Multi holdings

[PrefInvestor]

It strikes me that you are going a long way round to achieve your objectives.....
TJH

Hi TJH, see my comments on your comments in italics.
The biggest problem with managing dividends I find is the fact that the dates and amounts aren’t known precisely till they are announced, but I still want to have a schedule for the year on the 1st Jan – so hence the method of a best guess list at the start which is then updated as time passes with inputs from various sources.

The problem that I see with your method is that the linkage to the number of shares held may be incorrect, if shares are sold XD or if shares are added after the XD date.
When a share goes XD I take the row for that dividend and overwrite it with a copy and paste special values so the values cant change thereafter. So if for example I buy more shares or sell some or all of them. Of course selling after the XD date does not stop the dividend payment. And if I buy or sell XD then I want the new number of shares to be present starting with the next dividend. If I buy a completely new holding I create new dividend table entries for that after the buy.

I use conditional formatting to highlight today's date and for dividends unchanged, increased, decreased, passed or awaiting currency declarations.
I use conditional formatting to highlight dividends that have gone XD or the payment due date is met. For dividends requiring a currency conversion I record the rate in a comments field when it is published.

I store an abridged copy of RNS announcements with the essential data about each payment. I also keep a spreadsheet for each financial year as a record of dividends received. This just entails copying the data for each payment from the main spreadsheet.
I don’t keep RNS data and I just add to my dividend table every year adding next years dividends to the bottom of the list. This acts as my record of past dividends. I use this to calculate the dividend element of total return for each holding, spanning multiple years where necessary.

Additionally I have a chronological record of events for each share held, from first purchase to eventual disposal.
I have a Cash table which records every transaction on any of our accounts – be it Buy, Sell, Dividend, Fees, Deposits or Withdrawals everything that affects the balance. The primary purpose of this is to reconcile the Cash balance with my broker accounts. However for Buys, Sells, Dividends etc. I also record the stock ticker, purchase/sell/dividend amounts, number of shares etc. in the Cash table in additional columns I can filter this by ticker or date/time range or whatever to see a record of all activity on that investment.

But I guess its each to their own when it comes to spreadsheet solutions !.

ATB

Pref

[tjh290633]

But I guess its each to their own when it comes to spreadsheet solutions !.

ATB

Pref

I am sure that you are correct. There is probably somebody around who still uses the Julian Calendar.

As far as getting an idea of rates of return, I calculate on both income unit and accumulation unit basis (the latter for Total Return). With a separate sheet for individual shares, the IRR on them is easily found. Typos can sometimes be a problem.

Best of luck.

TJH

[Hariseldon58]

On the matter of dividends rounded up or down, for many years both myself and wife had exactly the same holdings in a few shares , with the same broker. Quite often one or other of us would have a Penny more than the other, it was pretty random who would have the extra Penny !

I suspect they randomly shared out the odd amounts rather than being greedy, to get it correct as a whole.

[mrodent]

I do but I cannot be bothered and so I have the problem. So I will just live with it I guess.I am concerned to ensure that I get all the dividends to which I am entitled and then in recording them properly. What prompted the post in the first place was that at the weekend, one dividend looked a bit low and on investigation I discovered that I had not included some dividends in another ISA. Added about 3% to my dividend total so not insignificant.

Dod

I'd recommend consolidating in a single platform or two (or three if for example one platform offers a good deal for SIPP but nothing special for anything else: I have mine with InteractiveInvestor but everything else now with Lloyds Investment Bank).

I have 100% accumulation funds (and BRK.B, also no divs).

But my concern is that the thing is (at the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious) you're paying either a percentage or a flat rate platform fee on these different platforms. The Lloyds platform fee for ISA and GIA accounts is something ridiculous like £40 a year. Not bad when I have many 00s of 000s in there. No idea how much you have: but I'd say do the calculations, if you're paying on %s.

I have had to consolidate years ago, and did so using "in specie" transfer. And yes, it was an almighty PITA, for the simple reason that not all platforms are able to offer the same funds or ETFs or whatever. Where they can't you eventually get a message saying "shall we just liquidate this or that fund in your ISA, which we can't handle, and credit this as ISA-cash?" Ditto for the GIA. It also took months: for some unaccountable reason (joke) Hargreaves Lansdown didn't seem to want to let go of my dosh when I got sick of paying 0.45% platform fees! But you set the ball rolling ... and it just happens, eventually.

[Dod101]

I specifically do not want to consolidate on one platform.If anything goes wrong with it then I am stuffed. I live off my dividends and they are a very important item that I want to keep flowing. So I need a minimum of two platforms which is what I have now. I will just live with the modest inconvenience and may set up some sort of spreadsheet to keep tabs on things but I am not much into that.

Keep it simple!

Dod

[mrodent]

The platforms don't own your holdings: you do. But it's your money to feel paranoid about in your own way, granted. Nothing simpler than everything consolidated in one place of course.

[Dod101]

The platforms don't own your holdings: you do. But it's your money to feel paranoid about in your own way, granted. Nothing simpler than everything consolidated in one place of course.

I know that but if something goes wrong with a platform, although the assets may not be at risk, access to them can and often is denied for many months whilst the mess is sorted out. This has been discussed many times on these Boards. I am not paranoid about it but I cannot afford the complacency that you exhibit either.

Dod

[Arborbridge]

The platforms don't own your holdings: you do. But it's your money to feel paranoid about in your own way, granted. Nothing simpler than everything consolidated in one place of course.

I agree with Dod. It isn't paranoid, just sensible planning. When you are living almost entirely on dividend income, then to have a single broker is reckless, in my view. I have four as it happens, mostly for historical reasons to do with how my investments developed, and my own inertia - but I would say two or three would be perfectly reasonable.

Arb.

[swill453]

The platforms don't own your holdings: you do. But it's your money to feel paranoid about in your own way, granted. Nothing simpler than everything consolidated in one place of course.

I agree with Dod. It isn't paranoid, just sensible planning. When you are living almost entirely on dividend income, then to have a single broker is reckless, in my view. I have four as it happens, mostly for historical reasons to do with how my investments developed, and my own inertia - but I would say two or three would be perfectly reasonable.

I wouldn't criticise your caution, but personally I'm comfortable that my cash buffer would isolate me from any access issues for as long as necessary.

Scott.

[PrefInvestor]

The platforms don't own your holdings: you do. But it's your money to feel paranoid about in your own way, granted. Nothing simpler than everything consolidated in one place of course.

Yes but with nominee accounts being used almost universally by brokers these days, as I understand it your money is held in a big pot with just the brokers name on it together with that of other customers at your broker. So its not unambiguously labelled as "yours", you are reliant on the brokers nominee account records. Thats true of both investments and cash I think, though with cash I believe that brokers do distribute that across multiple banking institutions - at least my main broker says thats what they do.

For me the main reason for having multiple brokers is to enable you to have continued access to some funds and providing the continued ability to trade should your broker go bust - hopefully unlikely but possibly an issue for anyone using smaller brokers. Though staying within the FSCS limits (or close to them) is some comfort as well.

ATB

Pref

[Arborbridge]

The platforms don't own your holdings: you do. But it's your money to feel paranoid about in your own way, granted. Nothing simpler than everything consolidated in one place of course.

Yes but with nominee accounts being used almost universally by brokers these days, as I understand it your money is held in a big pot with just the brokers name on it together with that of other customers at your broker. So its not unambiguously labelled as "yours", you are reliant on the brokers nominee account records. Thats true of both investments and cash I think, though with cash I believe that brokers do distribute that across multiple banking institutions - at least my main broker says thats what they do.

For me the main reason for having multiple brokers is to enable you to have continued access to some funds and providing the continued ability to trade should your broker go bust - hopefully unlikely but possibly an issue for anyone using smaller brokers. Though staying within the FSCS limits (or close to them) is some comfort as well.

ATB

Pref

So its not unambiguously labelled as "yours", you are reliant on the brokers nominee account records. and just to emphasise this point, it means that if the broker record keeping is faulty, there may not be enough shares to go round. Before people say this is almost impossible, that's true but it has happened within recents times - and it took a year before anyone got their money.

I would agree that with modern systems run by large companies such as Halifax, Bell or HL, errors and collapses are extremely unlikely - but if it's happen before it can happen again. The past has enough financial scandals to make one prepare for the worst.

Arb.

[SebsCat]

Similarly, why do some brokers have the decency to round to the nearest penny (up or down) whilst others are greedy and always round down? I think I even had one dividend with where the payment came to an exact penny amount and they still rounded down!

In all my years of investing, I have to say I have never done the sums to work out if my broker is even paying the correct money, let alone whether they are rounding up or down.

My bad, I suppose...

EDIT: I do track the payments over time, so any errors would probably be apparent.

Scott.

I track our holdings using Sharescope which calculates and records the dividends automatically. I then correct them to the actual amount received when I periodically check against the broker transactions which makes it very obvious when amounts have been rounded down.

Within Sharescope I have portfolios for each of the broker accounts and a group portfolio that combines them for an overall view. This makes having holdings across multiple accounts much less of an administrative burden which is lucky as we have quite a few holdings over 2 or 3 accounts (one holding is currently in 4 different accounts although I intend closing one of those soon). Possibly because of the use of Sharescope, I've always tended to adopt the approach of buying in the account which currently has the cash rather than worrying about splitting shares across accounts.

[PrefInvestor]

i track our holdings using Sharescope which calculates and records the dividends automatically. I then correct them to the actual amount received when I periodically check against the broker transactions which makes it very obvious when amounts have been rounded down.

Within Sharescope I have portfolios for each of the broker accounts and a group portfolio that combines them for an overall view. This makes having holdings across multiple accounts much less of an administrative burden which is lucky as we have quite a few holdings over 2 or 3 accounts (one holding is currently in 4 different accounts although I intend closing one of those soon). Possibly because of the use of Sharescope, I've always tended to adopt the approach of buying in the account which currently has the cash rather than worrying about splitting shares across accounts.

Well SebsCat I’d certainly hope that an expensive portfolio management package like ShareScope would make handling different share tranches across multiple accounts a breeze. However I suspect most Lemon Fool posters are probably using free software like HYPTUSS or have produced their own spreadsheet solutions at zero cost, which is what I have done. In such cases how good the solution is depends a great deal on the individuals competence with spreadsheets….

ATB

Pref

[daveh]

I'm in the same boat but look on it as a sort of double check - if dividend arrives in one ISA then why hasn't it in another?

Of course it also leads to big frustrations - for instance, why do dividends always arrive last in the HL ISA??? Often days later.

Similarly, why do some brokers have the decency to round to the nearest penny (up or down) whilst others are greedy and always round down? I think I even had one dividend with where the payment came to an exact penny amount and they still rounded down!

II round down. I often lose a penny compared to my calculation of the dividend due and it has almost never happened with HSDL. Last year I "lost" 28p in total. I'm not particularly worried about it (I gain a lot more from the fact that II pays interest on cash and HSDL don't), but in aggregate it must be a nice earner for II.