[Kmymoney] Re: Reinvest dividend with fees from brokerage account

[David Houlden]

Hi Volker,
See comments below.

On Thursday 11 November 2010 Volker Paul wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I posted this on the KmyMoney-KDE3 mailing list
> kmymoney2-user at lists.sourceforge.net before
> but then I noticed that it was the only posting so far in November.
> It seems the kmymoney2-user at lists.sourceforge.net list is dead now?
>
> Anyway, my problem seems to occur on both versions.
>
> I want to track a reinvestment.
> Should I track it as "Dividend" followed by "Buy shares" or
> as "Reinvest dividend"?
> The difference is how interest and fees are treated.
>
> In the first case (two separate transactions)
> I first receive an amount of interest.
>
> Activity: Dividend
> Security: WeCan Funds
> Account:  BBA Bank Brokerage Account
> Interest: 492.04 EUR    from "Income:Brokerage Interest"
>
> Then this amount is re-invested:
>
> Activity: Buy shares
> Security: WeCan Funds
> Account:  BBA Bank Brokerage Account
> Shares:   8.848
> Price:     55.61 EUR
> Fees:       1.48 EUR    to "Expense:Brokerage Fees"
> Total:    493.52 EUR
>
> So far so good.
> The 492.04 EUR I got are reinvested as 8.848 shares for 55.61 EUR each.
> The fees of 1.48 EUR come from the brokerage account,
> so the balance of the brokerage account is lowered by 1.48 EUR.
>
> How can I achieve that with a single "Reinvest dividend" transaction?
>
> Activity: Reinvest dividend
> Security: WeCan Funds
> Shares:   8.848
> Price:     55.61 EUR
> Fees:       1.48 EUR    to "Expense:Brokerage Fees"
> Interest: from "Income:Brokerage Interest" (amount is not shown,
> calculated as 8.848 * 55.61 EUR)
> Total:    493.52 EUR
>
> That is not quite correct. Here I receive 493.52 EUR of interest
> instead of correctly 492.04 EUR.
> The fees of 1.48 EUR here are taken from the interest instead of
> correctly from the brokerage account.
>
For me this is actually correct. I own some shares where the dividends are 
automatically reinvested. What happens is that the dividend is reduced by 
the brokerage fees before it is reinvested. I do not have the option of the 
fees coming from a brokerage account. 
So, using your example,
Dividend Paid: 492.04
Brokerage Fees: 1.48
Amount to be reinvested:  490.56
At a price of 55.61 you would receive 490.56 / 55.61 = 8.821 shares.

> To rectify that, I tried to split the fees.
>
> Activity: Reinvest dividend
> Security: WeCan Funds
> Shares:   8.848
> Price:     55.61 EUR
> Fees:       1.48 EUR    to "Expense:Brokerage Fees"
>            -1.48 EUR    to the brokerage account,
>            so 0 EUR total fees paid from interest, but 1.48 EUR paid from
> the brokerage account
> Interest: from "Income:Brokerage Interest" (amount is not shown,
> calculated as 8.848 * 55.61 EUR)
> Total:    492.04 EUR
> In the summary this means that 1.48 EUR go from the brokerage account to
> "Income:Brokerage Interest"
> and from there to the "Expense:Brokerage Fees", so the complete interest
> amount of 492.04 EUR
> is reinvested and the fees are paid from the brokerage account.
>
> Awkward construction but formally correct if it worked. But it doesn't.
> The Enter button is greyed and cannot be clicked.
> Maybe because the total of the split is 0.
> If I change it to be nonzero, Enter becomes green but then
> my calculation is wrong.
>
> What should I do? At the moment it seems that KMyMoney cannot handle
> "complicated" reinvest transactions (with fees involved).
>
> Greetings,
>
> Volker