File Operations for Dividends

[ThomasK]

Hi Mark,

[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

Thanks,
Thomas

[Mark]

Hi Thomas,

When you find one of these problematic dividends, what seems to be the cause of the problem? The dividend memo will show what Fund Manager retrieved from Yahoo in terms of div/share. The dividend value should be just the number of shares owned times that div/share. Is the div/share wrong?

You can just enter an amount directly into cash, but your investments will not get credit for those dividends in their yield calculations. If you just enter the amount as a buy or transfer in to cash, the portfolio also will not get credit in the yield calculation. You could record it as a reinvested distribution in cash, which would artificially inflate the cash performance, but reflect accurately at the portfolio level for yield.

[ThomasK]

Hi Mark,

Regarding my issue when dividends are grabbed inaccurately (FM calculates from an incorrect value) or missed entirely from the historical Yahoo server (I have the professional version) I'm going to attribute to me doing something odd.

I get your explanation of recording dividends earned against a stock, but sadly it seems to be a headache for me as the brokerage goes by payment date and FM/Yahoo uses ex-div date...so reconciling is a chore.

I would like to record dividends as a lump sum and to SEE these amounts in a report for tax purposes. So, in the respective Cash account, adding a New Distribution Transaction with the Type as "Dividend" would achieve that outcome? Or should I do a custom distribution type?

Thanks,
Thomas

[Mark]

Hi Thomas,

If you don't want to record the dividends on a per-investment basis, you could record them in cash. You could create a US-dividend and a CAD-dividend distribution type, and use those. See "Options / Distribution Labels...". See my notes about the drawbacks of this approach in my prior post in this thread.