How to enter year end Return of Capital, Cap Gain Distributions (Canada) ?

Question

How do you enter Canadian year end adjustments for items such as Return of Capital, Cap Gain Distributions?

Entering the Return of Capital, or Capital Gains Distributions would be straight forward if they were reported at the time when the distribution is paid out.  However, many of the ETF's pay out dividends in the year and then you don't know the breakdown until the end of the year when you get a T3 Income Summary or similar document.

This is how I currently do it for a single investment.

1) Throughout the year enter all transactions as dividends
 2) When then Income Summary arrives, the following transactions adjustments are made on Dec 31st:

iShares S&P Div (CDZ) ETF - Return of Capital     $ 10
       iShares S&P Div (CDZ) ETF - Capital Gain            $ 300
       iShares S&P Div (CDZ) ETF - Dividend                ($ 310)

It is this last adjustment transaction I am not sure about.  Is this the recommended way to handle this transactions?

MontanaKarl · Accepted Answer

It is hard to tell from your post if you made that dividend a negative... to offset the previously-received dividends.  If entered as a negative, then your totals for the year should report correctly after making these three entries... or a single adjusting transaction that is a split with the three entries...netting zero.

Tom Young · Accepted Answer

@justmakeitwork 
That's exactly the way I've been dealing with RtrnCap transactions for years.  When the 1099s (US tax informational returns) start arriving in late January through the end of February, that's when I make my entries "as of" 12/31 of the prior year:

This works in the other direction too when you need to increase the dividends reported: