Vanguard "adjustment" transactions not downloaded - how do I reconcile the # shares?

Paula2

Our Vanguard financial advisor moved us from mutual funds to ETFs using "adjustment" transactions. These transactions didn't download and now Quicken and Vanguard don't agree on the number of shares we have in each fund. How do I fix this?

Tom Young

I take it that the conversion wasn't a one-share of the new ETF for one share of the old mutual fund.

As I read the Vanguard FAQ "Can I convert my conventional Vanguard mutual fund shares to Vanguard ETF Shares?" it's a non-taxable transaction, similar to moving up to "Admiral" shares or when Vanguard closes a dog of a mutual fund and re-establishes your positions into a different Vanguard fund.

You should be able to use the "Mutual Fund Conversion" action in Quicken to make the switch, resulting in the correct lots and bases of the new funds, but the Mutual Fund Conversion wizard has a bug in it if you've been using average cost in your old mutual funds.

The other approach is to use the "Corporate Acquisition (stock for stock)" action.  This doesn't have the Mutual Fund Conversion problem but it will make the same adjustment in any other Quicken Investment Account that has the same "old" mutual funds.

If you don't have a ton of lots of the old mutual funds, (or if you take the approach that you can live with one big "lot" of long-term shares and one big lot of short term shares), you can do a Remove action for each old mutual fund holding and then a series of Add actions for the replacement ETFs.

Frankx

Hi @Paula2

First - I have to tell you that I have never heard of a mutual fund company associate refer to something called an "adjustment" transaction.  That worries me.

That being said - I believe that you have a couple of options. 

The first thing I would recommend that you do is to contact your the financial advisor and tell them that they need to provide you with a summary of the "sell" and "buy" transactions, that they initiated, to effect this transfer.  If this person is a Vanguard employer or an financial advisor who is associated with Vanguard they should be able to easily provide that information to you.  If they say they cannot - you should call Vanguard and speak to someone higher up who can followup and make sure that this person gives you the data you need.

Another viable option - but one that will require all the work be done by you - would be to download the transactions from the Vanguard website and then import those into your Quicken datafile.  If you open your account on the Vanguard website, you should see an "Activity" tab.  When you click on that tab, you'll see a little "Download" icon on the right. Click on the icon and it will take you to a new page, where you can set the parameters, as follows:

Step 1 - select "Quicken - Each fund to a separate account"

Step 2 - select the time frame that applies to the beginning and ending dates of your missing transactions.

Step 3 - chose the accounts that were converted and then click the "Download" button.

This will give you the QFX file that you'll be able to import into your Quicken datafile.  Here are those steps:

To import it Go To: File > File Import" > select "Web Connect (.QFX) file" > then Browse for the downloaded file > click on it > and then click "Open".  This should import the transactions you are missing into the account register.  Review them and make sure you delete any duplicates, and that should complete your transactions.

Let me know how that goes and/or if you have any followups.

Frankx

Paula2

Tom Young, thanks for your helpful reply. I was trying to do the Remove/Add shares solution you suggested since the shares are in IRA accounts (the other things you suggested won't work for the reasons you stated), but Quicken wanted me to enter a Price paid (or Total Cost, either one) and the "adjustment" transaction on the Vanguard website doesn't include that information. The Amount column says $0. So then I carefully read the instructions on the dialog box for resolving placeholders and it said to use the Update Share Balance on the Gear menu. This seems to have worked. I just entered the correct date and the current number of shares, the place holder went away and the holdings are now in sync with the Vanguard data. I don't know what the long term issues might be, but so far, so good.