Errors in Portfolio - Number of Shares

JayDC

I have encountered a bizarre issue! When reconciling each month, I sometimes find that the number of shares of a particular stock in my portfolio view does not match the number shown on my brokerage statement. I have isolated that stock in "transactions" then checked all these with the brokerage. Everything checks out correctly, but the share number is off. I have found that if I go to one of the transactions and edit it and change the buy/sell to another stock, then save it, then go back to the same transaction and edit it back to the original stock in question, miraculously the portfolio is then correct! I have found this to be true several times and have found that this fixes it every time. I have no idea what in the world causes this and it was through pure accident that I found the solution. I am using Q19 on Mac.

Frankx

Hi @JayDC,

Interesting!!  A quick question - when you find that the number of shares is "off," does it involve a lot of shares or perhaps only a few or perhaps fractional shares?  Also, does this happen to the same holding (or holdings) each month, or does it involve different stocks each month?  And one more question - do you remember the approximate date when this first started?

Frankx

JayDC

Actually, occurs over several accounts, also is not isolated to one security. It may be off 2, 5 or up to 30 shares. No rhyme or reason. In one case, my brokerage showed me having 30 shares of a security and I showed "none", yet there were transactions to indicate that I should, indeed, have 30 shares. It is not fractional shares. So, by changing any one of the transactions for the "problem security", and changing it to any other security, then changing it back, solved the problem. I spent hours trying to trace this down, thinking in the cases where it was one or two shares, that I had made an error somewhere, but that was not the case. I am importing my transactions from my brokerages. So...bizarre, don't you think?? PS, one thing you have to do is adjust for any shares that were purchased or sold and imported after the date of reconciliation. That seems to occur with dividend reinvestments where there may be fractional shares purchased.

Frankx

Hi again @JayDC,

Wow - yes that is bizarre.  And the "fix" (while I am happy that it works for you) is equally bizarre!

I can honestly say that I've not only never seen this happen in Quicken before, I can't remember even hearing of anyone having this same issue.

Sorry I can't be more help, although this does sound to me like something you might want to take to Quicken Support (unless someone else here in the Community chimes in).  If you do decide to go to Quicken Support, here's the link.

Good luck!

Frankx

JayDC

Frank, thanks for your responses. I tried the link to Quicken Support and it did not work. Can you retry or paste in the URL? Thanks.

jacobs

@JayDC  For Quicken Support, the fastest path is from within Quicken Mac, on the Help menu: Contact Support. It lists the phone number as well as the link to the web site. Alternatively, on this site, click the Learn & Suppor link at the top of every page, which takes you to the Quicken Support home page; scroll down on that page to initiate a chat or phone (when open) support session.

Quicken Support is closed for July 4. Chat support will re-open on Sunday; phone support is available weekdays.

lhossus

JayDC said:

...
 PS, one thing you have to do is adjust for any shares that were purchased or sold and imported after the date of reconciliation. That seems to occur with dividend reinvestments where there may be fractional shares purchased.

You seem to understand this issue, but I thought I might describe a situation I encounter each month or quarter during reconciliation and how I deal with it.

I have several mutual funds in my brokerages that are not part of the brokerages in-house offering of securities. Because of this, the mutual fund dividend does not post in time for the monthly statement, yet by the time I do the reconciliation the dividend has downloaded into Quicken with a transaction date of the last day of the month and thus is within the time frame of the statement.

In order to easily and accurately reconcile the brokerage statement to Quicken's portfolio, I adjust the dates of these mutual fund dividend transactions forward 1 day to the beginning of the next month, perform the reconciliation, then invoke Quicken's Undo an appropriate number of times to reverse the date changes.

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Now, to your problem: 

1) Do you sync your Quicken Desktop to Quicken Mobile or Quicken Web?

2) For your fix:
a) have you tried simply making a change to the amount, or the date, of the transaction instead of changing the security name, followed by reversing that change?
b) have you tried making your change to the transaction, then invoking Quicken's Undo?

JayDC

Thanks for that... I understand the minor transactions that occur on the first or early in the next month. I do take that into consideration. I have not tried the other two fixes you noted, but will do that should I have the problem next month. I am having a greater problem now as described in another post where the very first month (opening the account) with just two simple transactions does not match the "quicken balance". I can't figure out where quicken gets this figure. The only way to go forward and reconcile is to accept this figure but it gives you an inaccurate figure as to the real balance of the account.