Download replaces share amount & price

EvDob

Is there a way to get Quicken to not replace the share amount & price I enter? I want these exactly as on my Vanguard confirmation, but the download always seems to round off the share amount to the nearest thousandth share, removing the ten-thousandth share digit I entered, and the price usually gets changed to some calculation Quicken seems to make.

So every time I download transactions I have to remember what I'd entered previously and change it back once the transactions are accepted.

Jim_Harman

If you have a more accurate transaction in your register already, you can simply review the match before accepting and delete the downloaded transaction before accepting it. 

But for the share price, it is generally if not always better to accurately record the number of shares purchased and the total price then let Quicken calculate the price per share. For cost basis purposes, the number of shares and total price are what matters. When it comes time to report this information on Schedule D, you will see that the IRS does not ask for the cost per share. For performance reporting, Quicken uses the closing price per share, not the price you paid, unless the closing price for that day is not downloaded by the broker or Quicken's quote service.

Boatnmaniac

@EvDob - If you have not already done so you might want to go to this Support Article:  https://www.quicken.com/support/how-update-security-prices. 

Once there, click on Hierarchy for prices entered.  Note that the lowest level in the hierarchy is manually entered transaction prices.  What this means is that if/when a matching transaction is downloaded the price in that downloaded transaction will override what had been manually entered earlier.

Mark1104

look under: 

edit>preferences>investments....and then over on the bottom right, there is a check box to extend the  share precision.  Be sure that is checked. ....


does that fix the issue? 

is there a reason you are manually entering the tranactions and then downloading the same transactions from Vanguard? 

EvDob

Thanks, Mark. I think I upped the precision before and it didn't help, but I'll check again on my next download.

I like to enter transactions manually to keep Quicken up to date and also to check that the numbers coming from bank/credit card/investment house match.

Mark1104

not following, the download from Vanguard is the correct entry....... is your manual entry the problem?>>> can you provide an example?

I also use Vanguard and I have NEVER overriden their entries...

Jim_Harman

If you have a more accurate transaction in your register already, you can simply review the match before accepting and delete the downloaded transaction before accepting it. 

But for the share price, it is generally if not always better to accurately record the number of shares purchased and the total price then let Quicken calculate the price per share. For cost basis purposes, the number of shares and total price are what matters. When it comes time to report this information on Schedule D, you will see that the IRS does not ask for the cost per share. For performance reporting, Quicken uses the closing price per share, not the price you paid, unless the closing price for that day is not downloaded by the broker or Quicken's quote service.

Boatnmaniac

@EvDob - If you have not already done so you might want to go to this Support Article:  https://www.quicken.com/support/how-update-security-prices. 

Once there, click on Hierarchy for prices entered.  Note that the lowest level in the hierarchy is manually entered transaction prices.  What this means is that if/when a matching transaction is downloaded the price in that downloaded transaction will override what had been manually entered earlier.

EvDob

> @Mark1104 said:
> not following, the download from Vanguard is the correct entry....... is your manual entry the problem?>>> can you provide an example?
>
> I also use Vanguard and I have NEVER overriden their entries...

My manual entries are more precise than the download from Vanguard. For example, 1.4477 shares of Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND) gets downloaded as 1.448 shares. This can happen when buying ETFs in dollars rather than shares and results in fractional shares to the ten-thousandth.

It seems to me that it's likely the brokerage house (Vanguard) which is skimping on the precision, since some areas of their website show thousandths and others (cost basis for example) show ten-thousandths. Every time my share amounts are updated, Quicken shows me the Securities Comparison Mismatch window with differences between -0.0005 & 0.0005 share for each mismatched holding.

EvDob

> @Jim_Harman said:
> If you have a more accurate transaction in your register already, you can simply review the match before accepting and delete the downloaded transaction before accepting it. 
>
> But for the share price, it is generally if not always better to accurately record the number of shares purchased and the total price then let Quicken calculate the price per share. For cost basis purposes, the number of shares and total price are what matters. When it comes time to report this information on Schedule D, you will see that the IRS does not ask for the cost per share. For performance reporting, Quicken uses the closing price per share, not the price you paid, unless the closing price for that day is not downloaded by the broker or Quicken's quote service.

Thanks, Jim. I guess you're right--I shouldn't be accepting the less precise transactions, just deleting and marking my manual entries cleared. But maybe it would be nice to at least have the option for Quicken to not override the price with its calculation with 6 digits to the right of the decimal point. (I just don't like seeing all those extra digits )

Mark1104

so what happens when you go to sell these securities and what Vanguard reports to the iRS doesn't match your Quicken records?  what do you report to the IRS? 

EvDob

I'll likely be using what TurboTax downloads from Vanguard.

Boatnmaniac

Mark1104 said:

so what happens when you go to sell these securities and what Vanguard reports to the iRS doesn't match your Quicken records?  what do you report to the IRS? 

When it comes to taxes, the best (and IMHO) and only option is to use what the financial institution reports.  To do otherwise invites the risk of an audit and possibly having to pay interest or even a fine.

q_lurker

EvDob said:

My manual entries are more precise than the download from Vanguard. For example, 1.4477 shares of Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND) gets downloaded as 1.448 shares. This can happen when buying ETFs in dollars rather than shares and results in fractional shares to the ten-thousandth.

It seems to me that it's likely the brokerage house (Vanguard) which is skimping on the precision, ... 

Reluctantly, I'm going to agree with you.  I have been a long time Vanguard client and they (and I in Quicken) have always maintained 0.001 precision on share holdings.  But looking on their online transaction info, I do see frequent 0.0000 level precision for share transactions.  It has just never affected me given my trading patterns.  So it does appear that they are possibly maintaining 0.0000 precision level in their data and only downloading 0.000 precision.  (That makes the question from @Mark1104 about IRS reporting highly relevant.)

While you could continue the policy of keeping your records to that more precise 0.0000 accuracy and deal with the reported mismatches and download differences, you could also switch to making your manual entries to the 0.000 precision.  I can't predict if there would be any significant ramifications of that. 

Along that direction, I will say that when I deal with corporate spinoffs and mergers and the like, I have a personal policy of altering the precision of any generated Add Shares to a 0.000 accuracy.  That is, there are cases where I revise the precision to fit my desires over something that might be mathematically more precise.  
  

EvDob

I do seem to be getting the proper precision now on the downloaded share amount after upping the precision setting. Thanks, Mark!

EvDob

Hmm, spoke too soon. Got lower precision downloading from IRA. Maybe higher precision is only for taxable accounts?

Jim_Harman

Other notes on precision:

When you do either an automatic or manual Reconcile Shares and Quicken compares its share balances with those reported by the FI, it only reports a difference if it is more than .001 share. This is hardly ever significant, and is helpful to avoid recording frequent tiny Placeholders to force an exact match.

Also when you close out a position, it is important to check the Sell all shares box, to avoid being left with a tiny share balance that will clutter up your reports.

EvDob

> @Jim_Harman said:
> Other notes on precision:
>
> When you do either an automatic or manual Reconcile Shares and Quicken compares its share balances with those reported by the FI, it only reports a difference if it is more than .001 share. This is hardly ever significant, and is helpful to avoid recording frequent tiny Placeholders to force an exact match.
>

Quicken is showing me differences of 0.0004 & -0.0002 on a couple of my holdings now due to Shares Reported precision of a thousandth vs. my manual entry to the ten-thousandth.

And for some reason Vanguard is reporting a thousandth share less than Quicken for all my treasuries (share amounts all ending in .999).

Jim_Harman

Where do you see the differences of less then .001 shares? Is it when you click on the account's gear menu and select Reconcile Shares, or someplace else?

EvDob

Yes, Reconcile Shares from the gear menu or the Compare to Portfolio button in the Online Center Holdings tab.

Mark1104

@EvDob - okay, I gotta ask (and maybe I asked earlier) as politely as I can: 

the "system of record" is Vanguard - not Quicken.  So aren't the records that Vanguard maintains and the precision they employ all that really matter? The IRS will receive sales proceeeds and cost basis data from Vanguard - and not from Quicken. Vanguard will use their records for any settlement transactions (whether Buy or Sell or Dividend Reinvestments) and not Quicken's.

The whole idea of Quicken connecting with FI and downloading transaction data is to eliminate manual data entry - users are more productive and it eliminates 'fat fingering'.  

EvDob

I use Quicken more for aggregating my accounts and double checking my manual entries.

I think the problem with Vanguard is that they're not consistent in their precision. Maybe that has something to do with the upgrade they're making to the website.

I have no idea what they will report to the IRS until I actually see the tax forms next year.