T5008 AFR and TaxCycle matching options request

T1
1

T5008 AFR and TaxCycle matching options request

  1. In addition to export the AFR download to Excel I would like to be able to import back into TaxCycle.

  2. If possible I would like this to be an incremental update of ACB and outlays.

  3. Between the AFR download and the TaxCycle import I would like to have the option to sort the securities by name in Alpha order.

  4. After import to TaxCycle I would like to be able to change the name to an alias name or to have a second field called alias name so that I can rename it to an easily recognizable short form. Then I would like to be able to resort the T5008 slips into alpha order. This would make the matching of the T5008 against the Realized Gains and Loss Reports much faster, easier, and with fewer chances of wrong row to slips data entry errors.

2

That is asking an awful lot of a piece of tax software. I guess if you’re willing to keep upping the price of it, that’s different. I’m on the retiring end and trying to keep the price down! :slight_smile:

Excel is (basically) free and does all the same work, more easily. And I love Pivot Tables and Power Pivot, both of which do the major part of the re-organization for me.

3

Do we have T5008 export to Excel option yet.

Currently I have one client with 204 x T5008 slips to match to the Annual Gains Loss Report. In the past I have had as many as 600 slips. The CRA download came in random order. Adding the individual ACB’s took hours. Reporting the S3 gains loss per the Slips Summary looks like a dogs breakfast in random order. I am not looking for consolidating the slips since the Client’s Source Docs are in detailed transaction order only. Even if I were looking to consolidate the slips, it would be practically impossible to get the right with the current workflow.

Any ideas for work arounds:-
1 - for data entry in alpha order
2 - for exporting for verfication
3 - for sorting in alpha and date order

You may wonder why I would even bother to enter at the detailed level. It is because there are a few types of issues that don’t reveal themselves except at the transaction detail level. A few examples include the following

1 - Redemptions, conversions, swaps, splits, reverse splits, etc.
2 - DRIPS - dividend reinvestment
3 - Transfer with no ACB’s at the FI (financial institution) level.

I know that this is post season. However I would like to give the client something better than a random order of slips summary created from the CRA AFR download.

In general it would be helpful if TaxCycle could reorder each group of slips from the AFR order to alpha order. I would also be helpful if there were a slips order ref# - one for AFR order + one for alpha order.

Why - Because active traders and even middle class retirees can have several hundreds of T5008 slips issued each year.

For T3 + T5 slips, individuals with medium to large unregistered individual investments can have literally hundreds of slips in each slip type. Often the slips issued by CRA are individual and the slips received by the client are consolidated by the issuing investment dealer. The current TaxCycle consolidation feature helps when the slips are under 30 or 40 for each slip type. When there are many more slips per type, often over 100 and sometimes in the several hundreds, then these numbering and sorting, and additional features such as adding the name of the consolidating issuer, would be very helpful.

For 2019 tax season I would really like some better tools for these issues. However, if you have added new features and functions which I missed, then please accept my apology for not noticing. No excuse for not noticing, but I’ve been focused on new workflow tools, quality improvements, and add-on advisory services. I have not been so focused on TaxCycle this tax season.

4

Dominique,
Far and away the best thing to do is have the client contact their investment broker(s) to obtain a gain/loss report…or have the client give you permission to speak with the broker(s) to obtain same. The gain/loss report is accepted as a single line item of Schedule 3 and would eliminate all of the T5008s having to be recorded.

The broker would also be able to provide you with a T1135 report as well which should provide all of the information needed to prepare the filing form.

With large portfolios, I often use a detailed investment schedule. Whether that is via JazzIt working papers in CaseWare or an Excel workbook depends on the client. If you’re looking for a workbook that is detailed enough for all kinds of investments (stocks, mutual, etc.) please contact me at cracctg@shaw.ca

I have done this for years and CRA has never once complained.

5

Great tips.

I do get the gains/loss reports for regular clients. This is a new client to came to me a week ago. He gave a copy of the BMO Nesbitt Burns annual portfolio review. It is a detailed annual transaction summary with only the bottom line gains loss but not subtotaled by each underlying investment. This as helpful for 204 slips as the summary Gains/Loss report.

For some clients with mutual funds I also receive the ACB by fund generated by the fund manager as well as the bond face value, redemption or proceeds amount and ACB.

Do you receive your gain/ loss in pdf only or in excel as well?

How do you enter the T5008 slip info, manually?
Is there a way to get that info downloaded to Excel?

Some clients get T5008 for items that don’t appear on the gain/ loss report. These are generally clients with 200 to 500 slips so this is no walk in the part to enter. Due to timing issues I no longer bother to call CRA to mail the slips. Hence my request for Excel export from TaxCycle.

How do you enter the data?

In my current situation my client is young, new to investing due to an inheritance, and new to me. He seems to find the whole process of providing me source documents to be some type of an ordeal.

Regardless of that situation, I find it very time consuming to match the T5008 to the Gains/ loss report. I prefer to do that at the time of filing rather than wait for slips matching or post assessment to tackle that job. Once tax season is over I want to get back to monthly bookkeeping, advisory services, and new client onboarding. This no payment pre and post assessment review with unpredictable timing needs to be a simple matter of sending the review source document bundle to avoid causing intermittent chaos during the rest of the work year.

Thanks for reaching out!

Dominique

6

I would be encouraged if I could receive an excel export for T5008 slips from AFR.

I would be satisfied if I could update the T5008 slips with the ACB and date.

7

You can export the T5008s already…not sure what you’re looking for?

You could add dates (but why is this useful?) to your export spreadsheet, as well as whatever of ACB and outlays isn’t on the T5008s you may want, and then total them as you wish and enter totals as one or more lines on the S3.

I just finished a client with several hundred trades in both CDN and US, split them by currency after export, added the relevant ACBs (some providers already include them), balanced to the T5008 “Proceeds” summaries from each brokerage and entered them on the S3.

While importing all of those might look impressive on an S3, there is really no value to me in doing so. The deets are all in Excel, and the trading slips organized in the same order.