Dividends missing or wrong

Capitally generates dividends automatically from market data, so what you see on a holding is an estimate until you import or confirm the real payment. This article covers the two ways that estimate goes wrong - an amount that does not match your broker, and a payment that never appears at all. For how automatic dividends are created, confirmed and switched off in the first place, see Tracking Dividends; when it is the price rather than the payout that looks wrong, start with Prices, symbols and market data.

Why don't my dividend amounts match my broker?

Automatic dividends in Capitally are estimates based on market data: the gross declared amount per share, on the declared payment date, paid in cash. Your broker reports what actually arrived - net of withholding tax, a few days later, or reinvested into more shares. The per-share amount should match, and only the total should differ.

Withholding tax

Capitally records the gross declared dividend per share; your broker shows the net amount after withholding. Set the Tax Paid field on the transaction to record what was withheld.

Payment date differences

The payment date may differ by a few days from when the dividend actually hits your broker account.

Dividend reinvestment (DRIP)

If your broker automatically reinvests dividends, the cash amount will differ from what Capitally shows. Reinvested dividends and DRIP covers how to record the reinvestment itself.

The per-share amount is off by a factor of 100

The data provider occasionally marks a dividend in the wrong denomination for a market - GBX (pence) instead of GBP, or the reverse - which throws per-share amounts and yields off by a factor of 100. Fix it with Settings → Analysis → Reset data and prices cache. If values and prices are 100x off as well, it is the asset that is denominated in the other unit, not the dividend: see Balances and cash don't match.

The figures come from the wrong exchange listing

An asset priced from the wrong listing produces dividend figures that do not match the security you hold - a London-listed investment trust pulling prices from Frankfurt, for example. Edit the asset, open the Prices tab and verify the market symbol. When the price and the value look wrong too, fix the symbol first: Prices, symbols and market data.

How to make the numbers match your statement

1. Import dividends from your broker - this overrides automatic estimates
2. Or manually edit the dividend transaction to match your statement
3. Set the Tax Paid field if tax was withheld

If your broker file is your source of truth, switch the automatic ones off rather than deleting them again after every import: Disabling automatic dividends can be set for an Asset, an Account, or a specific Asset and Account pair.

Automatic dividends are good for estimates, but always verify against broker statements for tax reporting.

Why does a holding show no dividends at all?

If a security shows no dividends, or fewer than you actually received, the asset is usually matched to a non-primary symbol - even when the ISIN is correct. One ISIN can carry many listings: JPMorgan (US46625H1005) has up to twelve symbols in our database. The primary listing normally has the complete dividend history, while secondary exchange listings and share-class variants often do not.

1. Does dividend data exist for this symbol at all? Edit the asset, open the Prices tab and look for D markers on the price chart. No markers means we have no dividend data for that symbol.
2. Try a different market listing. Which symbol you ended up on depends on the import preset, how you searched for the asset, and your market-preference setting. Edit the asset, open the Prices tab and pick another listing for the same ISIN in Source prices using this market symbol. US and most European exchanges are generally reliable; smaller and regional markets (Thailand, Switzerland, some emerging markets) are often incomplete, and a Canadian listing can be missing recent dividends the US listing has. See Changing the market.
3. Check for duplicate assets. If the same holding behaves differently in two accounts, open the Assets tab - you may have two separate assets, one of them sourced from a market without dividend data.
4. Check whether automatic generation is switched off. Positions tab → Automatic dividend handling, set on the account, the asset, or the account and asset pair. See Disabling automatic dividends.
5. Check the period filter. A manually added dividend can be hidden by a short period with Active only enabled. Switch to a longer period or Max.

Why does my fund or bond show no distributions?

Our market data provider supplies dividend data for stocks and ETFs only, not for mutual or index funds, so no declared or estimated distributions appear for a fund until income events exist in your own project. Import or enter a few payouts and the estimation engine picks up the cadence - it needs roughly three income events of similar size to detect a pattern and project future ones. The same applies to bond coupons where only clean prices are available: import them, add them manually, or set up interest-based pricing on the bond asset.

Why does my income add up to zero?

Confirmed dividends that do not show up in the Income column are usually an artefact of the currency you are viewing the portfolio in, not missing data. Income received in another currency, especially a minor denomination such as GBX, can round to zero once converted. Switch the currency selector to the dividend's own currency to confirm the values are there.