Treasury Bill Transactions in Quicken

jvprice6

I am having a devil of a time keeping Treasury Bill transactions from Schwab Correct. Sometimes T-Bill sales/maturation get coded as a deposit rather than a Bond Sale. In any case, when I try to edit transactions to make them code correctly, it is very, very difficult to make them correct as to price and total value. Treasurys are priced in $100 lots. $1,000 of a T-bill would be booked as 10 shares @ $100 per share. I have to make entry several times before Quicken will accept the edit.

What experience do other users have and what should I do?

q_lurker

I suggest skipping the edit process. Delete the downloaded transaction and enter your correct version manually. 

Tom Young

I'm intrigued that T-Bill maturities are being downloaded at different times with different Quicken actions.

In this post

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20312233#

another user complained about the reporting of T-Bill maturities as (I assume) "deposits." 

As a test I bought a T-Bill that was maturing in a few days and in my November 10th comment I posted pictures of how the transaction was shown on Schwab's "History" page and how the download appeared in Quicken.

The maturity on Schwab's site simply showed the maturity for the full amount of the bond and then the bond's removal as a security.  The actual download into Quicken resulted in transactions that really made no sense and I deleted those transactions and created my own transactions: a sale of the bond at no gain or loss and a receipt of interest income.

But you've said that you have had T-Bill maturities download as bond sales?  Any chance you could show how Schwab's history page showed one of these transactions?  Was this an actual sale of a T-Bill  as opposed to a maturation?

jvprice6

I cannot just now show a print out, since I have since made corrections to make quicken agree with the accounts. I will have a some coming due in a few days and will print those out for you to see.

Tom Young

It's how it's reported on the Schwab site that's of the most interest.  It just doesn't make sense that the same general transaction - a T-Bill maturity - would be downloaded into Quicken sometimes as a "sale" and sometimes as a "maturity", unless they make some sort of distinction between maturity and sale.

Apparently many people have had difficulties with the downloads of maturing T-Bills into Quicken and it's reported that Schwab is blaming Quicken and Quicken is blaming Schwab. 

jvprice6

I can see now that Schwab and Quicken are inconsistent. Schwab reports T-Bills as the total amount of each note. Quicken wants to calculate in terms of dollar/share ($100's) and quantity. So I guess the only way to effectively keep Quicken updated is to delete(or void) the downloaded transaction and replace it with a new transaction.

Now I need to go back and see how Quicken is handling any gain or loss on the redemption/maturity/sale of each bond.

Tom Young

@jvprice6

Do you have any Schwab images of T-Bill maturities (occurring after Schwab abandoned Direct Connect) that properly show as sales?  The information Schwab is presenting at their site doesn't allow you to create a properly formed maturity (sale) of a T-Bill in Quicken.  But Schwab, somewhere in their system. has to know how the maturity amount ($1,000/$2,000 in your picture) splits between interest and principal.  So it's unclear why Quicken can't seem to pluck this information out somewhere in Schwab's system.

jvprice6

No I do not have any Schwab images as you mentioned. I only recently started Trading in Gov't securities. Attached is a screenshot of Quicken income report. I have not tried to verify any of this yet. My first objective has been to just make sure the "inventory" of investments is correct.

Tom Young

@jvprice6

With T-Bills you don't have a realized gain, typically.  T-Bills are issued at a discount and then mature some time later.  They don't pay interest between the time they are issued and the time they mature.  Accordingly, in Quicken, you should "sell" the T-Bill at your purchase price - no gain or loss - and then recognize the difference between your cost and the maturity value as IntInc.  Here's my entry for the one T-Bill I bought as a test:

q_lurker

@“Tom Young”. Do I have the following right as an overly simple example?

If I bought through Treasury Direct (no commissions), I might pay $950 at purchase and record a $950 sale and $50 interest received for the $1000 face value. 

If I bought the same treasury through a brokerage, I might pay $950 for the bond and a $10 commission.  At maturity, I’d record as a $960 sale and $40 interest for the $1000 face value. 

That is, effectively, any commission counts against interest income rather than cap gain?  The OP’s commission lines left me scratching my head. 

Tom Young

@q_lurker

Since the bond is going to pay the same $50 reportable interest in either case it seems like the second purchase would result in a $10 capital loss.

I don't think you're seeing any commission in the OP's posted picture, it looks like the difference between the purchase price and the maturity is all being accounted for as capital gain.

In my own test case I didn't pay a commission but I'd expect that there's an element of bid-ask spread and/or premium or discount that I can't account for until I know exactly how much of the $1,000 received will be accounted for as interest.

Bob_L

I don't know which FI was used above, but FYI Vanguard downloads exactly as @Tom Youngs example. No user intervention required.

Tom Young

@Bob_L

The FI in this case is Schwab.  It's a mystery why T-Bill maturities don't work with Schwab.

Bob_L

@Tom Young Thanks, I know the op was about Schwab.

I was referring to your posted example because I couldn't tell if you had entered it manually or downloaded it, and if so from whom.

q_lurker

Tom Young said:

@q_lurker

Since the bond is going to pay the same $50 reportable interest in either case it seems like the second purchase would result in a $10 capital loss. … 

That is more what I’d expect. I must have misinterpreted something on the OP’s image. I haven’t bought treasuries through a broker so I wasn’t not sure about commission considerations. Thanks.