Captial Gains Report - Personal Version

[surendar jeyadev]

I have not generated a capital gains report, ever, till today. I was curious to see how the gains reported compared with the various statements for the last year. I generated a report for the period 1 Jan 2020 to 31 Jan 2020.

Much to my surprise, capital gains distributions from mutual funds do not seem to be taken into account at all, though I log those as such (ST and LT) when I update the accounts. There is not a single line in the report pertaining to these distributions which are the major source of capital gains.

Equally surprising is the case of individual securities. Only for two out of ten sales in this period are the gains/losses calculated. For the remaining eight, both, the "Bought" and the "Cost Basis" columns are N.A. However, when I click on any line, the correct data for the purchase is displayed. True, the purchase of all ten securities was in years before 2020, but
the relevant data for the calculation is available.

1. Is there a way to display the capital gain distributions from mutual funds and EFTs in the report?
2. Wny are capital gains for individual securities not calculated even when the data is present?

thanks
sj

[Mark]

Hi SJ,

Distributions of type "LT Cap Gain", etc are shown as "Distributions", as in the Distribution Summary report, not in a Capital Gains report, which shows gain/loss on your sell transactions.

If you get an N/A in this report (or any report), use "Help / Logs / Report Calculation..." for an explanation. One common reason for an N/A in a Capital Gains report is if you're using Specified Lots for the accounting method, but have not "specified" how you sold the lots.

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

Thanks for the reply.

I do have a follow up question. I found that I could specify lots by right clicking
on a line in the Capital Gains report, and then selecting InvestmentData/SpecifyLots.
This brings up the Specify Lots dialogue box.

This is pretty labourious, but given that I have only 10 sales, it was not too bad.

The question is whether there is a way of making the Specify Lots dialogue box
pop up whenever a sale is being recorded? That would make life a lot simpler.

thanks
sj

[Mark]

Hi sj,

You don't have to use the Specific Lots accounting method. If you use FIFO or AVG you don't have to specify any lots. If you do choose to use Specific Lot, when you record a Sell transaction, notice there is a "Specify Lots..." button on the right side you can choose after entering the details for your sell transaction.

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

Back when I was doing things by hand, I have done this. But when one electronically
retrieves transactions and "accepts" them, this dialogue box does not open up. I
suppose the workaround is to deselect sale transactions, accept the rest (after
verification!) and then manually enter the sales. For a very infrequent trader like
myself, this is fine. But what about more frequent traders?

What would be the best procedure if one is downloading transactions?

thanks
sj

[Mark]

Hi SJ,

Download transactions, and then go specify the lots. No need to manually enter sell transactions to get to the Specify Lots dialog box. There are many ways to get there. Here are a couple:

- In the Portfolio Editor, right mouse click on an investment, and choose "Investment Data / Specify Lots...".

- In a Capital Gains report, right mouse click on a lot, and choose "Investment Data / Specify Lots...".