Reinvest Dividend vs Dividend Income

Robhawaii

When reviewing my transaction detail report for investment income I noticed duplicate income amounts separated by one day. Looking at the detailed transaction register I see some automatically reinvested dividends for ETF funds in Schwab and Fidelity appear initially as Dividend Income. Then, on the next business day show as Reinvested Dividend.

Dividend Income entries show $0 in the "Invest Amount" column, and the income amount in the "Amount" column. Reinvest Dividend shows the amount reinvested in the "Invest Amount" column, and $0 in the "Amount" column.

The majority of the automatically reinvested dividends show only one entry as Reinvest Dividend. Should I zero out or delete the Dividend Income transactions, where there is a matching Reinvest Dividend transaction, for the same fund, on or within a few days of the dividend?

Jon

You should keep the transaction that matches what actually happened & delete the other one. If your dividends are being re-invested then you should have either one Reinvest Dividend transaction, or a pair of transactions consisting of a Dividend Income transaction followed by a Buy transaction for the same amount. I've seen it done both ways depending on the fund.

Reinvest Dividend transactions should have $0 in the Amount column since you're not changing your cash balance.