Converting shares and keeping cost basis

hurwi

My 529 account converted from 1 fund to another. These are different funds with different costs, number of shares, etc. If I use the "remove shares" and "add shares" to change to the new fund, the cost basis resets to the current value of the new fund. Is there a way to change the shares to the new fund, but keep the original cost basis from the old fund.

MattT

hurwi... sounds like you're unable to use the Corporate Acquisition transaction.  In that case, you might try manually entering the two transactions described in my response.  Those should work for you just fine.

MattT

MattT

I got this to work with either a Corporate Acquisition transaction or one each Share Removed and Share Added manual transactions (which is what a Corporate Acquisition transaction generates).  Although the CA transaction says "stock for stock", it works for mutual funds as well.

In the CA transaction:

• Enter the date of the conversion.  
• Enter the symbol of the Acquired Company (or mutual fund being converted) and then enter the symbol of the Acquiring Company (or replacement mutual fund).  
• Next, you will need to determine the ratio of the [new stock or mutual fund share qty]-to-[former stock or mutual fund share qty].  If you're getting a greater number of shares in the new "company" or fund, this figure will be greater than 1; if you're getting lesser, it will be less than 1.  
• Enter your calculated ratio into the New Shares Issued" field.  
• Lastly, enter the stock price or NAV at the time of the conversion, or as reported to you by the acquiring company.  
• Select Enter.
• You'll see a Shares Removed transaction and a Shares Added appear in your register.

Using this transaction, you might have to do some minor tweaking of the final share qty of the new stock or fund for accuracy (to the .xxx level).  If so, do so by editing the Shares Added transaction.  Adjust the share qty to match whatever statement you have.  When you hit Enter and you get the window asking how you want to reconcile the minor change, select the Price (recommended) button and select Enter.

You may manually enter these two transactions if you don't want to use the CA transaction.  If you have the old shares qty, new shares qty and share or NAV price of the new shares at conversion, manually entering the transactions might be easier.

For the Share Removed transaction, simply enter the conversion date, the symbol and the total number of shares to be converted.  Select Enter. 

For the Share Added transaction, enter the conversion date, symbol and the balance of new shares.  Next, enter the cost basis from the converted shares into the Total Cost field.  Select Enter and the Price Paid field will auto-populate based on the data you entered.

I believe that'll work for you.

Good luck
MattT

hurwi

@MattT how do I enter a "Corporate Acquisition" transaction? It's not in the list of Types when I add a transaction.

jacobs

Regrettably, the Corporate Acquisition transaction doesn't exist in Quicken Mac.

Please take a second to add your vote for this needed feature: click this link, scroll down a little to the yellow box under the first post, and click the little black arrow under the vote counter. There are many feature requests the developers juggle on their schedule; more votes for a fatter like this can help move it up the priority list. 

MattT

hurwi... sounds like you're unable to use the Corporate Acquisition transaction.  In that case, you might try manually entering the two transactions described in my response.  Those should work for you just fine.

MattT

hurwi

@MattT - thanks, that works to set the cost basis to the correct price overall. However, since the stock was bought weekly, I lose the cost basis of each lot bought, so when I sell, I won't be able to determine actual gains unless I sell all the stock at once. Sounds like that's the best I can hope for for now though - appreciate your help.

MattT

@hurwi - didn't think of that... Of course, you could enter separate Shares-Removed transactions for each lot... gulp!

I don't rely on Quicken to tell me about lot sales, I don't trust Quicken THAT much!  LOL.  I use the lot allocation feature in Fidelity to handle that.  I would assume most any brokerage offers that option; not all sales are FIFO!

Glad to help.