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.

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?  

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

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.

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.

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?  

No, the securities and prices I have are all downloaded from my brokerage and reflect the current state of my holdings accurately.  Quicken just doesn't add them up correctly and then uses different incompatible ledgers in different parts of its model apparently.  

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, now you're saying Quicken doesn't add up your security values correctly, which is different than what I think you've said previously in this thread.

So just to be clear: if you open your brokerage account, in the portfolio view, with the date in the upper right set to July 31, and you set the Portfolio Value dropdown menu to Group by Security, you get a list of each security in that brokerage account and in the Value column, its value on July 31. And you're saying that if you manually add up the values in that column, (including the cash balance at the bottom, if any) they do not add up to the value for your brokerage account at the top of that screen and in the left sidebar? Or are they the same number?

Next, open the Net Worth Over Time report and click on the triangle next to the Investments line if it is collapsed, so that you can see Brokerage and Retirement underneath. Click the triangle next to Brokerage to open up all your non-retirement accounts, one of which is the brokerage account you're referring to. In the July 2018 column for that one account, is the value in this report different from the one you/Quicken tallied up above when you had the brokerage account open?

What I'm trying to get you to dive into and clarify is whether this one account is showing a different value in these two places: the Net Worth report and the same one account's portfolio view.

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?  

I'm not saying anything different than I've said before.  You asked a new question and I answered it.  Let's keep this simple. There are two different values shown for my net worth. 
That should never happen, unless they are claiming to report different net worths at different times or for a different set of accounts or something like that, which is not the case. 
In addition, now you know another fact, which is going to just muddy the waters here and deserves and has its own thread elsewhere.  It turns out that the value for my brokerage account is not correct because of a different bug where Quicken cannot handle stock options and puts weird values in there for their worth.  
But to answer your question:  Yes,  the value for my brokerage account in the July 2018 column of the Net Worth report is different than the value for the same account in the Accounts column of the window on the left.  That's a bug. 
By the way, neither value reflects the true value at the brokerage.  That's another bug.  Bugs on top of bugs.  Lovely!

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'm going to bow out of this conversation now. You say "There are two different values shown for my net worth; that should never happen." I believe that's an incorrect statement, because I and others have pointed out that there are potentially multiple user-set parameters and settings which could properly lead to such results, and each time your answer is that it's a bug.

Please understand that I'm not arguing that it's not a bug; I've only been trying to help identify the source of the discrepancy, which makes it a more reportable, more-actionable issue if it is indeed a bug.

Above, you state again that the Net Worth report and register show different values, which you've said multiple times before. I asked you to look at it a level deeper, but you've again just said the totals are off so it's a bug. You did add the useful additional nugget that your brokerage account total isn't accurate, and that stock options are the culprit. (I'm not sure whether you're talking exchange traded options or employee stock options, but as you say that issue is probably best in its own thread, and it's an area I don't have enough knowledge about to weigh in on.) If you know the data is wrong in one place, and all these calculations and views of your data do indeed use the same data, I'd focus on that issue first.

---

Here's my parting advice to you before I sign off... First, understand that most people are not experiencing the issue you're describing with different net worth values in different places, so there's not a broad-based bug everyone experiences or can replicate. That doesn't mean there's not an issue, but it does mean you need to do more to get to the bottom of it if you want Quicken to change/fix something in the program. Then, know that discussing it here in this forum is unlikely to result in action on Quicken's part; this is not their official support channel, and the developers are not reading every thread and comment.

I would narrow the issue(s) down as much as I could and then call Quicken phone support. They have the ability to share your screen so they see what you're seeing and can work with you to adjust settings or examine transactions to figure out what's going on. Realistically, I would put the odds of success on a first try with phone support at no better than 50/50, because it's a complicated problem, and not all support agents are going to successfully deal with a problem at this level. So I'd be prepared to give it a second try if the first one doesn't work. I'd advise being open to trying anything the support agents want to try, even if you think it's bone-headed or off-the-mark, because your goal is to rule out anything that can be explained away in order to lead the support representative to the conclusion that there's an apparent bug that needs to be passed to higher-level support or directly to the developers.

And yes, I know what I'm describing is taking extra work and time on yourself; unfortunately, you have to invest some effort in demonstrating the problem if you want it to be fixed. If you'd rather just continue to post about it here, have at it, but know that it isn't likely to lead to a satisfying conclusion because your fellow users here can't see your data and can only take guesses at things that may not resolve anything. And if you're right that there's a bug, then getting in front of Quicken Support is paramount, because there's no bug that can be fixed by discussion in a user forum.
Best wishes in getting this issue fixed, and report back if you have any success.

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?  

Thanks, that's good advice, especially with respect to dealing with support agents.  I don't know how you know how many people are experiencing this bug, nor how you know that most are not, but it sounds like you are not so good for you!  :-)   I guess I'll run it by Quicken support again.  I've pretty clearly demonstrated my problem here I think and any further digging on your part is highly unlikely to result in anything getting fixed, unless you work for Quicken, which is why I resist going down that road with you.  
Thanks for your help.