OFX transaction dilemma

David T. sunfish62 at yahoo.com
Fri Feb 6 15:29:08 EST 2015


To me, a dividend reinvestment is easiest to comprehend if I consider it two separate transactions, which your examples also indicates. You have a dividend, and then you have a buy. Both of these will have 2 sides in GnuCash. The dividend's two sides will be an income account and an asset account, while the buy will involve two assets. The transactions for A will look like:
02/04/2015Dividend A Transaction
Income:Dividends:A $50.00
Assets:Brokerage Account $50.00 

Reinvest A TransactionAssets:Brokerage Account -$50.00 
Assets:Holding A +5.586 shares @ $8.54/share

Now, the Holding B transaction would be essentially the same:
02/04/2015Dividend B Transaction
Income:Dividends:B $50.00
Assets:Brokerage Account $50.00 

Reinvest B Transaction
Assets:Brokerage Account -$48.00 
Assets:Holding B +6 shares
Now, about the extra $2. Where does that go? Does the brokerage keep it, or do you get it? 

In the event that the brokerage retains these surplus funds in an account for you, then the above transactions should result in a $2 balance in the Brokerage account.
In the unlikely event that the brokerage keeps it, then your shares are not $8 each, but more. I would probably make the $2 an added split on the buy transaction, assigned to Expenses:Bank Fees, thus:
Reinvest B Transaction
Assets:Brokerage Account -$50.00 
Assets:Holding B +6 shares @ $8/share
Expenses:Bank Fees $2

Does this sound right to you, or have I missed the point entirely?
David
  From: harphauler <hurst.lou at gmail.com>
 To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org 
 Sent: Thursday, February 5, 2015 7:24 PM
 Subject: OFX transaction dilemma
   
I am converting from Quicken to Gnucash and have an issue that is similar in
both Quicken and Gnucash with downloaded brokerage dividend reinvested
transactions.

To set the stage, I am able to accomplish what is needed manually in
Gnucash, and by editing the same transactions in Quicken.  I firmly believe
my brokerage is reporting reinvested dividends correctly, i.e HOLDING A pays
a dividend of $50.00 and reinvests that amount in 5.856 new shares of
HOLDING A.  HOLDING B pays a dividend of $50.00 but reinvests only in an
even number of shares so $48.00 is reinvested at 8.00/share.  As reported on
their website and month-end statement this is how it appears:

02/04/2015    HOLDING A    Dividend                  + $50.00
02/04/2015    HOLDING A    Dividend Reinvested    - $50.00
                + 5.856 shares @ $8.54

02/03/2015    HOLDING B    Dividend                  + $50.00
02/03/2015    HOLDING B    Dividend Reinvested    - $48.00
                + 6 shares @ $8.00

If I download these transactions in Quicken what happens is I have a $50.00
HOLDING A dividend and $50.00 dividend shown in the cash account and a
HOLDING A 5.856 shares reinvested and HOLDING B 6 shares reinvested in the
stock account.  If I accept things as is I wind up with 5.856 shares extra
of HOLDING A and 6 shares extra of HOLDING B.  I have two options:  I can
delete the dividends in the cash account but the cash will now be $2.00
short on account of the HOLDING B transaction.  The second option which I
use is to retain the dividends in the cash account and edit the two dividend
reinvested transactions in the stock account to a buy transaction.  There is
more work involved in the HOLDING B transaction, I need to go to the
brokerage website to determine the number of shares reinvested.

In Gnucash, if I do nothing with the downloaded transactions I wind up with
an extra $50.00 cash from HOLDING A and $48.00 cash extra from HOLDING B in
the cash account.  Unlike Quicken, if I use the transaction that results in
$48.00 extra, it can be edited locally because it will show the number of
shares that were bought/reinvested using auto-fill.  Regardless, there is a
little more work involved with Gnucash and it's hard to keep track of say
six to eight of these transactions weekly in various accounts.

My question then, is there an easier, more efficient way of handling these
transactions and eliminate the extra cash?

A little more back story on this.  I have been working with some very nice
people in the IT department of our brokerage; I do some limited beta testing
for them on a limited basis.  Stated briefly, they, along with a handful of
other brokerages have been working with Intuit to resolve this issue. 
Basically their hands are tied by Intuit's QFX format requirements.  I
honestly don't think they're trying to make me go away by blaming an issue
on an outside source.  Rather they're trying to report transactions in a
manner, in their opinion (and mine also) that is correct and in this case
results in an annoyance.

Thanks.



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