Quicken recalculates basis of shares transferred between accounts

schmidtl4

I recently moved several accounts from one brokerage to another. I've encountered an error in Quicken when it comes to the cost basis of the shares transferred.

Theoretically, there should be absolutely no change in the basis of shares transferred between accounts. For example, I bought .50358 shares of a stock at $4.27 per share for a total cost of $2.15. That should NEVER change (unless there was a stock split or a return of capital, neither of which occurred in my case).

Accordingly, when that purchase is transferred to the new account in Quicken (using the "Shares Transferred Between Accounts" transaction type), it should show up in the new account exactly as it was in the old account.

However, the new transaction appears as .50358 shares (correct) @ $4.249573 (incorrect) for a total of $2.14 (incorrect). This happened for EVERY transaction for EVERY security in the account. The 20 securities I transferred each had an average of 10 transactions, so now I have 200 entries in the new account that are all wrong.

I reviewed this post

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/18789942#Comment_18789942

(don't know why the link is focusing on this one comment… start at the top)

but the discussion was closed back in 2018. Unbelievable that here we are 7 years later and nothing has been done to fix this.

Anyone else experiencing this problem?

NotACPA

In Q, how did you record the movement of those securities? What Q action was used?

AND, if you moved the entire account (even if not all of the accounts), it's easier to just disconnect the old account from the old brokerage and then connect it to the new brokerage.

Jim_Harman

@schmidtl4

When you entered the original transactions, did you enter them as number of shares and price per share, letting Quicken calculate the total cost, or did you enter them as number of shares and total cost, letting Quicken calculate the cost per share? Usually the latter method results in more accurate data in Quicken, because it is more important to record the correct total amount than the quoted price per share. Using your example, .50358 x 4.27 = 2.1502866. It would have been better to record .50358 and $2.15, leading to a price per share of 4.26943.

You say there were no splits or ROCs, but were there any partial sales, for example to pay account fees? That could affect your cost basis, depending on which lots were used for the sales.

Also did you have the security that was transferred set to "Use average cost" (a requirement I believe for Q Canada)? That can also affect the per-lot cost basis.