Distributions as cash vs reinvested

[Mary Kennedy]

I am having some difficulty keeping track of distributions. When I download transactions, FM seems to treat them all one way or all the other. I'd like to define the properties of each investment uniquely. E.g., stocks tend to distribute cash, while funds tend to reinvest the distribution, buying more shares with it. Is there a way to define these in the properties box or somewhere?

A second problem is, I just discovered numerous old distributions that were entered as cash but should have been entered as reinvested. But when I try to edit the transaction, FM asks me for the price, which turns out to be a real nuisance when I need to do this for every monthly distribution for the past 6 months. Can you fix this so that FM uses the closing price for that day automatically, rather than asking me to go look it up each time?

[Mark]

Hi Mary Kennedy,

Are you downloading transactions from your broker? If so, this information should all come as reported. For example, a distribution on a stock that is not reinvested, will get downloaded as distributed. A mutual fund where it is reinvested, will get recorded as reinvested. Fund Manager is just importing it as reported by the broker, so you shouldn't have to set/change anything. Or, are you getting distribution data from the Yahoo (Historical) quote server?

The price gets updated when you adjust the date. If you edit a distributed distribution, and turn on "Reinvested", and then change the date to anything, and back, that will refresh the price dialog for the price on that date. (An easy way is to hit the down and then up arrow while the keyboard focus is on the date.) Do this before editing the price field manually. Once you edit the price field manually, FM will not change it. It assumes you've set it to the price you want, once you edit it.

[Mary Kennedy]

If mine is not getting data correctly, what could account for it? Any settings I need to know about? The same things are coming in correctly on Quicken so it is not the broker's problem.

[Mark]

Hi Mary Kennedy,

So you are retrieving from your broker?

Please note, reinvested distributions can come in as 2 separate transactions, a distributed distribution and a purchase, unless you check the option: "Record Matching Purchase/Distribution as Reinvestment" when retrieving. A distributed distribution and a purchase are equivalent to a reinvestment, but some brokers report this way. When you have on that option, Fund Manager will attempt to combine these 2 separate transactions into a reinvestment when appropriate. If a reinvestment is coming in as purchase and distribution, you can see these in the Data Register. Set the "Data Type" to "Investments (all)" to see the purchase, and "Distributions (all)" to see the distribution.

If the above paragraph doesn't explain the problem, can you give me an example (an investment name, date, amount, and type of distribution) of something not coming in correctly? For example, Janus Fund comes in with a distribution distribution of $10 on June 30, 2010, but it should be reinvested. If you can also send me the log files (ofxretr.txt, xmldump.txt, and ofxmemtrandump.txt) right after you retrieve this account for a date range covering this example, I can take a look. To find the log files, go here:

Windows XP and earlier:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Fund Manager
Windows Vista and 7:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Fund Manager

The application data folder is hidden, so make sure you're viewing hidden files/folders to find this log file. You can email us this log file, instead of posting it on the forum. To get an email address to send it to, go here, and fill out any simple message.

http://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/email.html