Mark,
What is the best way of recording the dividend and income transactions for shares and term deposits, bonds etc?
My current issue is that when I record dividend for shares and interest for fixed/term deposit at the time when the money is received, I am not getting the right performance or returns reported in TWR report. For example, when a dividend goes ex-dividend on the 22 Dec 2011 and the money is paid on the 9 Jan 2012 and I record the transaction as at 9 Jan 2012, the TWR report is indicating a good performance or return for Jan but a bad one for Dec as the price of the share drops on the ex-dividend date.
For the term or fixed deposit for say 6 months, if I record the interest received at maturity, the performance or return is good for the month the interest is received but NIL for the other months.
One way of accounting for this problem is to adjust the dividend received date to the ex-date but this then causes the cash account to have an incorrect balance at month end.
What would you recommend to address this issue of correctly reflecting the returns on the ex-dividend date and also for the cash balance. How would you record the fixed or term deposit as well.
Thanks in advance
Matt