The topic is now a discussion about the use of memo payees in security transactions. That portion of the discussion follows below.

In essence, the report acts as a general ledger snapshot, complete with memo description and both sides of the entry. I find this report particularly useful in reconciling schedule D proceeds.

What is the advantage of using a
memo payee?

I use a memo payee for all security transactions other than income. For example, General Motors/Purchase, IBM/Sale, Hulett Packard/Stock Split would all be memo payees. PG&E/Dividends would be a regular payee.

My rationale is that the income transactions are recurring in nature, while the asset transactions are usually one-time in nature (and there may be dozens of these transactions every year). Why add dozens of payees to your list if you're only going to use each of them once? Larger payee lists are slower to load and are generally quite cumbersome.

Specifically in the case of a stock spin off, you need to use the payee twice (once to record the "sale", reducing the 1st company's basis, and again to record the "purchase" of the new company's shares). If you recorded the first transaction with a regular payee (i.e. not a memo) then the second transaction would be very confusing. FN would remember the 1st transaction
as a "sale" so the system would try to enter the second transaction as a "sale" (deposit) as well when you really need it to be a "purchase" (charge).

Of course I realize you can work around this in several different ways but that would be very confusing to many users. Suggesting that the user make this a memo payee alleviated that confusion.

Note that the names of memo payees show up on all reports except the "summary by payee." I use the Transactions by Account report (for the asset account in question) in the situation you describe, and I believe it provides all the necessary information.

The only report for memo payees is a report that gives all activity for memo payees. This includes all the updated pricing activity. This report is useless for us.

We have large portfolios that are actively traded by different money managers. It is impossible to know in advance how frequently a security will be traded. It is difficult to review data input for trades in the same securities, especially if multiple asset accounts are used.

Unintentional consequences from security activity occurs with multiple money managers.
An example are wash sales not intended by a single money manager but accidental because of multiple money managers traded in the same security. It is much easier to trace what happened by the payee report.

Finally, you can not use the "drill down" feature of FN for memo payees.

In summary, I don't like to give up the ability to review security transactions by payee.

1) The Portfolio Activity report will show all trades for the securities selected using the account qualifier.

2) The Schedule D report can be in order by account names to show all sales.

3) If the account names are in a similar form then the account qualifer can be specified for the beginning part of the account name. For example all securites are in the form IBM xxxx/xxx. Use the account qualifier IBM*/* to select only those accounts. Use this with the Portfolio Activity report, Transaction by Account for All Accounts, Detail Trial Balance, etc.