What is the negative amount in my investment account under "Available Cash"?

Unknown

What is the negative amount in my investment account under "Available Cash"? It is distorting the total value of securities in that account. Quicken for Mac 2017. Investment account downloaded number of shares, cost, and market value correctly. The broker is Schwab and it looks like the Available Cash is the amount I can borrow on margin as if I had borrowed it which I haven't. I have a Schwab cash account with the correct cash balance. I just transferred this from my Quicken 2016 for Windows which didn't have "Available Cash".

RickO

Is the negative cash balance in the investment account the same as the positive cash balance in the Schwab cash account?

This has nothing to do with margin trading. If you look at the transactions view of the investment account, sorted by date with the balance column showing, you will see that when a security is bought, the cash balance decreases. When a security is sold, the cash balance increases.

I can't speak to Schwab, but some brokerages just show the cash invested in the "core account" as cash balance in the account and don't show the individual trades in and out of the core. You may need to enter a one-time balance adjustment to make it right.

However, if the Schwab cash account is a checking account that you had linked to the brokerage in QW2016, then unfortunately you can't do that (yet) in QM2017. You should read THIS THREAD, which will give you ideas on how to deal with this in QM2017 and let you VOTE to add the ability to link checking accounts to brokerage accounts.

Concordman

Check your transactions registers for placeholder entries, they are shown in light gray at the start of the register

Unknown

No placeholder entries exist, thanks Concordman.

RickO
Your reply is much appreciated!
Large negative balance seems to be due to securities bought without any cash input. It is difficult to track because there are many securities involved both bought and sold going back to 1993, the purchase date of a security I currently still own.
This QM file was converted from a QW file which had the linked accounts, so I think that is why the converted file has the same cash and investment accounts.

When I deposited the current negative balance amount on 12/31/1992, the current
investment account cash went to zero. (added a deposit because I couldn't
find a place to enter a "beginning balance").  The cash account is still correct.

I noticed in the transaction register after the conversion to QM that when an income event happened in the investment account, a corresponding transfer to the cash account was automatically entered thus keeping the cash account balance correct and the investment account balance zero.
Is that just due to the conversion process?  I will find out in a few days whether or not the transfer transactions to/from the cash account continue automatically as the investment account is updated by my broker or, if they don't, I will have to manually add them. Hopefully they are the same.
According to the "THIS THREAD" in your reply, the transfer transaction shouldn't occur; if it does, then the effect is that of linked accounts.

I couldn't find a place to VOTE.

RickO

Bob1581 said:

No placeholder entries exist, thanks Concordman.

RickO
Your reply is much appreciated!
Large negative balance seems to be due to securities bought without any cash input. It is difficult to track because there are many securities involved both bought and sold going back to 1993, the purchase date of a security I currently still own.
This QM file was converted from a QW file which had the linked accounts, so I think that is why the converted file has the same cash and investment accounts.

When I deposited the current negative balance amount on 12/31/1992, the current
investment account cash went to zero. (added a deposit because I couldn't
find a place to enter a "beginning balance").  The cash account is still correct.

I noticed in the transaction register after the conversion to QM that when an income event happened in the investment account, a corresponding transfer to the cash account was automatically entered thus keeping the cash account balance correct and the investment account balance zero.
Is that just due to the conversion process?  I will find out in a few days whether or not the transfer transactions to/from the cash account continue automatically as the investment account is updated by my broker or, if they don't, I will have to manually add them. Hopefully they are the same.
According to the "THIS THREAD" in your reply, the transfer transaction shouldn't occur; if it does, then the effect is that of linked accounts.

I couldn't find a place to VOTE.

The VOTE button is in the upper right corner of the web page:






I think you're on the right track with the rest. I don't think you are going to see automatic transfers take place on future downloads. Then again, I don't have any direct experience with the Windows program or files transferred from it to Mac.

Unknown

I have the same problem with a 401K account that has only been downloaded - I make no manual adjustments to it.  The value shown under the account name in the Holdings by Account area is correct, but below that there's a "Cash Balance" section that shows a negative balance.  Every transaction has a corresponding "Amount" and "Balance" and that's what's driving the large negative amount.  This may be an accurate reflection of the individual transaction, but does not reflect the true bottom line of the account.

RCinNJ

gakon said:

I have the same problem with a 401K account that has only been downloaded - I make no manual adjustments to it.  The value shown under the account name in the Holdings by Account area is correct, but below that there's a "Cash Balance" section that shows a negative balance.  Every transaction has a corresponding "Amount" and "Balance" and that's what's driving the large negative amount.  This may be an accurate reflection of the individual transaction, but does not reflect the true bottom line of the account.

I have this problem at Vanguard, but there are several possible reasons. I believe there is a problem with Quicken, but not all balances in Cash Balance are incorrect. I assume you checked for Placeholder transactions and other suggestions above? 

With my Vanguard account, negative or positive values appear here until transactions clear, which is correct behavior. If you haven't already, wait a few days and see if it goes back to $0.

However, sometimes, for reasons I can't figure out and which I've contacted Quicken about, the value in Cash Balance doesn't go away and starts increasing over time until it is off by huge amounts. After trying (unsuccessfully)  to solve this with Quicken support I have ended up making kludge corrections and it will be fine for a number of months. If anyone else has figured this out please share.

Unknown

gakon said:

I have the same problem with a 401K account that has only been downloaded - I make no manual adjustments to it.  The value shown under the account name in the Holdings by Account area is correct, but below that there's a "Cash Balance" section that shows a negative balance.  Every transaction has a corresponding "Amount" and "Balance" and that's what's driving the large negative amount.  This may be an accurate reflection of the individual transaction, but does not reflect the true bottom line of the account.

Thanks RCinNJ.  I think I understand the reasons why the Cash Balance changes (purchases or sales of shares within each of the funds of this managed account without a cash input), but there's no offset since the transactions are all handled internally.  My situation is similar to Bob1581's.  He hasn't come back in 7 months to say whether he was able to get his issue fixed or not.