I enter a Sold transaction in a 401(k) account and I get an automatic XOut I don't want

Mark Freeman

Quicken 2018 for Windows

I have a 401k Investment account with a zero cash balance. I entered a Sold transaction with the proceeds going to this account's cash balance. A corresponding XOut transaction is automatically generated to offset the amount of the Sold transaction, leaving me with a zero account balance.

I shouldn't have a zero account balance, I should have a balance equal to the amount of the Sold transaction. If I delete the unneeded and unwanted XOut transaction, the Sold transaction is deleted as well.

How do I enter this seemingly simple transaction and get the result I expect?

Dan Glynhampton

Do you have a linked checking account for the investment account? Is that where the XOut transaction is sending the cash? If so I think it’s working as designed, see the second paragraph of the notes section in this help page from the Quicken website:



https://www.quicken.com/support/how-d...

mshiggins

Dan Glynhampton said:

Do you have a linked checking account for the investment account? Is that where the XOut transaction is sending the cash? If so I think it’s working as designed, see the second paragraph of the notes section in this help page from the Quicken website:



https://www.quicken.com/support/how-d...

Except 401(k) accounts aren't supposed to have linked cash accounts. The only way to get that combo now is to have converted from MS Money.


More likely the account is set up as a single mutual fund account. Another combo that is no longer possible to do in current Quicken versions. It was possible many versions ago.

Jim_Harman

Does the Transaction List (register) for this account have a Cash Bal. column? You may have to scroll to the right to see it.

Are these transactions downloaded from your financial institution, or are you entering the Sold transaction manually?

volvogirl

Dan Glynhampton said:

Do you have a linked checking account for the investment account? Is that where the XOut transaction is sending the cash? If so I think it’s working as designed, see the second paragraph of the notes section in this help page from the Quicken website:



https://www.quicken.com/support/how-d...

I agree it’s probably setup as a single mutual fund. If it is a SMF you should be able to edit the account and change it. There might be a yes or no box for Single Mutual Fund.




If the account transaction list includes the column Share Balance it is a SMF (Single Mutual Fund) account.
If the last column is Cash Balance, it is a brokerage account. A Brokerage account can't show you the total share balance because it can have more than 1 fund in it. But starting in Q2012 all investment accounts do have a Share Balance Column.

Mark Freeman

Jim Harman said:

Does the Transaction List (register) for this account have a Cash Bal. column? You may have to scroll to the right to see it.

Are these transactions downloaded from your financial institution, or are you entering the Sold transaction manually?

I do have a cash balance column. It is a manually entered transaction. I expect that if I sell an investment that the cash balance would increase. But the automatically generated XOut prevents the cash balance from increasing. It decreases when I manually enter a buy transaction. So if I start with a zero cash balance, sell $x of one mutual fund and then buy $x of another, I end up with a negative cash balance instead of zero.

Mark Freeman

Dan Glynhampton said:

Do you have a linked checking account for the investment account? Is that where the XOut transaction is sending the cash? If so I think it’s working as designed, see the second paragraph of the notes section in this help page from the Quicken website:



https://www.quicken.com/support/how-d...

From the link: "By default, Quicken tracks your cash balance in the investment account itself. " That is what I am expecting, but the XOut transaction is interfering with this. This is a 401k account and there is no linked cash or checking account. 

It is not a single mutual fund account (I didn't know there was such a thing). Like most 401ks, I can buy and sell from a list of specific funds. I see both share balance and cash balance. Cash balance is a separate column, whereas share balance only appears within certain types of transactions.

mshiggins

Jim Harman said:

Does the Transaction List (register) for this account have a Cash Bal. column? You may have to scroll to the right to see it.

Are these transactions downloaded from your financial institution, or are you entering the Sold transaction manually?

From C. D. Bales:


You can see the behavior you describe, if your Sold transaction is affected by a Placeholder.


When that's true, the XOut transaction (or Xin transaction - which you would get if you entered a Bought transaction instead of a Sold transaction) will have the text "Balancing Cash Adjustment" in its Description field, and will be a transfer of the cash back into the same account.


Look for a transaction in the 401k account with an Action value of "Entry" (which is the Action value for a Placeholder). Any transaction for the security named in the Placeholder, with a date on, or before, the date of the Placeholder, will prevented by Quicken from altering the cash balance of the account.


If your transaction is being affected by a Placeholder, you can either:

_ figure out why the Placeholder is there and replace it with the actual transaction(s) necessary to make the account correct (then re-enter the Sold transaction), or;

_ you can try deleting the Sold transaction, then re-entering it from scratch with a date later than the Placeholder date ... then modifying the Sold transaction date to the correct date.

Mark Freeman

Jim Harman said:

Does the Transaction List (register) for this account have a Cash Bal. column? You may have to scroll to the right to see it.

Are these transactions downloaded from your financial institution, or are you entering the Sold transaction manually?

I entered the transaction for after the placeholder date, then backdated it, and then deleted the placeholder. It all looks right now. Thanks!