Printing Dividend Date "For Shares Owned On"

[Daryl]

Hi Mark,

When I record a dividend I make use of the 2 date fields. The first for the actual date the money is received (into the Default Cash Account) and the second for the actual 'Record Date' of the dividend payment.

The 'Record Date' is important for my tax calculations and I would like to show this in reports but cannot work out how to do it. Could you please help?

Thanks,
Daryl

[Mark]

Hi Daryl,

This date field isn't really used in reports. Where would you like to see it displayed? This date is used in calculating the dist/share figure when calculating the shares owned for the distribution received.

[Daryl]

Hi Mark,

I don't really need to see it in a report, but it is essential to know the record date of every dividend because for all my offshore investments I have to use the exchange rate (USD->AUD) at the date to work out tax liability in AUD on the record date. I don't really know how Fund Manager can help me keep track of this?

You said: "This date is used in calculating the dist/share figure when calculating the shares owned for the distribution received."

But I don't understand how that works. In a nutshell I don't really see how Fund Manager uses the record date.

Thanks,
Daryl

[Mark]

Hi Daryl,

Fund Manager does record/track record date, but it is only visible when editing the transaction. It isn't available for display in any report. Fund Manager needs to know a distribution/share amount when calculating Fund Performance yields, plotting share price plus distributions, and probably a couple other areas. In order to determine the distribution per share, it takes the distribution value and divides it by the number of shares owned on the record date (not payment date).

[Daryl]

Mark,

When I add a dividend distribution manually, Fund Manager plots the distribution on the graph at the 'Date Received' and not the record date. Whereas if I download historical data with dividends they are plotted at the record date. (I could be wrong with this assumption!)

I agree that plotting the 'Date Received' makes more sense than the 'Record Date' because when I record the transaction for an investment it the actual payment date will create another transaction on the same date in the 'Default Cash Account'.

The only way to truly show 'Record Date' plotted on investment graphs and 'Date Received' on the correct date in the 'Default Cash Account' is to make two separate manual entries with different dates.

Which brings me back to my original need to be able to extract the record date for each dividend so that I can do correct tax calculations based on exchange rate of 'Record Date' of dividend distribution.

I couldn't figure out how I can access the 'Record Date' other than by editing each and every dividend, which is why I was trying to extract this information in either a report or better if I can export it to an CSV for analysis in Excel.

I think it is a useful data field, but is not exposed sufficiently for my needs to be useful, so I have to revert to putting the record date details in the memo field (which I later use on a report to work out my tax liablity with good old pencil & paper!)

Thanks,
Daryl

[Mark]

Hi Daryl,

Unfortunately, there is no easier way to get the record date out of Fund Manager. This would be a good field for us to add to the "Investment Transaction" report, or the "Data Register" when listing any of the distribution data types.