost of the security properly. I understand what Randy is saying. The "Removed Shares" function did work correctly for my past transactions, so I am not sure when it "broke".

[Deleted User]

After some further investigating, it seems that the issue is specific to dollar par funds, but I am really not sure.