Manually Editing Fractional Shares for Cash Received

Some stock splits may result in fractional shares, in which cash in lieu is paid out for all remaining shares. In these cases, manual adjustment is necessary.

Consider a (fictitious) example:

Before adjusting for stock split:

Tr	Date	O/C	L/S	Ticker	Shares	Price	Comm	Amount
42	1/1/2025	O	L	BOLT	10	$0.54	$0	($5.40)

Open Shares: 10

On 1/1/2025, John bought 10 shares of BOLT. A "1 for 20" stock split occurred on 6/9/2025.

Result after adjusting for stock split:

Tr	Date	O/C	L/S	Ticker	Shares	Price	Comm	Amount
42	1/1/2025	O	L	BOLT	0.5	$10.80	$0	($5.40)

Open Shares: 0.5

In the example above you will notice that BOLT underwent a “1 for 20” split. At the time the split occurred, John held 10 shares open. Since this is a 1 for 20 stock split, the buy of 10 shares cannot be divided by 20 equally, leaving one-half share open. The resulting number of shares is 0.5. The .5 share was distributed via cash in lieu of fractional shares. In this case, the .5 share open needs to be closed with a record to account for the cash received.

To make the adjustment you should:

Locate your broker statement and 1099B, showing the payout amount. Here's an example:

So according to the broker's statement and 1099-B, the payout amount is $3.24.
Add a Sell (close, long) record from the Records menu by clicking Add Record. Input the date cash was paid out, "C" for closing record, "L" for long, and ticker BOLT. In the shares column, enter 0.5 to match the opening record. In the price column, you will need to calculate so that the end result (shares x price) is the amount received for the fractional share. TradeLog will then calculate the taxable gain/loss based on the cost of those shares. In this example, the amount (3.24) divided by the shares (0.5) equals $6.48, so that is the price to input. The resulting TradeLog records should look this this:
We recommend adding a note to the Notes field, to indicate this is for the cash received in lieu of fractional shares.