Updating values of Managed Funds
I have 4 different managed funds. They report at various times but usually quarterly.. The return on these funds do not go back into the fund but are paid to me. However, the value of the funds also change at that time and I cannot find a way to reflect the changes. Can anyone suggest a method?
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1 Posted by Lance A on May 08, 2020 @ 12:52 AM
No response yet so I will raise the possibility of altering the share price in the register to get the cash balance to change. That might work but I have not found a way to change the share price from the '1' that is already there.
2 Posted by Lance A on May 08, 2020 @ 01:12 AM
Here is a screenshot that might explain things better
3 Posted by dwg on May 08, 2020 @ 01:34 AM
I'm a fellow user.
You have the right sort of idea that the price needs to be amended but it is not the price in the register it is the security price in the history that needs to be updated.
There are a number of ways to do this, so I will only outline what I think is the easiest approach. Within the Extension --> Manage Extensions menu item install the Security Price Entry Extension.
One you have it installed open the extension through the menu item Extensions --> Security Price Entry This will present a table. Set the date of the price you are entering, Select the check box to update the current price and enter the new price next to the security involved.
This will not change any values in the registers but in various reports and on displays like the Summary page you will see the "current" value of the investment
4 Posted by Lance A on May 09, 2020 @ 01:53 AM
Thanks for your help dwg. I did as you outlined and it all worked but the original price still stayed the same in summary and all the other reports.
5 Posted by dwg on May 09, 2020 @ 02:19 AM
It sounds the new price was not set as the current price.
You can use the menu item Tools --> Securities to open the securities window, double click on security and it will open a history window and you can check and even adjust the current price. Views like the summary page use the current price.
6 Posted by Lance A on May 09, 2020 @ 05:18 AM
The price still stays the same even after doing that. I will give up on it for now as it is not a critical issue.Sometime down the track I will be able to sort it out.
7 Posted by -Kevin N. on May 09, 2020 @ 02:23 PM
Hi Lance,
Based on your screenshot, these 4 transactions are Dividend payouts. Dividends should always have a price of 1. Dividends do not reflect the price of their associated investment.
The funds are then transferred to the ASF Trans account, rendering the Cash Balance unchanged - as expected.
The Cash Balance of the register has no bearing on the value of the underlying investments in the account. It simply represents the accumulated cash in the account.
Some Moneydance users leave the Cash Balance as-is, to represent the cash in the account. Others, buy shares of the account's Money Market Fund which will zero out the Cash Balance. (In the US, most brokerages require a Money Market Fund to handle cash sweeps)
If on the other hand, you feel that the Cash Balance is incorrect, you can enter or edit an 'Initial Balance' for the account to correct it.
To do so, open Moneydance to the account in question.
From the menu bar, go to Account > Edit Account.
In the resulting form, you can enter or edit the 'Initial Balance' field.
-Kevin N. (not a member of MD suppport)
8 Posted by Lance A on May 09, 2020 @ 11:52 PM
Thanks Kevin. That seems like a reasonable way to go.
I was a long time user of Quicken which became, for us in Australia, Reckon Personal Plus. In latter years they have become more expensive, which is why I changed to MD. In Reckon Personal Plus it was possible to update the price and so end up with the correct amount and I was hoping to be able to do the same in MD.
9 Posted by dwg on May 10, 2020 @ 02:55 AM
I manually enter a unit price for some mutual funds I have each month and this is used for the current value of my investment in those funds. I use the Security Price Entry extension to enter these prices and set them as current.
Yes Reckon has become an expensive solution yet really does not do any more today than it has in the past, plus the attitude of Reckon is enough to put many people off using the software.
10 Posted by Lance A on May 10, 2020 @ 11:02 PM
As mentioned previously this doesn't seem to work for me dwg, and iI might be to do with the way I have set them up. We have 3 managed funds, but two different ones with the same fund, - totalling 4. I have set them up as 4 separate investments whereas the 8 different shares we have are combined under one security heading. Would this be affecting my attempts to update the price?
11 Posted by dwg on May 10, 2020 @ 11:21 PM
I tend to agree there is something in the setup or the way that the prices are being applied that is causing the problem. People not setting the current price is a common issue and why it usually gets a mention, as loading prices and setting the current price are two distinct things, just because a entered price may have a later date does not mean it automatically becomes the current price, hence why the issue can arise.
I'm sorry but I'm just unable to gain a clear picture in my mind how your investments are setup, which is making it difficult fr me to suggest where to look for the issue.
Having a single fund used in multiple investments is not a problem, that is often the case, especially in Australia, where you may have a strategic mix of funds but then have to split the funds into an allocated pension, superannuation and perhaps a general investment. Where some do create a problen however is when they are creating the securities and they create one multiple times, one for each investment it is held in. In Moneydance you just create it once and then reference that single instance is multiple investment accounts. As I said I'm just not picturing your setup so am making some more general comments and observations.
12 Posted by Lance A on May 11, 2020 @ 05:12 AM
With Reckon I could end up with the actual amounts they were worth and I liked that. I have looked at putting the appreciations and depreciations of the funds in as misc. inc. and misc.ex. but then they have to have to be matched somewhere else and I don’t know where to do that.
13 Posted by dwg on May 11, 2020 @ 05:33 AM
I recall how Reckon allowed you to use ShrsIn and ShrsOut to adjust the total value of the investment, Really Reckon used it as an Add or Decrease value rather than as a real transactions. I have made a suggestion to the developers that they look at this method of adjusting values, especially as some investment houses do not give enough information to be able to use the conventional setting price methodology. Investment house here in Australia often provide insufficient data in this respect..
To use MiscInc and MiscExp transactions to adjust the total value is doable. A simple approach you can take to do this is to create a category for Investment Value Changes, and use this category when you use the MiscInc or MiscExp transactions. You do not use this category for reporting anywhere, unless you want to see the change in value over time where you may want to have a graph of the values in this category.
14 Posted by Lance A on May 12, 2020 @ 06:22 AM
I have setup a trial data set using the criteria you suggest dwg. It seems to work but the'Investment Value Changes' category needs to be excluded from some reports. However the Summary page tells the correct story.
15 Posted by dwg on May 12, 2020 @ 06:50 AM
Yes the category will need to be excluded from reports. It is being used for changes in value rather than as an Income or Expense item, hence it is not really relevant to your normal category reporting.
The way Moneydance works there are only three ways I can think of to do changes in value of investments.
1. Change the unit price of the investment.
2. Use transfers and categories
3. Use transfers and accounts
2 & 3 are effectively the same thing as categories are nothing more than a special type of account. The difference is that with categories you have to make sure that it is excluded from I & E based reports, with accounts you have to exclude it from Net worth and account balance type reports.
When I migrated from Reckon I tried all three approaches and my preference was to use price changes, I felt it fitted in more with how Moneydance works and Moneydance investment reporting.
16 Posted by Lance A on May 12, 2020 @ 10:25 PM
I would certainly prefer to use price changes but have been unable to do so other than altering the initial amount as Kevin suggested.
I am unsure what to do from here so will just keep plugging away at present. Thank you Kevin and dwg for your help. Being relatively new to Moneydance I need help from people like yourselves.
17 Posted by dwg on May 12, 2020 @ 10:55 PM
Hmm hang on a moment.
I have just had a look at your transaction register again. There is something amiss here.
Are these all the transactions you have? Have you entered an initial balance of 291,512.30?
If so I can understand the problem and the reason.
This investment account shows a cash balance of 219,512.30. This means that the money is not invested anywhere, effectively something more akin to a bank account or a cash account. To be invested there has to be one or more Buy transactions of a security and in this case it looks like this would be Fidante Fund. At the moment it looks like you do not own any units in this fund, that would explain why unit price changes would have no effect on the value, the Securities Details view should show the current state of the investment and prove this or not.
18 Posted by Lance A on May 13, 2020 @ 11:54 PM
I think I can see what you mean dwg. Yes the amount of the Fidante fund was 291,512.30.
When I setup the investment accounts on the 1st of July I entered the 4 of them individually with the amounts.they had on that date. All of them were to pay any earnings into my current transaction account. In the case of Fidante they do this quarterly, but the others use different times.
I set the shares we own up under one fund using the buy system which i then adjusted as per instructions. Should I have done the investments the same way?
19 Posted by dwg on May 14, 2020 @ 01:41 AM
Without a buy you do not have an investment.
Let me see if I can give an example to demonstrate. Fund Managers typically offer a whole range of funds. Things like share funds for , high dividends, growth, emerging companies, indexed, local, international, global etc, Property funds covering international. local etc, fixed interest funds of various types.
You may decide to invest through a particular fund manager but decide on a mix of funds.
A typical approach is to set up an Investment account for the Fund Manager then you set up a security for each fund. Having an initial balance or transferring money into the Fund Manager Investment account is just Cash in the account, it is not money in an investment. To reflect there is money in a specific fund you need to have a buy transaction for the fund. Once you have purchased a number of units in a fund then having a price history will show the changing value over time in reports and graphs as the software can use the number of units owned X the price at different points in order the show the value of the investment at various dates.
Does this help?
20 Posted by Lance A on May 14, 2020 @ 02:06 AM
Yes it does. Thank you. You have given me enough info for to work it out so it is up to me now.
Lance A closed this discussion on May 16, 2020 @ 12:26 AM.