Incorrect balance calculation still causes large errors in reports

Rich Cook

Quicken Version 5.7.2 (Build 57.23252.100), OS X 10.13.6

I have tried to convince Quicken that this is a bug but they shrugged it off and I'm still frustrated by it so I will try again.  Quicken is adding differently in different places.  When I run a Report on my net worth, I get a number that is lower than the reported net worth in the left column containing the accounts.  I cannot imagine how this is OK with Quicken.  I would be embarrassed if I made accounting software that cannot add... 

Unknown

I also have many issues with the Mac version of Quicken since moving from a Windows PC to Mac. I have been using Quicken for a very long time. They state that Apple is very conservative but are working with them to correct issues. I remain hopeful but have lost control of my finances and reverting to a spreadsheet. What a shame.......

Alan3

Take a look at the amounts for individual accounts. I tried what I think is the same report you did and found that for most of the individual accounts, the sidebar amounts and the report amounts were equal. They differed in one account where I had manually entered transactions dated a few days beyond the current date, but still in the current month.

In sum, the sidebar amounts were for the current date (July 25) while the report amounts were for the end of the month, July 31. This may explain your discrepancy. If not, a little digging  at the individual numbers should explain the difference.
I don't think your problem is a bug. It's a design decision that may or may not have been a good one, The problem with Quicken, in my opinion, is not how it works, but the absence of a thorough reference manual.

Rich Cook

Alan said:

Take a look at the amounts for individual accounts. I tried what I think is the same report you did and found that for most of the individual accounts, the sidebar amounts and the report amounts were equal. They differed in one account where I had manually entered transactions dated a few days beyond the current date, but still in the current month.

In sum, the sidebar amounts were for the current date (July 25) while the report amounts were for the end of the month, July 31. This may explain your discrepancy. If not, a little digging  at the individual numbers should explain the difference.
I don't think your problem is a bug. It's a design decision that may or may not have been a good one, The problem with Quicken, in my opinion, is not how it works, but the absence of a thorough reference manual.

Nope.  There are not $50k worth of transactions due in the next 6 days.  Thanks though.  It's a Quicken bug for sure.  

John_M

Alan said:

Take a look at the amounts for individual accounts. I tried what I think is the same report you did and found that for most of the individual accounts, the sidebar amounts and the report amounts were equal. They differed in one account where I had manually entered transactions dated a few days beyond the current date, but still in the current month.

In sum, the sidebar amounts were for the current date (July 25) while the report amounts were for the end of the month, July 31. This may explain your discrepancy. If not, a little digging  at the individual numbers should explain the difference.
I don't think your problem is a bug. It's a design decision that may or may not have been a good one, The problem with Quicken, in my opinion, is not how it works, but the absence of a thorough reference manual.

I'm with Alan on this. The best way to get to the bottom of this is to examine each balance account by account. You should be able to see which accounts match up and which ones don't. Then you will probably be able to find out why they differ. It will likely be that the two different balances are using different date measurements.

It will likely be easiest to investigate if you switch the accounts bar setting to "Show Projected Balance in Sidebar." Then look at the Net Worth Over Time report for a future month. When I did this, I was able to make the two totals match.

John Burgess

I’m with Rich on this one. Even if you can “explain” the discrepancy by saying it’s calculated one one in one place, and another way somewhere else, that’s BS. They should use the same rules everywhere, e.g. use today, or month end, but don’t switch between the two. I should never see two numbers when they should be the same. Why should I have to figure out why there’s a difference?



So if it’s a “design decision” then it’s a design BUG.

John_M

But that’s the beauty of Quicken. They give you choices about how to show the balances. Do you want today’s balance, the downloaded balance, or projected balance? Everyone has a different way of looking at their finances and Quicken gives you that flexibility. When comparing the sidebar balances against other reports you just need to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples and not to oranges.

jacobs

I just tried this report, and my Net Worth totals are different as well. The difference is an account I have hidden; it is NOT used in the left rail or the total of the left rail, but it IS used in the report. Clicking Customize, I see that "Include accounts hidden from reports" is checked. When I uncheck it, my Net Worth on the left side and right side match exactly. Please see if this option is checked in your Net Worth report.

RickO

For a visual on what @jacobs is saying, see below. Make sure you don't have hidden accounts selected AND make sure you have not customized the account list to exclude any accounts:

RickO

John Burgess said:

I’m with Rich on this one. Even if you can “explain” the discrepancy by saying it’s calculated one one in one place, and another way somewhere else, that’s BS. They should use the same rules everywhere, e.g. use today, or month end, but don’t switch between the two. I should never see two numbers when they should be the same. Why should I have to figure out why there’s a difference?



So if it’s a “design decision” then it’s a design BUG.

John, the design of the net worth report is to include full months. You could choose to have the report run, for example, from 01/2017 to 12/2017. In that case, the last column would definitely not agree with the sidebar. You just have to understand that the sidebar is today, and the report's last column is the end of whatever month you have selected for the report to end.

Rich Cook

Alan said:

Take a look at the amounts for individual accounts. I tried what I think is the same report you did and found that for most of the individual accounts, the sidebar amounts and the report amounts were equal. They differed in one account where I had manually entered transactions dated a few days beyond the current date, but still in the current month.

In sum, the sidebar amounts were for the current date (July 25) while the report amounts were for the end of the month, July 31. This may explain your discrepancy. If not, a little digging  at the individual numbers should explain the difference.
I don't think your problem is a bug. It's a design decision that may or may not have been a good one, The problem with Quicken, in my opinion, is not how it works, but the absence of a thorough reference manual.

OK guys, I made the change and the discrepancy grew by $25,000.  New theory please!  

Rich Cook

John Burgess said:

I’m with Rich on this one. Even if you can “explain” the discrepancy by saying it’s calculated one one in one place, and another way somewhere else, that’s BS. They should use the same rules everywhere, e.g. use today, or month end, but don’t switch between the two. I should never see two numbers when they should be the same. Why should I have to figure out why there’s a difference?



So if it’s a “design decision” then it’s a design BUG.

Changing to "show projected balances" made my discrepancy larger.  You are wrong.  

Rich Cook

RickO said:

For a visual on what @jacobs is saying, see below. Make sure you don't have hidden accounts selected AND make sure you have not customized the account list to exclude any accounts:

Thanks for the suggestion.  The second circled checkbox, "Include accounts... " was not checked.  I checked it and no numbers were changed or harmed in the checking of that box.  

Rich Cook

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

RickO

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

it is your job because we need to rule out settings or a misconception that is responsible. Like it or not, the vast majority of situations like this turn out to be an incorrect setting or a user's lack of understanding of why there's a difference.

That said, I'm not saying you haven't discovered a bug. We're just trying to eliminate other possibilities. And if there is a bug, the developers will need as much detail/digging as possible to identify the source.

Can we dig a little further? You say the discrepancy is in your investment account. Good, you've narrowed it down. If you look at the Portfolio > Portfolio Value view of the investment account, is the "Price and Holdings as of" date today's date? Does the Market Value in the top right corner agree with the value in the sidebar? Have you done an online update of the account and of quotes?

If all  of that is okay, can you find one security or cash whose market value is equal to the discrepancy? 

RickO

Alan said:

Take a look at the amounts for individual accounts. I tried what I think is the same report you did and found that for most of the individual accounts, the sidebar amounts and the report amounts were equal. They differed in one account where I had manually entered transactions dated a few days beyond the current date, but still in the current month.

In sum, the sidebar amounts were for the current date (July 25) while the report amounts were for the end of the month, July 31. This may explain your discrepancy. If not, a little digging  at the individual numbers should explain the difference.
I don't think your problem is a bug. It's a design decision that may or may not have been a good one, The problem with Quicken, in my opinion, is not how it works, but the absence of a thorough reference manual.

Projected balance for the sidebar is only going to match if there are pending transactions between now and the end of the month, but none after the end of the month.

You have "Show Today's Balance in the Sidebar" selected (not "Online Balance"), right?

John_in_NC

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

I am late to this thread, but I am glad the Q&A eliminated some of the possible reasons.

If you look at the portfolio value, the amount in the report, and the amount in the sidebar, do any of the three match? If so, which?

I, too, have seen in investment accounts where the grand total in the portfolio view sometimes varied from the amount in the sidebar. (It wasn't often, though.) Now, mine weren't off as much as yours, but your net worth might explain the larger amount. Or, it might not be your issue at all. But, I have experienced it.

 A few months ago, I asked the project manager about this, and IIRC, he claimed the portfolio view was calculating in a different way as to be more accurate (?) But, the supposedly "less accurate" sidebar view was what matched my broker. Since everything else matches up (holdings, cost basis, cash, etc.),

It has been many years since I took any computer science courses, but I do vaguely remember about how you calculate numbers can be a trade-off between precision and performance (floating point). Or, it could be some weird rounding issue with calculations, how many decimals they are using, etc.

I only noticed this in versions since they revamped the portfolio view. But, I wasn't always comparing the latter to the sidebar, so it could have occurred earlier.

jacobs

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

John, I don't think the issue here is minor rounding differences. $50,000+ is not a floating point or rounding error. (Maybe for the government, not for us mere mortals!)

As I said, when I first looked, I had a difference due to a hidden account I once used for my home value but no longer use; once I customized the report not to include hidden accounts, I matched to the dollar. But I don't have many scheduled transactions in my file, as other users do, so it was easy for me to insure my transactors as as of today in the left rail matched my transactions through the end of July in a few days on the net worth side. (Interestingly, I tried in Quicken 2017, and the report continued to include my hidden asset account even when I unchecked Show Hidden, resulting in a discrepancy between the report and the left rail. That seems like a bug -- but it's been fixed in Quicken 2018.)

Rich, my suggestion is to compare account by account to see where the discrepancy is between the sidebar and the report. That is, start with it showing just Assets and Liabilities, then open Assets, and then open all the subcategories down to the account level. Make sure the left rail is set to Show Today's Balance in Sidebar. Now compare the right side of the report with the left rail, account by account. I'd expect that most accounts will match, and you'll pretty quickly see where the difference is coming from. 

smayer97

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

QM2017 is still a supported product so that bug should get fixed there :-\

Rich Cook

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

Do not hold your breath. Quicken has not announced any plans to fix this that I know of

jacobs

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

Well, it turns out the bug I thought I found in Quicken 2017 was actually user error; I was going to report it, but when I checked my work again, I found I didn't have the account hidden in Quicken 2017 that I do in Quicken 2018. When now I hid the account from reports that I had previously hidden from he left rail, the two net worth numbers match. So my bug isn't a bug; it's operating correctly.

mshiggins

Alan said:

Take a look at the amounts for individual accounts. I tried what I think is the same report you did and found that for most of the individual accounts, the sidebar amounts and the report amounts were equal. They differed in one account where I had manually entered transactions dated a few days beyond the current date, but still in the current month.

In sum, the sidebar amounts were for the current date (July 25) while the report amounts were for the end of the month, July 31. This may explain your discrepancy. If not, a little digging  at the individual numbers should explain the difference.
I don't think your problem is a bug. It's a design decision that may or may not have been a good one, The problem with Quicken, in my opinion, is not how it works, but the absence of a thorough reference manual.

Spammer! Do not contact.

Rich Cook

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

Yes I know where the discrepancy is. It's on my brokerage. It's a bug in quicken that I have reported and others have retired and they show little or no interested in g fixing

Rich Cook

Alan said:

Take a look at the amounts for individual accounts. I tried what I think is the same report you did and found that for most of the individual accounts, the sidebar amounts and the report amounts were equal. They differed in one account where I had manually entered transactions dated a few days beyond the current date, but still in the current month.

In sum, the sidebar amounts were for the current date (July 25) while the report amounts were for the end of the month, July 31. This may explain your discrepancy. If not, a little digging  at the individual numbers should explain the difference.
I don't think your problem is a bug. It's a design decision that may or may not have been a good one, The problem with Quicken, in my opinion, is not how it works, but the absence of a thorough reference manual.

Are you theorizing taht I have $50k worth of future transactions scheduled for this month?  If so, I would not be using Quicken to track my finances;  I'd have my own accountant doing it by hand.  Anyhow, yes, I've already answered this question, hopefully it's not repeated too many times.  ;-P

jacobs

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

Rich, I understand that you think you’re affected by a bug in Quicken. Saying there’s a discrepancy in your brokerage account is still pretty broad, and several of us were suggesting how to dig a layer deeper to find the source of the discrepancy, because we don’t have enough information from what you’ve posted here to pinpoint a definitive bug. Please understand I’m not saying there isn’t one, only that I couldn’t replicate it with the info posted here. If you’ve provided Quicken Support more info elsewhere, they can push an issue to the developers to look into.

Unknown

QWin 2017 R16.2. I have reported this umpteen times. The net worth shown on the dashboard (Home Page, report 'Net Worth by Assets and Liabilities') includes 1) the total amount ever charged to any credit account, even though these accounts are zeroed out, closed, and checked off as separate accounts and as hidden; 2) only the cash balance of my current investment accounts; 3) the pre-closure amount of former investment accounts (also closed, separate, and hidden). I can see this when I click the button 'Net Worth Summary Report' below the graph. 

There is a note at the bottom of the report that says "The overall net worth and totals in this report are based on the accounts selected in the customize dialog. By default, all accounts are selected." Unfortunately, making changes in the customize dialog has no effect on the report.

jacobs

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

lainslie9, not to minimize your problem, but this thread is about Quicken Mac, not Windows. The programs are very different, and the source of problems like this are different between the two platforms.

RickO

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

lainslie9... you are posting in a Mac thread. You would be better off starting your own new topic since the products are totally separate.

Rich Cook

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

Well, the fact that Quicken, which is supposed to help me track my finances, is reporting two very different numbers for my net worth, $50,000 different in fact, hmm, you think that's not a "definitive bug"?  

volvogirl

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

Maybe you have a security price or transaction dated in the future? Check the price history.

volvogirl

Rich Cook said:

Thanks for all the answers.  I have tried all of them so far and there is still a huge discrepancy.  The difference lies in my investment account.  As @John Burgess said above, regardless of why, why is it my job to hunt through the interface to see how too different definitions of "net worth" can possibly make sense in one piece of personal finance software?  

Maybe you have a security price or transaction dated in the future? Check the price history.