I see two dividend transactions downloaded from Fidelity

System

This discussion was created from comments split from:

Introducing Investment Transactions -- Share your feedback here!.

yfor11

Switching from Quicken Classic, I am used to the way Quicken handles reinvestment of dividends: One transaction of type Reinvest Div takes care of the dividend and of the purchase of the shares.

In Simplifi, I see two transactions downloaded from Fidelity - one for the dividend income and one for the reinvestment. Is that the way it's supposed to be (two transactions)? Should I delete the Dividend Income transaction and leave just the reinvestment transaction?

Please advise.

Coach Natalie

@yfor11, thanks for posting your question to the Community!

Although I'm not sure how Quicken Classic handles dividends versus Quicken Simplifi, nor am I sure how Fidelity provides this data, I'd say that ultimately what you see in Quicken Simplifi should match what's on the bank's website. Do you see both transactions listed on Fidelity's website?

Please let us know so we can best assist!

-Coach Natalie

SRC54

I have both Quicken and Simplifi and Simplifi does download 2 transactions from Fidelity instead of the one in Quicken. It wasn't done correctly before since one should have been a Dividend and the other Buy.

Since switching to the new Fidelity Investments login, Simplifi does the first transaction of a dividend correctly but the Reinvestment part I have to edit so it shows the number of shares. I could do this as a buy, but I do it as a Reinvestment and delete the dividend entry since the Reinvestment includes that. Of course, I have to change the overall transaction to 0.00 since they offset.

It really doesn't matter much since Simplifi ignores the transactions and goes with the Downloaded account balance and overall positions.

yfor11

Coach Natalie, to answer your question Fidelity shows it as two transactions and Quicken knows to merge it into a single transaction, for example:

@SRC54 you wrote, "It really doesn't matter much since Simplifi ignores the transactions" which I understand. But what if I want to run a report that shows me my dividend income for some period of time? How do I set up the transactions in such a way that I can use a filter to get this information?

SRC54

@yfor11 In my Brokerage account, I just went to reports, chose last year and filtered it for my Brokerage Account. I did an income report and it showed my dividends for last year. Of course, I use two categories for dividends, taxable and non-taxable, but it showed both since I didn't filter the category.

But I don't reinvest my dividends in Brokerage but spend them. I reinvest in my IRA but I have my IRAs excluded from Reports and Spending Plan. I think you would have to undo that for Reports and possibly have to edit every transaction still to show it in Reports as Simplifi ignores these accounts automatically.

yfor11

@SRC54 Thank you for your comments.

The problem is that if a transaction is of typePayment/Deposit, you can assign it a category such as Dividend Income. However, if the transaction type is Income Dividend (or any other income type) no category is assigned to it and you don't see it in the income report. The same happens when the transaction type is one of the reinvestment types.

I think that until investment transactions are better supported (it is a beta feature after all), we should leave the dividend transaction as Payment/Deposit with the appropriate income category and if the income is reinvested, add a buy transaction.

SRC54

@yfor11 You are right. I was trying the other day. I can do a report for my brokerage as I actually do cash in my dividends there, but I cannot do it for my IRA for the reason you state. If you need this kind of reporting, you are better off with Quicken Classic. It is going to be a while, if ever, before Simplifi has decent reports or ones you can print, and their philosophy right now is that Investments are just there to add to your net worth, but not really for analysis purposes.

I have struggled between the two Quickens myself. There is at least a 50-50 chance I end up keeping Classic and leaving Simplifi. It is on a year to year basis.

yfor11

@SRC54 I have been a Quicken classic user for as long as you and to tell you the truth, although its support for investments is much better, it had grown a bit long in the tooth, for me. It's very slow and it gets a few investments confused. This is the reason that I am trying Simplifi which is snappier and has a more modern interface. Also, since it's a web application it's accessible from everywhere.

I guess I can always use Fidelity whenever I need a more in-depth analysis of my investments. For the time being, the experiment continues…

SRC54

@yfor11 It looks like we are pretty much on the same page as I agree with you and I like the web apps, and one day I hope to make do with just an iPad and an iPhone and not have to maintain a Mac too.

I fear that Simplifi folks aren't too interested in printed Reports and Investments, which I guess I can live without. They promised us a roadmap but it came to nothing.