Share Balances will not update after a Reinvest Dividend transaction

Carolyn Strecker · December 2016

I recently migrated from Quicken for Mac 2007 to QM2017, and the investment account share balances migrated perfectly. I do not download transactions--I always enter them manually and have been doing so for many many years. I just received my first brokerage statements since migrating. Now I have tried over and over to enter simple Reinvest Dividend transactions for about 6 securities in one brokerage account, using the transaction tab. Even though the transactions appear to be fine, the new shares do NOT get added to the share balance in the portfolio. I have deleted an re-added the transactions a couple of times to no avail. I have double checked that I am using the correct security names.

Further random issues that have not occurred consistently: The program randomly decided that the cost basis was missing, when of course it was not-it was right there in the transaction window. I tried re-adding the cost basis several ways but the program would not accept it. This did not occur for all shares, and it didn't occur on my last try. Also randomly, the program changed the date of the transactions to Nov 30, when I entered them as occurring on Nov 1.

I have been tolerating this damn product for a week or so now, but I have to say it really really stinks.

Carolyn Strecker · December 2016

This is ridiculous. I have now discovered that when I enter a new Reinvest Dividend transaction (dated 11/1/16) the program enters an opposite (Sell or Removes Shares) transaction dated 2001 that removes the shares I just entered. WTF is going on with this squirrelly d***d program?? This is a reproducible error.

jacobs · December 2016

Carolyn, I can understand your frustration; just try to look at it as a learning curve to get to know how Quicken works, rather than that the program is messed up. Once you get these initial problems resolved, they won't keep recurring.

I'm also a completely manual entry user, and I haven't had this problem, so this is somewhat outside my area of expertise. Picking up from our exchange in the other thread you posted in, I still think the problems you're describing are all due to a discrepancy between what's in your Quicken account and what Quicken has downloaded from your financial institution. If you haven't already done so, I'd suggest looking at the Quicken Help (in the program) entry for "Resolving Missing Cost Basis (Placeholders)". (In help, just search for "placeholders").

You said you don't download; have you EVER downloaded for this account? Are you sure you have no transactions that display "Add Cost"? Alternatively, have you ever RECONCILED this account in Quicken? (In Transactions view, display the CLR column if it is not already showing, and see if there are any with the green check mark.) It clearly seems like Quicken is trying to force the number of shares in this account to a certain value, so that whatever you enter manually it does the opposite to maintain the existing share balance.

Carolyn Strecker · December 2016

Hi, Looking through transaction register, which goes back to 2001, I see that there are a few transactions marked cleared, but the most recent one is in 2003. I may have tried doing a reconcile early on with what version of Quicken I used then, but not since. I "reconcile" each month manually by comparing the share balances to my brokerage statement after I have entered all the new transactions for the month. If there are any discrepancies I search them out and fix them. (I do use always Quicken's reconcile feature for Checking and Credit Card accounts)

I have entered 13+ years worth of transactions from monthly statements since 2003, wth no issues until I migrated to Q2017.

I don't understand how having (very) old cleared transactions in the register could relate to my problem. Please clarify that for me if you would.

No transactions say "add cost" until I after enter a new transaction. Then it (not predictably) pops up.

I have never set up automatic downloads for any brokerage accounts, either with 2007 or 2017. (I do download daily for checking and credit card accounts.)

I read the Resolving Missing Cost Basis (placeholder) section of Help, but I cannot relate it to the problem I am having. There are no placeholders in the transaction list until I manually enter my new transaction, complete with share price and number of shares. Please help me if I'm missing something there.

If you are saying that when I enter transactions next month this behavior will not recur, I can deal with it, but I'll believe it when I see it. Because right now it is happening for every single transaction.

Your input and time are very much appreciated.

J_Mike · December 2016

Carolyn wrote ".....the program enters an opposite (Sell or Removes Shares) transaction....."

This added transaction is a Placeholder - it is characterized by a faded font.
Just delete the placeholders as they appear - they do not come back - and your account should get back on track.

Carolyn Strecker · December 2016

If they don't come back, I will be fine, but I'll believe it when I see it (next month when my new statements arrive). Thanks for you input.

jacobs · December 2016

I think these placeholder transactions will keep coming back until you resolve the underlying problem that's causing them to appear in the first place.

I'm just guessing, but I'm wondering if undoing the transactions which are marked reconciled would help. Or, conversely, do a real reconcile as of the current day: first delete the placeholder transaction it added, then click Reconcile, click the radio button to Use Statement Balance, enter the ending balance per your statement (which will be zero if you don't have a cash balance in the account), click the blue Next button, then click the Mark All as Cleared button, and click Done. Now, try adding a new made-up Dividend Reinvestment transaction to see what it does. Does it change you share balance, or does it again add a placeholder transaction in the opposite direction back in 2001?

jacobs · December 2016

I think they will keep coming back until you resolve the underlying problem that's causing them to appear in the first place. See my comment below.

Unknown · December 2016

I purchased Quicken Mac 2017 yesterday - version 4.3.1 - and migrated Quicken Deluxe 2014. All of the account balances matched. Today I tried to enter a reinvest interest and the account balance did not increase. I looked at the portfolio and noticed that the number of shares did not increase.

I whet back to the QD 2014 and entered the same transaction. The shares increased and the account balance also increased.
- - - - Update - - - -
I went back to Mac 2017 and changed the Reinvest transaction to just an Interest income transaction. This posted as a cash increase to the account. I then entered Buy Shares transaction using the cash balance. The number of shares did not increase.

J_Mike · December 2016

@jacobs

This Placeholder issue is a 'design' feature which is not documented (that I can find). It was explained in Beta but unfortunately I did not copy and save it. It arises when one does a fresh conversion from QMac or QWin - and then starts adding manual transactions - just as the OP has done. I have experienced it numerous times after a fresh conversion of my QWin file.
IIRC, the intent is to make it easy to add additional historical data - while maintaining the current share balances.
The solution is to find the placeholders and delete them.

Unfortunately (IMHO), this is one of those 'design' features that seems to cause more problems than it solves - judging from the frequency of posts here in this forum.
I would rate it a close second to the issue with the split transaction functionality - something that was not broken but they fixed it anyway :<((

smayer97 · December 2016

lol...agreed...if it ain't broke...

jacobs · December 2016

Well, the problem with this feature, as well as the split feature, is that it *was* a problem for some users. So they decided they could build a better mousetrap. But, as you noted, the "solution" to the original problems they were trying to solve inconveniences *more* people and is actually a step backwards. I give 'em points for trying, but take away more points for not listening, acknowledging that their solution didn't work well enough, and either reverting to previous functionality or trying something new.

jacobs · December 2016

Pato, if you go back and read this entire thread, I think you'll find that your problem is the same as the one we've been discussing with Carolyn. If Quicken *thinks* you have a certain number of shares, any attempt to manually add shares -- Buy, Reinvest Dividend, etc. -- will result in Quicken creating an equal and opposite transaction prior to the date of the first transaction in the account. The solution is finding out why Quicken is locked in on a certain number of shares, and fixing that; then all future transactions will behave normally.

J_Mike · December 2016

I think that is a fair assessment.
Sadly, they have added to the confusion by not documenting these items. I have searched Help on this Placeholder issue several times and can not find anything. Hoping to find a written explanation - and not have to depend on my vague recollections.

jacobs · December 2016

If you search Quicken Help for "Placeholder", the first search result which comes up is "Cost basis/Resolving out-of-bound securities/Placeholders" -- and clicking not hat pulls up a help page (with a different title of "Resolving Missing Cost Basis (Placeholders)" which does explain this to some extent -- but probably not enough to help all users find the source of their problem and resolve it.

Unknown · December 2016

Jacob, you are correct. The problem was that posting the Reinvest transaction created a "stealth" transaction to offset the reinvestment and force the account balance back. The "stealth" transaction date was 02/05/2003. I simply deleted this transaction and the account balance was correct.

Finding why the shares were locked in Quicken is my next challenge. Other than that problem I am quite happy with Mac 2017 and am glad that I can finally kill Windows XP running in Parallels. QD 2104 R10 update broke downloading price history and transactions. I have tried to fix it but could not get my Intuit account to connect on Windows. It works fine on the Mac.
- - - Update - - -
I tried entering another Reinvest transaction and it posted correctly - no extra "stealth" transaction. Perhaps the problem occurred during the initial import process. I will see what happens next month. Again - Thanks.

Unknown · February 2017

I guess I don't understand how to correct the issue. I have been adding cash to my 401k account each pay period and this month I went to enter the buy transactions for each individual investment and the shares purchased did not get added from the buy transaction. The cash available was reduced the correct amount but it never updated the number of shares held.

Unknown · February 2017

I am having the exact problem, and it's new since the last update. I was able to enter buys within by 401k at the end of Q3 last year and it worked fine. Now I get the cash account reduction like it should, but it doesn't add the additional shares from the buy transaction

Unknown · September 2017

This continues to be a problem. I just got Q2017 Mac. Imported everything from Q2007. all imported fine. Tried to reconcile TDAmeritrade statement with a couple of INT/DIV reinvests. everything works except number of shares doesn't update. And Q2017 shows me this window. I have tried several adjustments via this window. Nothing works. I have done everything via manual entry, no downloading of info of any type into program. Until this is resolved I have to stick with Q2007

jacobs · September 2017

The shares don't update because it it trying to force your shares to the value in the "Shares reported by brokerage" box on the screen you showed. No matter what transactions you enter, it's trying to make the shares match what it thinks your financial institution says is in your account. (I'm not quite sure why; someone else here might be able to answer.) You need to allow it to make an adjustment transaction, so it thinks everything is right, and then you can delete the adjustment if it's actually wrong. Thereafter, you should see your share values change as you enter transactions.

Unknown · September 2017

I havre just converted from Windows to Mac and I have the exact problem discussed here. I'm dismayed to see that this was first discussed 9 months ago and it still is not fixed. I have not spent the time to read all the comments. Perhaps there is a "fix" here. I just know that what I easily did with Windows I cannot do with the Mac version.

jacobs · September 2017

Dave, there are multiple problems discussed in the thread above, so it's hard to know which is the "exact" problem you have. In general, most of the problems above are one-time problems from a Windows-to-Mac or old Mac to current Mac conversion, where Quicken has inserted a placeholder transaction at the beginning of one or more of your accounts. Depending on the specifics of your problem, you either need to feed Quicken the missing coast/basis info it wants, or sometimes make a dummy adjustment and then delete it, or sometimes just delete the placeholder. There's no "fix" from Quicken because there's no bug to fix, although I'd agree that the program could do a better job of leading people through fixing the problem it has with the converted data.

Carolyn Strecker · September 2017

For what it's worth, I have been using QM2017 successfully since posting my original complaint above 9 months ago about this issue that my share balances would not update. As directed by the other responders, I deleted the false offsetting transaction that Quicken inserted, and after that the problem did not recur. I can now manually enter the transactions from my monthly brokerage statements without any problem, as I did with earlier Quicken versions. I fact, I will grudgingly admit that the process is actually easier in QM2017 than it used to be.

Bill052055 · February 2019

I had the same problem when I changed platforms from Windows to Mac, and the information in this string provided the solution. Thanks to those of you that provided the necessary information - my first entry was in 1996, and I would never had gone back that far to look for the "placeholder" entry without the information in this string.

That said, I wasted a lot of time on this before Mr. Google led me to this string. I continued with Quicken when I changed over to a Mac desktop because I'm lazy and didn't what to learn a new system. Well, it turns out that the Mac version of Quicken is quite different from the Windows versions - so much so that I wasted a great deal of time thinking the problem had to be my ignorance of the new system rather than a bug in the expensive Quicken program.

So far, I am very much NOT impressed with Quicken on my Mac. I will not recommend it for other Mac users.

Share Balances will not update after a Reinvest Dividend transaction

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