|
Posted by Dave on November 12, 2006, 12:20 pm
Please log in for more thread options
Greetings,
I've just hit a problem with Quicken 2005 premier Release R6, and was
hoping someone would have a suggestion.
Problem 1:
- Step 1: record a purchase of ESPP stock
- Step 2: Record a sale of the above - all shares
Quicken reports that I should split this into two transactions, one for
the shares I own, the second to create a short position. Quicken then
reports that the transaction wasn't recorded.
Problem 2:
- If I try to repeat the ESPP sale, when I get to the summary wizzard
screen, the "Done" button doesn't operate. I found that by first
deleting the ESPP purchase & re-entering the purchase, then the sale,
that the "Done" button again operates, but results in "Problem 1"
described above.
TIA for any help,
Dave
|
|
Posted by R. C. White on November 13, 2006, 2:59 pm
Please log in for more thread options
Hi, Dave.
Quicken thinks you are trying to sell more shares than you own. The fact
that they are ESPP shares doesn't matter, except that the ESPP (Employee
Stock Purchase Plan, right?) arithmetic is very susceptible to fractional
share differences from rounding.
Did you actually check the "sell all shares" box? Or did you put in the
number of shares you sold? If you typed in a number - any number - you risk
the possibility that Quicken might not agree with that number. You may be
trying to sell 100 shares when Quicken thinks you have only 99.99999 shares.
So it wants to record the sale of the 99.99999, plus a short sale of .00001
share. You can either go back and delete and re-enter all historical
transactions, being scrupulous about NOT letting Quicken calculate the
number of shares, or you can tell Quicken you sold ALL shares and accept
whatever fractional number it may come up with.
This is not a new problem. We've discussed it here many times. Quicken's
rounding process often produces results that we don't expect - and often
those minor differences don't become apparent until much later. Such as
when we sell all those shares. When we enter a transaction, we must always
put in the exact dollars and cents, and we must enter the exact number of
shares, including the decimal fraction, if applicable. Let Quicken adjust
the per-share price, if necessary to make the arithmetic work, but don't let
it adjust the number of shares. Mutual funds and ESPPs often record
fractional shares, usually to 3 decimal points, so the purchase of 1 2/3
share would be recorded as 1.667. If we enter 1.667 shares in Quicken,
we're OK. But if we enter 1 2/3 shares, Quicken might record it as 1.666667
internally, while showing only the 1.667. If we then try to record the sale
of 1.667 shares, Quicken will want to record a short sale for the .000333
share difference. You can either correct your entries for the number of
shares purchased, or let Quicken adjust to zero by telling it you sold ALL
shares.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Vista x86 build 5744 RC2)
> Greetings,
>
> I've just hit a problem with Quicken 2005 premier Release R6, and was
> hoping someone would have a suggestion.
>
> Problem 1:
> - Step 1: record a purchase of ESPP stock
> - Step 2: Record a sale of the above - all shares
> Quicken reports that I should split this into two transactions, one for
> the shares I own, the second to create a short position. Quicken then
> reports that the transaction wasn't recorded.
>
> Problem 2:
> - If I try to repeat the ESPP sale, when I get to the summary wizzard
> screen, the "Done" button doesn't operate. I found that by first deleting
> the ESPP purchase & re-entering the purchase, then the sale, that the
> "Done" button again operates, but results in "Problem 1" described above.
>
> TIA for any help,
> Dave
|
|
Posted by Dave on November 13, 2006, 8:32 pm
Please log in for more thread options R. C. White wrote:
> Hi, Dave.
>
> Quicken thinks you are trying to sell more shares than you own. The
> fact that they are ESPP shares doesn't matter, except that the ESPP
> (Employee Stock Purchase Plan, right?) arithmetic is very susceptible to
> fractional share differences from rounding.
>
> Did you actually check the "sell all shares" box? Or did you put in the
> number of shares you sold? If you typed in a number - any number - you
> risk the possibility that Quicken might not agree with that number. You
> may be trying to sell 100 shares when Quicken thinks you have only
> 99.99999 shares. So it wants to record the sale of the 99.99999, plus a
> short sale of .00001 share. You can either go back and delete and
> re-enter all historical transactions, being scrupulous about NOT letting
> Quicken calculate the number of shares, or you can tell Quicken you sold
> ALL shares and accept whatever fractional number it may come up with.
>
> This is not a new problem. We've discussed it here many times.
> Quicken's rounding process often produces results that we don't expect -
> and often those minor differences don't become apparent until much
> later. Such as when we sell all those shares. When we enter a
> transaction, we must always put in the exact dollars and cents, and we
> must enter the exact number of shares, including the decimal fraction,
> if applicable. Let Quicken adjust the per-share price, if necessary to
> make the arithmetic work, but don't let it adjust the number of shares.
> Mutual funds and ESPPs often record fractional shares, usually to 3
> decimal points, so the purchase of 1 2/3 share would be recorded as
> 1.667. If we enter 1.667 shares in Quicken, we're OK. But if we enter
> 1 2/3 shares, Quicken might record it as 1.666667 internally, while
> showing only the 1.667. If we then try to record the sale of 1.667
> shares, Quicken will want to record a short sale for the .000333 share
> difference. You can either correct your entries for the number of
> shares purchased, or let Quicken adjust to zero by telling it you sold
> ALL shares.
>
> RC
Thanks for the info. I did some follow up work since I posted the
question, I've set up a dummy account and tried to record buy/sell ESPP
shares transactions - all went fine.
For my "real" account that I'm trying to use, I entered in a whole
number of shares, and intended to sell the entire amount. I didn't see a
box to check that said "sell all shares", but after typing in a number,
I could use the "FIFO, max gain etc" boxes to allow quicken to select
the shares. The summary screen showed that I had "X" shares available,
and I asked it to record the sale of "X" shares.
I'm still stuck though, I can't seem to get it to allow me to do the
sale. Based on your reply, it seems like quicken thinks I have a
different amount of shares than I really do. I've looked at all my
accounts, done reports by security type and I don't see any errors in
the number of shares.
I saw a mention of using the CTRL-Z command that would re-calculate the
number of shares that quicken thinks are in an account. I tried this and
it didn't seem to do anything, even after setting the behavior of
Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-Z to be the quicken default rather than the windows
default. (maybe the CTRL-Z was for an older quicken version?)
Also I've tried deleting the original ESPP purchase, and re-adding. No
luck, I get the same errors when I try and re-do the transactions.
I've also tried a validate & super-validate with no avail.
Another item that may be of interest is that if enter an ESPP purchase,
then try to do the sale, Quicken gives me the message that I need to
record as two transactions, and that no transaction was recorded. If I
then delete the *BUY* transaction, it gives an error dialog that
references the Sale that supposedly wasn't recorded! I guess that's
even more evidence that there's some mystery transaction that's in the
Quicken database, although I'm unable to locate it.
Any suggestions on other things I could try?
Thanks in advance,
Dave
R. C. White wrote:
>> Hi, Dave.
>>
>> Quicken thinks you are trying to sell more shares than you own. The
fact
>> that they are ESPP shares doesn't matter, except that the ESPP
(Employee
>> Stock Purchase Plan, right?) arithmetic is very susceptible to
fractional
>> share differences from rounding.
>>
>> Did you actually check the "sell all shares" box? Or did you put in
the
>> number of shares you sold? If you typed in a number - any number -
you risk
>> the possibility that Quicken might not agree with that number. You
may be
>> trying to sell 100 shares when Quicken thinks you have only 99.99999
shares.
>> So it wants to record the sale of the 99.99999, plus a short sale of
.00001
>> share. You can either go back and delete and re-enter all historical
>> transactions, being scrupulous about NOT letting Quicken calculate the
>> number of shares, or you can tell Quicken you sold ALL shares and
accept
>> whatever fractional number it may come up with.
>>
>> This is not a new problem. We've discussed it here many times.
Quicken's
>> rounding process often produces results that we don't expect - and
often
>> those minor differences don't become apparent until much later.
Such as
>> when we sell all those shares. When we enter a transaction, we must
always
>> put in the exact dollars and cents, and we must enter the exact
number of
>> shares, including the decimal fraction, if applicable. Let Quicken
adjust
>> the per-share price, if necessary to make the arithmetic work, but
don't let
>> it adjust the number of shares. Mutual funds and ESPPs often record
>> fractional shares, usually to 3 decimal points, so the purchase of 1
2/3
>> share would be recorded as 1.667. If we enter 1.667 shares in Quicken,
>> we're OK. But if we enter 1 2/3 shares, Quicken might record it as
1.666667
>> internally, while showing only the 1.667. If we then try to record
the sale
>> of 1.667 shares, Quicken will want to record a short sale for the
.000333
>> share difference. You can either correct your entries for the
number of
>> shares purchased, or let Quicken adjust to zero by telling it you
sold ALL
>> shares.
>>
>> RC
>> --
>> R. C. White, CPA
>> San Marcos, TX
>> (Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
>> rc@grandecom.net
>> Microsoft Windows MVP
>> (Currently running Vista x86 build 5744 RC2)
>>
>
>>> > Greetings,
>>> >
>>> > I've just hit a problem with Quicken 2005 premier Release R6, and
was
>>> > hoping someone would have a suggestion.
>>> >
>>> > Problem 1:
>>> > - Step 1: record a purchase of ESPP stock
>>> > - Step 2: Record a sale of the above - all shares
>>> > Quicken reports that I should split this into two transactions,
one for
>>> > the shares I own, the second to create a short position. Quicken
then
>>> > reports that the transaction wasn't recorded.
>>> >
>>> > Problem 2:
>>> > - If I try to repeat the ESPP sale, when I get to the summary
wizzard
>>> > screen, the "Done" button doesn't operate. I found that by first
deleting
>>> > the ESPP purchase & re-entering the purchase, then the sale, that
the
>>> > "Done" button again operates, but results in "Problem 1"
described above.
>>> >
>>> > TIA for any help,
>>> > Dave
____________________________________________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
http://new.mail.yahoo.com
|
|
Posted by Dave on November 13, 2006, 10:51 pm
Please log in for more thread options Another update:
The control-Z recalculate works after all. You first select the
"transactions" tab of the inventment account, then type cntrl-Z. You
don't select the date field first, as one of the postings on the quicken
forums suggested (probably applied to earlier quicken versions).
I can duplicate the problem as follows:
Create a new account file.
Create a brokerage account in that file.
Record a regular buy of a stock (don't know if this is required or not)
Record a reverse split (I picked 10:1)
Add an ESPP purchase, say 100 shares.
Add an ESPP sale - you'll only be able to sell 10 shares before you get
the window saying you need two transactions, one "regular" one short.
Questions:
- Is it OK to have regularly purchased securities and ESPP purchases
of the same security in the same investment account?
- if so, it seems like there's a bug in the program.
Am I missing anything?
Thanks again,
Dave
|
| Similar Threads | Posted | | Quicken says no shares available to sell (ESPP) | July 4, 2007, 2:45 pm |
| ESPP Shares | December 12, 2006, 5:17 pm |
| Sell Shares of Afilias | March 14, 2008, 2:33 am |
| Sell Quicken 2005 Deluxe? | January 9, 2007, 5:00 pm |
| How to sell shares and deposit in Savings account. | February 1, 2007, 5:19 pm |
| Quicken 2005 Premier and Vista Ultimate Problems | January 6, 2007, 9:43 am |
| Quicken 2005 Premier: "Internal Data Error..." | March 10, 2007, 9:01 am |
| 2005 Premier: Stuck red flag on account | May 2, 2006, 6:08 pm |
| Exporting the Proceeds of ESPP Transactions from Quicken to TurboTax | April 5, 2008, 7:29 pm |
| Q2007 (Stock options and ESPP) | August 4, 2006, 9:08 am |
|
|
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap