Mutual fund purchase not correctly recorded in cash balance of IRA Account

Unknown

in the "enter transaction" dialogue box of an ira account, as soon as I choose this particular security, the box to choose the source of the cash for the transaction disappears. What's going on?  If I continue with the transaction, the cost is not subtracted from the account balance.  Quicken Premier 2016 R10.

NotACPA

In your IRA account register, do you see N/A?  That would indicate that you have Placeholders in the account ... which need to be resolved to fix your issue.

Bob Heerema

I have the same problem with 2018 Quicken Premier R6.12 on Windows 10. When I try to correct a mistake on a purchase last year, I cannot transfer the purchase amount from the account balance. There is an N/A but there are zero placeholders. I have tried to delete transactions and re-enter them, but nothing seems to work.

Jim_Harman

If you see N/As it is virtually certain that you have Placeholders in your account. Go to Edit/Preferences/Investment Transactions and make sure Show hidden transactions is checked.

Placeholders will have a gray background and an Action of "Entry" 

Bob Heerema

Thank you! Now I see 382 placeholder transactions going back from 10/31/2017 to 3/13/2016, each with 0 shares and an action of 'Enter History'. My guess is these are each fractional penny pricing errors. The 'Reconcile Shares' button shows my number of shares is in agreement with the brokerage. I have a zero cash balance. I cannot figure out how to correct 382 transactions individually. 
A possible strategy would be to delete all 382 placeholders, delete the May 2017 cash deposit and the May 2017 share purchase, then re-enter the deposit and purchase, and hope for the best.
Is there a better way?

Jim_Harman

If the placeholders have zero shares, it should be safe to delete them.



Back up your data file first, just in case!

Bob Heerema

Thank you! Satisfaction achieved! I backed up the database, deleted all the placeholders, re-entered the deposit transaction, (the buy was automatically revised), reconciled shares and then the account with cash balances. All went as desired.  Case closed.