How can I get my stock splits to be correct when Quicken won't let me do it?

Whirly

I asked this question before and it was never answered by the question was closed. So I will try again.
I have Quicken Canada subscription. I enter stock splits as they occur based on information from the company and the result agrees with my statements. Quicken tries to tell me to adjust my stock splits almost everytime I do an UpDate. The suggested stock splits are wrong and while I clear the check marks, they keep showing up. Is there a way to turn them off permanently? This is a real pain to see these pop up every time. The dialogue box implies that I can reject them, which I do, but it should be permanent, not a daily occurrence. This is a bug that existed years ago and is still not fixed. The HELP says that I can do stock splits manually or have Quicken do them but Quicken doesn't accept it when I do them myself.

Chris_QPW

Whirly said:

Thanks. There are two problems with the Quicken stock split. First, a 2 for 1 stock split would give a residual amount of shares such as 1 becoming 2.00002 shares. Likely this is a rounding error albeit a dumb one.

I can tell you where this one comes from.  Recently they increased the number of digits after the decimal point from 4 to 6 digits.  The result has been that for a lot of people long closed security lots started showing small remainders like that.  The recommended change was to go back to the last transaction and adjust for this.  In your case with a split it might more complicated, but that is what is going on.

I might add that if the people that want cryptocurrency support get their way, this problem is going to come up again since they want at least 8 digits after the decimal point.

BTW given that there isn't any standard on what digit to round on and different financial institutions do different things, there really isn't any way that Quicken can tell if a rounding error is "dumb" or not.

Frankx

Hi @Whirly,

I would suggest that you change this account to a manual account so that you no longer get the constant suggestions from Quicken to adjust your splits. 

I can understand how annoying those might be, but since you have an handle on your accounts and their holdings resulting from stock splits, so why not just give up on the notifications and disconnect those accounts - you are doing manual entries anyway - be stress free?

Hope this helps.

Frankx

Whirly

That would mean I would no longer get the daily stock quotes that are the only reason I have this subscription. When I stop my subscription I guess that will end. I am already so disappointed by so many bugs/errors that have remained from 2014 when I last subscribed. One simple one: Do a report of your capital gains for income tax and the column heading "Gross Proceeds" is WRONG. It is "Net Proceeds" since Quicken subtracts expenses. (How many people incorrectly fill out their tax return because of this.) This is basic stuff and on the above problem there should be a button not to see it again. Having to clear it 5 times a week for ever is simply poor design.

Boatnmaniac

@Whirly - I've never liked the downloaded stock split transactions that comes from downloading security information and quotes.  I will either edit them to correct them to my liking or I delete them until my brokerage downloads the transactions (usually 1-3 days later when the transactions are completed).  Have you tried editing the downloaded stock split transaction instead of deleting it?

Yes, I agree that the Cap Gains report should probably have that column heading changed to "Net Proceeds" or better, yet, to "Total Proceeds" so that it aligns with how the IRS calls it in Form 1099-B box 1d.  At least Quicken correctly shows the total proceeds as defined by the IRS (gross proceeds less sales related expenses) even if the column header is misleading.  But I always caution everyone about relying 100% on the data in Quicken to do tax returns.  At best the data in Quicken is good for tax planning but not for tax return preparation unless it has been first validated as being accurate.  It is not uncommon that the tax forms received from brokers, other financial institutions and employers is a bit different from what is reported in Quicken.  So, when there is a difference identified, always default to what is reported on the forms received from brokers, other financial institutions and employers because that is what has been reported to the IRS...unless, of course, there is a strong desire to be audited. 

Whirly

Thanks. There are two problems with the Quicken stock split. First, a 2 for 1 stock split would give a residual amount of shares such as 1 becoming 2.00002 shares. Likely this is a rounding error albeit a dumb one. These are showing up years after the stock split. The second problem may be unique to Canada but we have ETFs that do a phantom stock split like this. They have $1 per share capital gain to distribute so they give us $1 is shares so a $10 stock gets .1 shares so my 100 shares become 101 shares and then they immediately consolidate the shares back to 100 so there is actually no change to the number of shares I have but their cost for tax purposes actually increases by $10, a reverse or negative "return of capital". Quicken ignores that and gives the stock split of 100 to 101 shares (and their calculation is frequently wrong). Personally, I just record the negative return of capital to increase my cost and ignore the stock split and consolidation since the number of shares does not change. Quicken needs to make their app work for Canada.

Boatnmaniac

My area of expertise is not with Quicken for Canada.  Hopefully someone with expertise with that edition will be able to step in and provide some assistance on this matter.

Chris_QPW

Whirly said:

Thanks. There are two problems with the Quicken stock split. First, a 2 for 1 stock split would give a residual amount of shares such as 1 becoming 2.00002 shares. Likely this is a rounding error albeit a dumb one.

I can tell you where this one comes from.  Recently they increased the number of digits after the decimal point from 4 to 6 digits.  The result has been that for a lot of people long closed security lots started showing small remainders like that.  The recommended change was to go back to the last transaction and adjust for this.  In your case with a split it might more complicated, but that is what is going on.

I might add that if the people that want cryptocurrency support get their way, this problem is going to come up again since they want at least 8 digits after the decimal point.

BTW given that there isn't any standard on what digit to round on and different financial institutions do different things, there really isn't any way that Quicken can tell if a rounding error is "dumb" or not.