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How to record stock split for ESPP?

mikek753b

Hi,

I can't find a way to create stock split for the ESPP, it's only available for a stock, while ESPP is using the stock symbol, I don't see that ESPP transaction details are updated correctly after the stock got a split.

There are 3 price values per ESPP transaction.

Should Quicken update all those 3 price values due to recorded stock split automatically to current new values?

How to get correct all those 3 values for each ESPP transaction before the recorded stock split?

thanks

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Chris_QPW

From what I can see from one of my (very old) ESPP accounts Quicken is supposed to pick up the split in that account and put in a transaction automatically. I also tested trying to put a split in manually and I can't get that to work. Note that this account never had any kind of downloading of transactions, the only "data feed" would be for the price/splits from the quote server.

Here is a ESPP that had a split and what it shows:

If I click edit on that transaction I get:

I guess that implies that maybe the right way to record this is using the Wizard, and buy, but I'm not sure what it is actually doing. Here is when the Wizard are run:

Doesn't make much sense to me.

What I tried for manually entering this was the split action of course. But what I see in that is that it wants to select the security. Note that even though the ESPP has the same symbol, Quicken creates a new security for this (ESPP tacked on to the end of the security name). So, to me that implies it isn't enough to record a split for the security symbol it has to be for the actual security. And there comes the problem. In the split action dialog, the ESPP security isn't shown.

(Splitting the main security doesn't affect anything in the ESPP account).

And If I just type in the full security name I get this.

Forcing me to select the Launch Wizard button and getting this:

Which does look like what the automatic one did, so maybe this is the right way to record it???

I don't know.

mikek753b

Chris, thank you for going through ESPP process and confirming that there is no ESPP correct split and stock_ESPP just can't be selected to record the split.

My real issue is that performance or etc reports can't calculate correct values due to mismatch for ESPP transaction between Price/Share and Price/Share at Grant dates, where one value got adjusted for the split and another wasn't adjusted. This leads to absurd IRR calculations. Also large distortion for that security stock price chart.

thanks

Chris_QPW

Without getting Quicken to recognize the split correctly I don't think there is any way for the reports to be shown correctly.

Maybe some of the investment experts on here have some ideas on how to get that to work and will reply when they see this.

q_lurker

Qualifier- I have never dealt with ESPP shares so I have no knowledge of their intricacies within Quicken.

When attempting to use the transaction window for the stock split, even though the ESPP version does not show on the list, can you select the base security and append the ESPP suffix? Or does that take you to the new security path?

Along a similar thought pattern, what Security Type gets applied to the ESPP security? Some types (Market Index) do not get listed as available for some pull down lists. This type should not fall into that group. So with that thought, can you change the type, create the split using the pull down selections, then change the type back?

Chris_QPW

@q_lurker the way Quicken deals with ESPPs is basically different than it deals with anything else I have seen (I sort of take that back, ESOs are handled about the same way). Almost everything has to be entered using the "Wizard".

I tried entering the full security name as shown in the example above, and it either leads you to a wizard entry that makes no sense, or the creating of a new ESPP security. Here is what the security list looks like:

From what I can see, it is imperative that Quicken picks up that split from the quote server and create the right transaction type.

I will also mention that for ESPPs and ESO almost never can you directly edit the transactions, it almost always has to go through the wizard, and if something isn't right you end up having to start all over.

mshiggins

Hoo boy, I’ll be getting a chance to try this in October. Will have a look through my ESPP transactions to see what I did in the past. But I’m afraid the last ESPP split I had was many years and many versions ago…

mikek753b

while working on this Split related I found another issue for Transfer ESPP shares to another account, the Quicken reassign original Buy date to this new Shares Transferred date.

This new Buy date messed up with so many things, especially Stock Split.

I expected Shares Transfer between accounts to preserve all original info, all Lot info. So now I have to check and replace those Add / Buy dates to the original dates in destination account.

Chris_QPW

Here is my viewpoint on this. The moment that they decided to use "wizards" for all of this all bets were off of doing anything other than recording the transactions in that register. The whole idea that you might be able to transfer shares, do spin off and things like that seems extremely unlikely to be implemented correctly. This is why I don't really like this kind of "help/hiding of information" even though I do understand people asking for it and Quicken Inc (in this case the code was probably entirely done by Intuit when they owned Quicken) implementing what they could. Something to keep in mind when people ask for support for different complicated investment situations. The "solutions" they come up with might be worse than the manual workarounds.

When I just look what the user has to enter for ESPPs and ESOs the first thing that comes to mind is "where is all of that being stored". Once entered you can't find it anywhere because the register was never designed to hold that information. In the case of ESOs there many a time that I ran into a problem, and the only recourse was to remove all the transactions and enter them again.