Mac Quicken Classic Deluxe Mutual Fund Conversion to different Share Class

Question

Since unfortunately Mac Quicken Classic Deluxe does not offer the Mutual Fund Conversion to a different Share Class with different pricing like versions of Quicken Windows, please share with me how to perform this conversion manually in Mac Quicken Classic Deluxe.

QknUser204 · Answer

Jacobs, thank you for the help. The issue is that when the mutual fund shares are non-covered, the cost basis is my responsibility to report and will not automatically be reported to the government. I'm using first-in first-out, so I need precise cost basis for the non-covered shared in Quicken. That's one reason I use Quicken - to record my financials. When Quicken does not provide the necessary tools, like Mutual Fund Conversion in Mac, I have to figure a manual way to convert and keep the cost basis information correct between the different prices on pre and post conversion share classes. How may I see the process the Quicken Windows Mutual Fund Converter follows so I may follow the process manually?

jacobs · Answer

@QuickenUser204  As you have already noted, Quicken Mac does not have a tool like Quicken Windows does for mutual fund conversion to a different class of the fund. (Yes, this is annoying, and an omission many of us hope the developers will eventually get to addressing.)

And as @Jon said, the basic way to do this, lacking a proper conversion tool, is to Remove Shares and Add Shares. When you Add Shares, you do have the ability to specify both a transaction date (the date of the conversion) and the date acquired (the date of the original transaction in the old fund). Is this practical to do manually? It depends how many purchases and reinvestments you have for that fund: if it's 40 transactions it's annoying, but you could do 40 separate Add Shares transactions to preserve the cost basis and acquisition dates, but if it's 240 transactions, that's probably not feasible.

The next question is whether Quicken is maintaining a precise cost basis for you or not. If your mutual funds use average cost basis (as is the default for funds at Vanguard, for instance), Quicken Mac doesn't have average cost basis available, so your cost basis is already off somewhat from what your brokerage will report when you sell shares. (Yes, this is annoying, and an omission many of us hope the developers will eventually get to addressing.) If your cost basis is already off at all in Quicken, then you might just be content to do a simple Remove Shares/Add Shares pair of transactions for the fund conversion and call it a day. That's what I did when I had Vanguard fund class conversions; I already knew my Quicken cost basis wouldn't be precise before the conversion, so it didn't bother me (much) that it would be off more after the conversion. Since I exclusively use the values on my 1099s, not from Quicken, for doing taxes, it really wasn't too big a problem for me. Your circumstances or needs for tracking may differ.

QknUser204 · Answer

Jon, thank you for the answer. Unfortunately, the conversion process is more complicated than just removing/adding shares as the cost basis of each previous transaction must also be added and updated to reflect the different cost basis of the new Share Class. The old and new Share Classes have different prices. Hence the benefit of the Quicken Windows Mutual Fund Conversion tool. Without this tool in Mac Quicken Classic Deluxe, the conversion must be completed manually. I'm seeking to learn how to properly perform this conversion manually.