Why is share balance not adding after a reinvestment?

danncer

I have manually entered in years of buys and reinvestments for a mutual fund and the share balance  is not adjusting properly - I think. If it did, I would not need the placeholders it created. It looks like every time there is a reinvestment, it starts over or something. Here is an image of what I have - see how the balance in the last column starts over in 2017 - I am not sure why.

q_lurker

You have two different securities you are dealing with here.  Note the 12/1/15 balance of 840.419 shares plus the 10/17/16 purchase of 123.27 shares yields the 968.689 share balance.  The intervening 12/18/15 ReinvLg of 528.094 shares for a balance of 1268.535 is clearly a different security.  That matches with 12/20/16 ReinvSh of 58.101 to get to the 1326.636 share balance. 

The two securities (or more?) are likely similarly named.  You may need to widen the Security field to see the entirety of the names.  You might want to rename them with something shorter and more distinct.  

q_lurker

Either:

• You have a placeholder between 12/20/16 and 12/19/17 that 'reset' your share count (Check your preferences to make sure you are seeing hidden placeholders), or
• The securities are similarly named but actually different such that the security for the 2017 and 2018 transactions is different than the security for the prior transactions.  

Personally I lean toward the second explanation, but it is not clear from where you have snipped that portion of the screen, so I can't be sure..    

mshiggins

From C. D. Bales:

" ... the share balance  is not adjusting properly - I think. If it did, I would not need the placeholders it created."

I think you probably have cause and effect reversed.

A Placeholder guarantees that the share balance of the security indicated in the placeholder will not change on the date of the placeholder ... no matter what transactions you enter. Transactions entered with a date later than the placeholder will have their impact on share balance based on the share balance in the placeholder.

To see the bigger picture - to better grasp how your placeholders are affecting your Quicken share balance - modify your Quicken "Investment transactions" Preferences to "Show hidden transactions". [Placeholders have a Quicken Action value of "Entry".]

You can learn more about placeholders here:

https://www.quicken.com/support/about-placeholder-entries

Personally, I do not allow Quicken to create Placeholders. If there appears to be a discrepancy between my Quicken holdings and my holdings at the financial institution, I make it point to correct the discrepancy without the use of Placeholders.

danncer

HI - when I took the screen shot - there are no placeholders in "place". But the share balance is not adding. If you do the math in the screen shot: All of these are additions to the share balance; 740+528+58+256+43+436+488 = should be 2551.41; NOT; 1026.692. Any ideas why? I have hidden transactions showing and there are no hidden transactions. 

NotACPA

Do EDIT, Preferences, Investment Transactions and Check "Show Hidden Transactions".

Then take another look for those Placeholders.  As you've described the issue, they're there ... just hidden.

danncer

Here is the screen shot of showing hidden transactions. That did not do it so I deleted just about everything and added it back in - showing no placeholders. It looks better - but still is not adding properly. I think my next step is to delete the account and start over. 

q_lurker

You have two different securities you are dealing with here.  Note the 12/1/15 balance of 840.419 shares plus the 10/17/16 purchase of 123.27 shares yields the 968.689 share balance.  The intervening 12/18/15 ReinvLg of 528.094 shares for a balance of 1268.535 is clearly a different security.  That matches with 12/20/16 ReinvSh of 58.101 to get to the 1326.636 share balance. 

The two securities (or more?) are likely similarly named.  You may need to widen the Security field to see the entirety of the names.  You might want to rename them with something shorter and more distinct.