[In Canada] I'm finding reconciling dividends is taking a lot of time:
- a. through Yahoo! at least, the dividend $ is wrong 20% of the time or missing entirely
b. to reconcile, sometimes the dividend hits my brokerage months after it is declared
Most likely I used Price Retrieve on a day that had an Ex-Date for a dividend on a stock I held and did not run a Price History over it (I always check the retrieve dividend box). However, I can't find a reason as to why it would not be correct 100% of the time (simple $Div/share x # shares), so perhaps I'm doing something wrong 20% of the time!
That said, I am fine with manually adding a grand total amount directly in the Default Cash Accounts instead of tracking dividends against a stock. My brokerage statements carry dividends as monthly and running totals for tax purposes and my average adjusted cost base is not impacted by dividends, so....carrying just as a running dollar amount seems logical. Interest and commissions are tracked this way also.
So, I'm going to recommend a split between users...those of us that want to track the dividend of the specific stock vs those of us who just care for the final, aggregate total dollars. Here are some suggestions:
- 1. Allow us to choose "Master" vs "Sub" portfolios
2. Allow a global setting to turn dividend retrieve On or Off
3. Allow us to select "Ex-Date" vs "Payment Date"
4. Allow us a fast way to "Remove" vs "Repopulate" dividends when they get messed up
Thomas