UPDATE Oct 2021: Find the comprehensive tutorial on Scrip dividends on StocksCafe Academy.
Some companies/stocks regularly give the option to receive dividends as either cash or shares. Often, to encourage investors to choose shares, they would even offer them at a discounted price to the currently traded price.
All along, StocksCafe has always assumed that users would choose cash because it is easy to implement and in my opinion, that is what happens even if you chose shares. You received the cash and used that money to buy more shares. Many investors, however, would prefer to have a way to account for that.
Thus, last weekend, I dedicated some time to implement this. You can now tag transactions to be scrip dividends so that it is clearly accounted for which dividends you have chosen to take as shares instead of cash. You can also see how much dividends you have reinvested yearly.
How to tag transactions as Scrip?
StocksCafe has made is simple to tag dividends as Scrip:
From the collected dividends tab, under the “Scrip” column, click on “create”. lt will bring you to the new transaction page and some fields are automatically filled out for you.
Validity Checks
There will also be validity checks to ensure that you have entered scrip transactions correctly. StocksCafe will check two things:
1) Whether there is a corresponding dividend on the same ExDate as the scrip transaction date.
2) Whether the total amount of the scrip dividend is less than or equal to the total amount of dividend that you would receive.
If any of the above two conditions is not satisfied, you will see the Scrip column in red on the transactions overview page.
How do you know which dividends are tagged as Scrip?
You can see them on the dividends collected tab. The charts will also be updated to reflect the scrip amount vs cash amount. You can also see how much dividends you have reinvested on a yearly basis.
Note: With this, I believe there will be no reason for users to remove dividends hence that ability is removed. If you have previously removed dividends due to taking shares instead of cash, I recommend deleting the override and using this new approach from hereon. If you still believe there is still a need to have the ability to remove dividends, please let me know.
Update 1
Question: Does it support part scrip part cash?
Answer: Yes, it does. Simply enter a scrip transactions with the amount that is scrip and StocksCafe will automatically handle it 🙂
Update 2
Based on comments below, decided to put back the ability to remove dividends
Happy investing!
References
Tutorial on handling Scrip dividends in StocksCafe
Discussion on Scrip dividend handling
Thanks for adding this feature, I used to manually key in and remove dividend, so Glad that this new features is available, once again, Thanks !
Hi Evan, thanks for taking the time to implement this function. It will definitely allow greater flexibility for users (like myself) to create a more personalized portfolio.
Hi Evan, what will happens if I have had manually override the dividend and entered the scrip as a new transaction in the past and choose not to delete the override?
@madtari
“entered the scrip as a new transaction in the past and choose not to delete the override?” => Well.. You can do that if you want but the accounting might be weird. One way to work around it will be to not tag the transaction as scrip.
Does it support election of partial scrip part cash?
Does it support election of partial scrip part cash? => Yes, it does. Simply enter a scrip transactions with the amount that is scrip and StocksCafe will automatically handle it 🙂
THANK YOU AGAIN, EVAN =DDDDDDDD
When CitySpring merged with Keppel Infra Trust, StocksCafe automatically added dividends issued under Keppel(which stocks I did own not previously). Hence the dividend override is still useful.
@mobile Is that a bug? I wonder if we can handle that in other ways. I would like to deprecate override if possible. Can you create a bug ticket and explain more? Thanks.
Hi Evan, I had the same problem as mobile. I have shared this with you previously and you also agreed that override was the easiest work around.
@madtari, I see. I forgot the whole conversation. Okie. Will put back the ability to override somewhere.
No worries at all! Thanks Evan for being so accommodating to users’ requests/queries and you have implemented so much useful features along the way since start! 🙂
This is a wonderful feature, because now I can finally see how much I actually paid (in terms of opportunity cost) for scrip.
The new data will help me decide whether it is a good idea to continue getting scrip or collect the cash to buy something else for better potential returns.
@tomatoseed, I believe Evan cracked his brains hard for this, I kept bugging him hahaha.
Hi Evan
can i still have the ability to remove dividends. Because I have my other portfolio inside. So for example I have ABC share which is held by 2 portfolios (X and Y). But the scrip div shares from both X and Y will all go to X (regardless of the division). To compensate Y, he will still get the dividends.
@all, Thanks for the comments. I have put back the ability to remove dividends.
@idynamic, sorry for the delay. It is always good to bug me now and then. There are just too many features requests. And they are not all. I have my own private list of features/bugs todo such as architecture upgrades, performance improvements etc. And I only have weekday nights and weekends to work on them 🙂
@evankoh I am still not sure how it works for part scrip, part cash. Let’s say counter A’s scrip dividend policy is to pay fractional entitlements in cash; Total dividend is $104; Scrip share price is $5, I get 20 shares and $4 cash; How do I indicate this using the scrip dividend feature?
What does Price Paid/Received mean?
@ramukeers, I have create a simple tutorial for that => https://forum.stocks.cafe/t/how-to-handle-part-scrip-part-cash-situations/1966
Lets discuss there 🙂
Hi Evan, sorry for flogging the dead horse here, but should the validity check not be for the corresponding dividend Paydate instead for scrips?