Line of Credit deposits show as debits in Net Worth reports.

newfie-yoda

I occasionally transfer cash to my LOC account, using it as a temporary 'parking place', before I write LOC personalized cheques for gifts/major purchases, etc. I noticed while the cash sits in the LOC, it shows up as a negative amount in my Net Worth report, however, the amount appears okay (positive and added) in the associated Net Worth Graph (displayed in Home /First Page - Net Worth by Assets and Liabilities). When I mouse over the graph column, the 'Assets' amount reflects a value that includes the cash amount deposited to my LOC account. It appears to be a two part error, (1) that it would show deposits as negative amounts, and (2) that it mismatches the amount calculated in the Net Worth report versus the associated Net Worth Graph. Has anyone else noticed/experienced this issue?

Tom Young

I'm not really following along here.  Is this a secured Line of Credit such that the "deposits" are being made to the collateral account?  If that's the case, then in what Quicken group of Accounts did you establish this collateral Account?  Spending?  Investing?  Assets?  Loans?

Are you seeing real "bottom line" Net Worth differences between the Report and the Graph, or is it more an issue of presentation?

newfie-yoda

The LOC is labelled as an Unsecured account by my bank. Per my understanding of the Quicken setup, I had to classify it under under Credit, the same as I did for my Canadian Tire and Capital One credit cards.

The Assets of the Graph (mouse-over) and the Assets: line are mismatched by the amount of cash held in my LOC account. While the Graph recognizes the cash as a positive amount, the Net Worth report column (when viewed or printed) shows the cash in the LOC as a negative amount in red (eg. -$4000).

Tom Young

"The LOC is labelled as an Unsecured account by my bank. Per my understanding of the Quicken setup, I had to classify it under under Credit, the same as I did for my Canadian Tire and Capital One credit cards."

So you have it set up as a "credit card", i.e., a "Spending" Account, correct?

If that's correct then, first, I have to wonder why you are apparently  driving a (credit card/line of credit) account into a "debit" condition, which appears to be what's going on here. 

If I park some cash with my credit card company, i.e., I overpay the "amount due" on the latest statement by a large amount, I've effectively created a "prepaid" situation which is a form of asset even if the Account is a liability Account of some sort.  But I don't do that because my credit card company pays me no interest on this amount.  That does explain the Net Worth report showing the overpayment as a negative liability; it's an asset that's in the liabilities section of the report and mathematically that's how it has to be presented.

You didn't answer the question about if the bottom line numbers for the report and the graph are the same, but I'm guessing they are and that the difference you're seeing comes down to different programming between the report and the graph.  It probably would be better if the program was more consistent here but as long as the net worth numbers are the same I don't see the difference as being terribly important, just a little bit confusing.

newfie-yoda

Thanks for the reply.

I agree with your point that the cash I deposited into my LOC creates an 'asset'. I guess in the jargon of bookkeeping it is referred to as a 'negative liability', which is why it is displayed in red, with a minus sign in front of it. The issue seems to be with how this value is used when generating a Net Worth Report and/or a Net Worth Graph.

I generated a Net Worth Report (for today) which displays three main categories; Assets, Liabilities, and Overall Total (i.e. Net Worth). I checked the amounts against the Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth amounts shown below the 'Net Worth by Assets and Liabilities' banner and all 'Current' amounts match the report. In the printed report format, the 'negative liability' WAS NOT ADDED to the 'Assets', but it was used in the 'Liabilities' calculations to REDUCE my overall TOTAL LIABILITIES. These amounts are valid and I agree with the OVERALL TOTAL (i.e. Net Worth) presented.

Now, on the Graph setup, I use a 12 month display - in columns. It displays monthly tri-color columns for Net Worth, Assets, and Liabilities - top to bottom, respectively Since we already have these values, it should be just a simple task to tag these column area (on mouse-over) with the appropriate amounts. The Liabilities amount does match, however, the Assets amount doesn't, therefore the Net Worth amount is also incorrect. Now if you click on the Net Worth circle at the top of the column, you get a popup panel named Assets vs.Liabilities. When I analyzed the amounts in this popup, it becomes obvious why the Graph amounts are incorrect. The LOC cash amount has been ADDED into the Assets (under the Credit Card label) so his amount inflates the final Asset value displayed in the Graph. However, this amount is also used in the Liabilities to REDUCE the total amount and this explains why the Liabilities are correct on the Graph.

So the bottom line is that any LOC (or Credit Card) 'negative liability' amount will be calculated incorrectly by the program that populates the Graph values. My LOC amount is being credited to me twice, when it should only be entered once, in the Liabilities calculations.

It's not a big issue but the more bugs that are removed, the better the quality of Quicken.

Tom Young

I just tried an example of this in my own file.  I "transferred" $10,000 from a cash Account to an empty liability Account.  Then I ran a Net Worth report and compared that report to the Home page Net Worth graph.  All numbers matched, Assets, Liabilities and the Net Worth/Overall Total were the same. 

Perhaps there's a data problem with your file?  You might try validating a copy of the file to see if that smokes anything out.

newfie-yoda

Hi,

I ran validate and super validate but neither identified any issues. However, after some reading about Quicken issues after updates I decided to see if I could isolate the problem. I am a subscription user and my Quicken was updated in January 2020, plus I bought a new computer and had the supplier restore everything from a cloned copy of my old computer HDD. They did not do a stellar job. After I brought my new computer home, I still had to reinstall the latest version of Quicken to even access it.

So in the ' Net Worth Assets and Liabilities" graph page, I accessed 'Customize this Graph' and backed out all of my accounts. I then added them back in, one and time, and tested after each one to see if I had a mismatch. This isolated the issue to my Personal RRIF account, which is one that I manually update on a monthly basis. I decided to remove all transactions back to the end of 2019 and tests showed no mismatch. I then added each transaction back into the account and retested as I went. Success! The mismatch no longer exists.

There is still one minor issue relating to the way that Quicken displays and uses 'negative liability' values. In my LOC account, the cash that I deposited shows up (positive figure in black) and is added to my overall 'Credit Remaining' figure. As I mentioned before, in my Net Worth report, the cash value is presented as a negative figure in red, used under Liabilities to reduce the overall value.

Although the three 'mouse-over' values of the Graph now match with those in the banner above it, when I click on the Net Worth icon, the method of calculation is not the same. As I mentioned in an earlier reply, the Assets vs. Liabilities popup shows the LOC cash amount included in the Assets (positive figure) rather than being used as a 'negative liability' to reduce the Liabilities value. This creates different Asset and Liabilities amounts in the popup even though the Net Worth value is valid.

It may seem like splitting hairs but using a consistent calculation and display arrangement would certainly take the confusion out of troubleshooting certain issues. I feel that Quicken should 'fix' this issue. Any feedback would be appreciated.