Why do I have cash amounts in the portfolio section of each of my investments?

arnolbg

Each of my investments has a cash amount listed under the portfolio tab of each of my investments. Why? I buy, reinvest & receive dividends and then they are dowloaded into my Quicken. I add no cash to these accounts.....
Cash should not be added to these accounts....

John_in_NC

This is because Quicken is calculating that you have cash in each account. Why? That you will have to determine: it could be the way you have your investment transactions setup or the way your brokerage house is presenting data to Quicken. It shouldn't be hard to figure out, but you will have to investigate:

Instead of the Portfolio view, click on the Transaction view at the top of the Investment account. Then look at how your running cash balance is being affected. Is it inflows of cash? Is it a placeholder at the beginning of the register (light gray transaction) that is adjusting (possibly erroneously) cash?

Where the cash balance is coming from should be obvious-you just will have to look. It might be as simple as you getting paid interest that is increasing the cash balance by a small amount. 

John_in_NC

This is because Quicken is calculating that you have cash in each account. Why? That you will have to determine: it could be the way you have your investment transactions setup or the way your brokerage house is presenting data to Quicken. It shouldn't be hard to figure out, but you will have to investigate:

Instead of the Portfolio view, click on the Transaction view at the top of the Investment account. Then look at how your running cash balance is being affected. Is it inflows of cash? Is it a placeholder at the beginning of the register (light gray transaction) that is adjusting (possibly erroneously) cash?

Where the cash balance is coming from should be obvious-you just will have to look. It might be as simple as you getting paid interest that is increasing the cash balance by a small amount. 

arnolbg

Yep, all of my investments have placeholders at the beginning of each register. So I guess I'll have to live with that, since I have no idea what the cost way back then. I had no problem like this with the earlier versions of Quicken......

jacobs

Or just delete the placeholders, enter a static opening transaction if necessary to get your balance correct, and you won't have to deal with stray cash transactions going forward. You'll just have to know that when you sell your investments, you'll be on your own  (or relying on your brokerage) for reporting and calculating your gains for tax purposes.