Quicken for Mac 2018: Buy shares does not increase share balance

Unknown

Installed Quicken Deluxe for Mac 2018 on macOS High Sierra (10.13.2) and imported a data file from Quicken Deluxe Windows 2015.  The conversion went smoothly and all accounts contain correct balances.

I proceeded to add transactions to a manually managed (no online updates) investment account containing multiple funds.  When entering a new Buy transaction, the previous share balance is reduced by the number of new shares.  As a result, the net increase in shares is zero.

For example:
- On 9/1/2017 the share balance of Fund A is 1194.478
- I enter a new Buy transaction for Fund A on 10/1/2017 with a cost of $56.58 for 3.565 shares (price per share is 15.870968).
- After saving this transaction, the share balance for Fund A on 9/1/2017 has changed to 1190.913 and the share balance of 10/1/2017 is 1194.478.

Any idea why the previous share balance would be reduced by the number of shares being added?  The data file I converted from Quicken Windows 2015 contains approximately 20 years of history.  Could something in the file conversion process lead to this behavior?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Unknown

Just make sure that you have entered the correct info in the correct boxes for the BUY transaction.  In Quicken Mac, it's different than in Quicken Windows.  Quicken Mac will automatically figure out the price per share.  And you enter the cost first, then the number of shares.

Also, I would check to make sure that the security you are buying, even though it is manually entered, isn't a match for a downloadable security and has the correct price per day.  Go to Windows > Securities and select the security of Fund A.  Make sure there aren't any prices dated in the future in the list.



Note that Total Cost is entered first, then number of shares.  Quicken will automatically calculate the Price per share.

One final thing, where is the source of cash coming from for the purchase of the shares of Fund A? Is that already entered in the investment register, so that you have a source of cash for the purchase?

Unknown

DesertOasis: Thanks for your reply.  When I initially hit this problem I was doing a Reinvest Dividend transaction.  In that case the problem was the same, the previous share balanced was reduced.  So instead of doing a Reinvest Dividend transaction, I tried entering two transactions, a Dividend Income transaction followed by a Buy transaction.  Result was the same.

To answer your questions, I can confirm that I correctly entered total cost and number of shares, and let Quicken calculate price per share.  I will investigate if future prices exist for the security.  The cash for my Buy transaction is available in the register.

Thanks.

Unknown

RickO said:

Matt: Please see the article linked below. I think it will explain what you are seeing.

FAQ: What Are Placeholder Transactions in Quicken for Mac? | Quicken Customer Community

Thanks RickO, I will investigate potential placeholder discrepancies this evening and follow up with my findings.

Thanks.

Unknown

RickO said:

Matt: Please see the article linked below. I think it will explain what you are seeing.

FAQ: What Are Placeholder Transactions in Quicken for Mac? | Quicken Customer Community

I'm happy to report that placeholder transactions were indeed the cause of my issue.  After entering new transactions and then deleting the newly created placeholder entries, all balances are correct.

Thanks!