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No Cost Basis for Stocks when using Simple Tracking Method

rraisley

I've switched from Simple (Positions Only) tracking method, and all New stock purchases I make are imported with zero ($0.00) cost basis from the stocks. I talked to tech support today, and their solution was to switch back to Transactions, delete all transactions for those stocks, and enter new ones. Then, if I want, switch back to Simple.

I asked if what he was telling me is that when always using Simple Positions method I would never have Cost Basis for any stocks I traded in, and he said YES! If that is true, the Quicken needs to tell their customers that using this method eliminates most of the reason for the Investments tab, because the Cost Basis, and all Gain/Loss columns are useless. I can't imagine that is by design.

Is there a valid way to correct these Cost Basis for these stocks? And is there a way to be sure new purchases import the proper Cost Basis, making the investment screen useful?

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Comments

NotACPA

"Simple tracking"shows the positions only, nothing else. That's by design, and which is why Simple isn't recommended by most.

rraisley

Thanks for answering. Yeah, I'm getting that. Not such a great feature if you want to know if you're gaining or losing money.

I've found that I can correct the Cost Basis by going into the entry transactions for the stocks with zero value and re-entering them (FAR simpler than what the tech support rep had me do). The proper values are then shown correctly. However, the account Cash is now off by $30,000. I assume there's a way to go in and change the account cash, but that would, I think, require a specific date for the correction. Would that then mean that all dates prior to the correction date would be wrong? (at least in the cash amount, but then also the total worth of the account?). And if so, what would then be the "correct" way to make these changes, but keep the cash amount correct?

Chris_QPW

Are you just trying to go back to the Complete investing mode and correct that?

Or are you trying to somehow make Simple investment mode give you that kind of information?

For Simple investing mode you can't go in and change the cash amount, and in fact you can't do what you are doing with the securities without constant changes.

The whole feature isn't for you. It is for a person that doesn't care about the cost basis and gains such. Say a traditional IRA where the person just looks that the broker's statements for how their investments are doing.

Whereas because of the way it works it is possible to change back the Complete, change some things, and then go back into Simple and some of it would "hold", there is no way it is going to work long term without constantly do this, and the cash will always be wrong the moment you download.

The whole purpose of it read the position/cash summary information that is in the downloaded transaction data and do whatever is needed like adding or removing shares/cash so that what Quicken shows for this is the same was what was downloaded. As soon as you buy or sell a security you aren't going to be wrong again.