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How do I enter a short-term loss for an investment?

Tricks

My monthly statement shows both a long-term gain and a short-term loss for an investment. The "Enter Transaction" window allows the long-term gain/loss but no short-term loss.

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Accepted answers

Rocket J Squirrel

Tricks said:

I am merely entering the transaction in Quicken. The brokerage has already calculated the long term gain, which I can enter, and the short term loss, for which there is no category in the Enter Transaction window.

Do NOT enter either long- or short-term capital gains or losses resulting from the sale of stock. These are NOT transactions. They are values calculated by Quicken (subtracting cost from sale price) automatically.

All comments

UKR

Are these Capital Gain Distributions and not the result of an actual Sale of stock?
If so, use either the "Reinvest - Income reinvested" function or the "Inc - Income..." function of the Enter Transactions data entry form. It has fields for short term and long term capital gains. If the distribution resulted in additional shares being purchased, use Reinvest, for cash only use Income.

Tricks

This is for a sale of stock.

UKR

OK, thanks for the update.
The calculation of short term or long term gains or losses depends on the individual lots you have purchased over time. When you sell shares indicate the lots to which this sale applies (or FIFO first-in-first-out for mutual funds). Based on the selected lots Quicken will calculate the gains/losses for each lot individually based on the original purchase date. Normally there's nothing you need to do other than recording the sale and selecting the lots.

Jim_Harman

And once you have entered the sale, you can click on Reports at the top right of the account and run the Capital Gains report. If you have entered the sale correctly, the gains and losses should match those reported by your broker.

NotACPA

NOTE, however, that @UKR's and @Jim_Harman's suggestions, with which I agree, both assume that over the years you have selected the same shares to sell as were chosen by your broker. If not, all bets are off.

On the other hand, it this is the 1st, and so far only, sale of the security, then a simple SALE transaction will handle everything for you.

IF you sold your entire holding, it's simple. If NOT, then you need to determine which shares (which lots) the broker sold.

Tricks

Please note that I'm working from a monthly statement. I am merely entering the transaction in Quicken. The brokerage has already calculated the long term gain, which I can enter, and the short term loss, for which there is no category in the Enter Transaction window. I have already chatted with Quicken which confirms my problem, and offered no solution. I guess I am left to enter the transaction as a Miscellaneous Expense. Thanks for your time.

volvogirl

You have to enter the actual buys and sells and transactions. And hopefully come up with the same gain or loss as on the statement.

q_lurker

Tricks said:

Please note that I'm working from a monthly statement. I am merely entering the transaction in Quicken. The brokerage has already calculated the long term gain, which I can enter, …

What “transaction” are you using to enter your long term gain? To what “security” are you attributing that gain (if any)?

Are you using or have you considered the Simple Investing approach recently introduced within Quicken?

Rocket J Squirrel

Tricks said:

I am merely entering the transaction in Quicken. The brokerage has already calculated the long term gain, which I can enter, and the short term loss, for which there is no category in the Enter Transaction window.

Jim_Harman

Getting back to the basics here, when you acquire a security, it is entered in Quicken as a Bought or Added transaction. This sets the cost basis and acquisition date for the lot, which Quicken tracks internally. If you buy more shares later, the date and cost basis for the 2nd lot is also tracked.

If you sell all your shares, Quicken computes the gain or loss and whether they were long or short term. There is no need to enter this information.

As an example, say you bought 100 shares of XYZ in January 2020 at $10.00 per share. You enter this in Quicken as a Bought transaction. Your cost basis for this lot is $1000.

Say you then bought another 50 shares in January 2021 at $12 per share. This is another Bought, with a cost basis of $600.

Then in july 2021 you sold all 150 of your shares at $11.00 per share, for a total of $1,650. You enter this as a Sold transaction. Quicken computes your long term gain/loss as 100 x 11 - 1000 or a gain of $100 and your short term gain/loss as $50 x 11 - 600, a loss of $50. There is no need for you to enter the gain or loss into Quicken.

Frankx

Just to add to @Jim_Harman 's post above and to expand on what @UKR said -

If you sell less than all the shares you own of a particular security, you do need to "Specify the Lots Sold" in any transaction. In order to make sure that Quicken agrees with your brokerage account's accounting for the transaction (and therefore to have consistent tax gain/loss information in Quicken) you should make sure your entries match your broker's statement.

Here's a Snip of what the "allocation of lots sold" might look like in Quicken:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/qa/ljzk4rk0x6a3.png

Hope this helps.

Frankx