Reconciling a 401(K)

Question

I have seen a number of posts from years back and none of them really answered the issue that I have.   I have been using Quicken for a number of years (about 2010).   I have reconciled all my other accounts at some interval depending upon the importance and volume of transactions in them, however, they are not investment accounts.    The company I work for had another steward of our 401(K) and switched to Fidelity best I can tell about Jan 2006).   I was able to acquire a list of all of the transactions at Fidelity from transfer in to whenever I did it in the past and inserted those into my Quicken account.    Since I didn't have any paychecks for the period of 1/1/2006 to 10/1/2010 I had to make a fake cash deposit of $9999 and then as the transactions went in as "Bought" transactions the cash value slowly over 4 years dwindled down to 0.  I obviously don't know what was purchased and price etc for the data prior to my employer moving to Fidelity.   So the funds from that time that I am invested in are noted as cost basis cannot be actually determined.

Sorry for that long explanation but hopefully it will give enough info so that the question has contextual sense.

I want to reconcile my 401(K) investment account so I decided to attempt a reconcile of beginning of Fidelity history to 12/31/2010.   There is no real "cash" account so in the reconcile preamble box I enter the end statement date of 12/31/2010, and a cash value amount of 0.   Press the enter button and off we go....

The transaction reconciliation box then comes and it nicely checks all transactions  off.... but my balance is off by about $6K.

what is causing this and how do I fix it?

Hint ... already looked for and there are no hidden placeholder entries.

Oh last item just FYI... My share balances for the past several years have always agreed between Quicken and Fidelity.

Sherlock · Accepted Answer

The Prior cash balance specified is ignored.  The Prior cash balance used when we reconcile is the cash total of the Reconciled transactions in the account.  If you open the reconcile and clear all the selected transactions (select Mark All and then Clear All), the Cleared Balance is the Prior cash balance being used.

Otherwise, if the cash balance was $0 on 10/1/2010 as you stated, perhaps the $6K difference appears in the transactions between 10/1/2010 and 12/31/2010.  You should be able to verify the cash balances on these dates by selecting Holdings and setting the As of: date appropriately.