Account Balances Report shows negative cash when there are withdrawals with Splits.

Jim_Harman

In QWin 2018 R7.5, I am trying to create a report that shows the market value of one security in an investment account over a period of several years. When I try to do this by customizing the Account Balances report to include just that security and account, I get very weird results - much lower balances than expected and sometimes large negative balances, when the actual balance has always been positive.

If I check Account detail on the report's Display customization tab, each column of the report shows the correct market values of the security but also a large negative amount on the -Cash- line. This amount is the same in each column. It appears to match an amount transferred or withdrawn from the account prior to the reporting period using a Split transaction. I get the same result with different securities and different accounts, but the cash number is different in each account.

If, in addition to the security I am interested in, I select "No security (includes cash)" in the report customization, this bogus cash disappears from the report and the correct balance appears in the totals. Or, if I replace the original transactions with individual transactions, eliminating the splits, the problem disappears.

So I have work-arounds, but this sure looks like a bug to me!

This may also explain some weird problems others have been seeing with cash in investment accounts.

mshiggins

Jim, what sort of account is this? An investment account with a linked checking account?

Jim_Harman

This is a taxable Brokerage account with no linked checking account. 

Jim_Harman

As an experiment, I tried setting up an Account Balances report in a clean data file, with the same result: In a Brokerage account, if there is a Withdraw that includes a category split, the cash balance shown in the report is off by the total amount of the withdrawal unless I select "No security (includes cash)" in the securities to include in the report. The cash balance is off even if the split only contains one item. 

To correct the problem, you must delete the split withdrawal and re-enter it as two or more transactions on the same day Then the cash balance is correct regardless of whether you include "No security (includes cash)" in the security selections.

Weird!