Reporting new Treasury Bill Bought and Sold with Accrued Interest paid at maturity

mdross171

How do you report accrued interest at maturity for a new US Treasury bill? The difference when sold is an unrealized gain.

GeoffG

Tracking the final interest accrued is a somewhat laborious task if you are maintaining a T-Bill ladder, but can be done with some patience. If you are maintaining a ladder, you need to make sure the coupon number is captured in your register. You will need this to identify the bond's original purchase price so you can then calculate the interest. Below is how I enter the interest for a single bond as part of my T-Bill ladder.

The final proceeds (ie. $26,000) then go into a MMF to be used for repurchase. You can create an investment report to focus on just T-Bill interest to track progress.

NotACPA

Actually, the difference when matured is interest accrued NOT gain.

Your broker might have downloaded an amount for the face value of the Bill, split that transaction and record part as the Sale value (for the original amount paid) and the balance as interest rec'd.

You can check with your broker re: this … but it's correct. Interest, not gain.

mdross171

Thanks for the comments. I already knew it was accrued interest and not a realized gain. The issue I was struggling with was how to register it as such in Quicken using the buy and sold bonds feature. I figured out the needed modifications. Quicken needs to enhance bond transaction reporting.

NotACPA

I just did some experimenting, and I don't understand why you can't "Bonds Sold" the T-bill at cost and show the interest rec'd on the same transaction, as in my example.