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Quicken posts incorrect balances and holdings after account downloads.

Wayne Cole

From two different institutions, the downloads show severe discrepancies in some cash balances and shares or stock holdings. These "foul ups" started appearing with alarming frequency after the same update the screwed the pooch on the taskbar "updated transactions" flag a couple months ago. I now have to get out paper statements or log in to each separate account, keep that account window open in a browser and go back and forth to the Quicken window to try to enter corrective transactions to get things to match. Then usually, the next account download Quicken does, it will enter "placeholder" transaction to undo my corrections and put back the erroneous balances / holdings. What good is a financial management program that cannot correctly report your holdings / balances?

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Wayne Cole

Using the menu "Help->Report a problem...", the program makes you fill out a form with details, add screen shots and files to be uploaded, the when you select to send the information it tells you "unable to send" and to try again, except that it completely clears the reporting form. [Removed-Disruptive/Inaccurate] This is particularly galling since I was attempting to report multiple instances where downloaded holdings and balances don't match what is actually shown in several accounts that had been correct for years. The problems seemed to show up in the same update where the Task Bar flag bug showed up. I suspect, like the "fix" for the task bar flag that they could fix by simply reverting to the code that worked, the will tell me that to fix my balances / holdings problems I will have to delete my Quicken file and rebuild all my accounts, categories etc. from scratch. NOT AN OPTION.

Sherlock

As you're having difficulty using Help > Report a problem..., I suggest you contact Quicken Support: https://www.quicken.com/support/quicken-support-options

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @Wayne Cole

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to post your issue, although I apologize that you haven't received a follow-up response.

We will need a bit more information to be able to assist. Please take a moment to review the information here and post back with the year and version of Quicken you are currently running.

Is this only affecting brokerage accounts or banking accounts as well?

Is the discrepancy large like in the discussion here? Or is the difference just the amounts of the placeholders that you have had to remove and re-enter?

The more information you can provide regarding this issue will help the Community to better understand and assist.

Thank you,

-Quicken Tyka

Wayne Cole

Sorry for the delay - minor emergencies, power outages, etc.
1. The incorrect balance was in IRA where the payment from the checking account was properly entered as the yearly contribution to the IRA, but when Quicken downloaded the transactions it failed to recognize the deposit at the account managers report as the contribution (despite the annotation as such in the downloaded transactions). So I had a cash balance larger than it should have been.

2. Incorrect holdings reported: Back in April 2020 Raytheon Company merged with another company and the combined company was named Raytheon Technologies at which point the ticker changed (from RTN to RTX) and the number of shares held increased by a factor of 2.3348.

I've tried following the various methods reported on the forums to deal with what is basically a name, ticker, and share balance change, but Quicken INSISTS that the name and ticker change part never happened.

(See attached "Securities Comparison Match" pane.) Checking "Details" for each line simply leads to the panes in the other attached pics. I corrected the ticker symbol issue in the "Holdings" button's "Account Overview" pane which shows the correct shares and the date on which it appeared in the account (see the "Holdings" line clip). When I look at the "Transaction Register" regarding the merger transactions (see the transaction lines pic attached)

I can't see why I should STILL be getting the request to enter placeholder transactions EVERY TIME I download transactions from the account manager's site.

The mechanism for automatically / manually entering merger/name change transactions just doesn't seem to work in Quicken despite the provision of a transaction type, "Corporate acquisition (stock for stock)".

How do I get Quicken to recognize the validity of that transaction and quit trying to tell me I own the non-existent stock, or "fixing" the supposed discrepancy with unnecessary placeholders?

[Edited-Readibility]

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @Wayne Cole

Thank you for the additional details as well as the screenshots of this issue.

As I do not see that it has been done yet, I would save a backup and run the Validate & Repair as well as Rebuild Investing Lots from the File menu > File Operations > Validate & Repair option.

In the Validate File window that opens, click the top box to "validate file" and "Rebuild Investing Lots" then click OK.

When the validation completes, a data log will open in Notepad, please let us know if any errors or issues are found/repaired, and when ready close and re-open Quicken.

Please let me know how it goes!

-Quicken Tyka

q_lurker

@Wayne Cole This was my approach to the April Raytheon transactions.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7875091/my-approach-to-utx-otis-carr-rtn-rtx/p1?new=1

You can search this site and find other approaches posted by other users.

I do not find that relying on the brokerage downloads is always fully accurate or acceptable within my data file for these somewhat complicated transactions. It appears to me that you do not currently have the right securities matched up between your Quicken file and the real-world brokerages.

Wayne Cole

> @Quicken_Tyka said:
> Hello @Wayne Cole
>
> Thank you for the additional details as well as the screenshots of this issue.
>
> As I do not see that it has been done yet, I would save a backup and run the Validate & Repair as well as Rebuild Investing Lots from the File menu > File Operations > Validate & Repair option.In the Validate File window that opens, click the top box to "validate file" and "Rebuild Investing Lots" then click OK.
>
>
> When the validation completes, a data log will open in Notepad, please let us know if any errors or issues are found/repaired, and when ready close and re-open Quicken.
>
>
> Please let me know how it goes!
>
> -Quicken Tyka

Well, I tried to attach the log but your software only allows attaching images for for some reason, so here is the log via copy/paste:
-----------------------
[Sat Sep 05 14:42:10 2020]

File: "C:\Users\Nibir\Documents\Quicken\Nibir's Quicken Data"

QDF:
Validating your data.
No errors.

QEL:
No read errors.

QEL:
All internal consistency checks passed.

[Sat Sep 05 14:44:21 2020]

[Sat Sep 05 14:44:21 2020]
1 scheduled transactions corrected

[Sat Sep 05 14:44:26 2020]
Rebuilt investing lots.
Analyzing securities.

Number of old style Buy/Cash investment transactions updated: 38/0
No out-of-range security references found.

Validation has completed.
-------- END OF LOG FILE---------------
I then exited Quicken, restarted it, downloaded transactions for the offending account, and (of course) still got the "Securities Comparison Mismatch" again, because Quicken simply CANNOT deal with mergers / acquisitions that are stock-for-stock (despite having such a selection in the stock transaction pull-down list) or simple name changes (that seem to be happening several times a year). And I think the log indicates the problem is NOT in my data file BUT IS WITH QUICKEN'S CODING.

Wayne Cole

> @q_lurker said:
> @Wayne Cole This was my approach to the April Raytheon transactions.
>
> https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7875091/my-approach-to-utx-otis-carr-rtn-rtx/p1?new=1
>
> You can search this site and find other approaches posted by other users.
>
> I do not find that relying on the brokerage downloads is always fully accurate or acceptable within my data file for these somewhat complicated transactions. It appears to me that you do not currently have the right securities matched up between your Quicken file and the real-world brokerages.

Serious thanks for the suggestions, but I have literally tried them all, some at least a half-dozen times, and every time Quicken downloads transactions it STILL reports "Securities Comparison Mismatch" and I find any transactions I did to try to resolve it removed and replaced by the transactions as reported by the account manager's site / statements.

I've had this happen multiple times. Another example was an Oppenheimer fund that underwent a simple name and ticker change (share amount and price remained the same) and Quicken did the same to me on that one. It only resolved when I sold that particular fund, though I would have expected Quicken to still tell me I owned the old one.

My suspicion is that rather than fix the code to properly handle these types of transactions, Quicken will tell me (like the did for the Task Tray yellow flag but) to delete my data file and rebuild it from scratch. (It's ALWAYS the user's fault, don't you know.)

q_lurker

@Wayne Cole
It is all well and good, and quite easy to complain that Quicken is at fault and should "fix the code". To me, that comes across as treating the program as a black box that should magically take in whatever information a financial institution sends and turn it into information the user desires.

In my 30+ year experience with Quicken, my attitude has always been, I need to know what the gist of the financial transaction is so that I can keep my Quicken data consistent with the real world and meaningful to me. The onus is on me and Quicken is just a tool in my hands.

Specifically in the case of Raytheon >> Raytheon Technologies:
1) I'll assume that your Raytheon holdings (RAYTHEON CO COM NEW, Ticker RTN) prior to 4/3/2020 were wholly defined (no placeholders) in one lot of 438 shares with some undetermined (not clear to me) basis.
2) In exchange for your 438 shares of that RTN security, you received 1022.6424 shares of the new company (Raytheon Technologies Corp, Ticker RTX).
3) The 0.6424 shares were immediately sold by the agent for $36.24 (a rate of $56.4134/share).

What would I want to do and see in Quicken? Two possibilities

1) In my security list I would want two Raytheons (which is what you seem to have). One as the older company (your RAYTHEON CO COM NEW, Ticker RTN) for which I would change the ticker to RTN(old) and I would make sure it is NOT "Matched with online security" (See Edit Security Details). The second as the new company (your Raytheon Technologies Corp, Ticker RTX). To get things right, if that is matched to an online security I would uncheck the box. With those two companies I would then expect to see in the Quicken transactions list three transactions

A Remove Shares removing 438 shares of RAYTHEON CO COM NEW
An Add Shares adding 1022.6424 shares of Raytheon Technologies Corp. The transaction should reflect the original basis of those older 438 shares and their acquisition date.
A Shares Sold selling 0.6424 shares of Raytheon Technologies Corp for $36.24

With those three transactions in place, I would go Tools, Online Center for the relevant financial institution, Holdings tab, applicable Account, then Compare to Portfolio button. That should provide you the opportunity to properly match what the broker shows as Raytheon Technologies Corp to your Quicken Raytheon Technologies Corp.

2) The second possibility is that you only have one "Raytheon" in your Quicken file. To make this happen this far after the fact may require some additional cleanup. But the gist would be:

Delete the current Raytheon Technologies Corp with the RTX symbol and all its related subsequent transactions,
Change the name of the older Raytheon to Raytheon Technologies Corp,
Change that ticker from RTN to RTX copying the RTN prices
Generate the change in share count by either the Remove / Add process as in possibility 1, or by a 2.3348 stock split
Sell the fractional share as in possibility 1
Uncheck the Matched with online security if so checked and do the Compare to Portfolio exercise.
Put back in any deleted transactions.

After either of those approaches, you should be away from these Raytheon related issues. (I used something closer to #1 in my records.)

I continue to put the onus on the user to get their Quicken records to match the real world. Those who treat the software as a black box and make no effort to understand the real world transactions are doomed to failure and problems, in my opinion.

Wayne Cole

> @q_lurker said:
> @Wayne Cole
> It is all well and good, and quite easy to complain that Quicken is at fault and should "fix the code". To me, that comes across as treating the program as a black box that should magically take in whatever information a financial institution sends and turn it into information the user desires.
>
> In my 30+ year experience with Quicken, my attitude has always been, I need to know what the gist of the financial transaction is so that I can keep my Quicken data consistent with the real world and meaningful to me. The onus is on me and Quicken is just a tool in my hands.
>
> Specifically in the case of Raytheon >> Raytheon Technologies:
> 1) I'll assume that your Raytheon holdings (RAYTHEON CO COM NEW, Ticker RTN) prior to 4/3/2020 were wholly defined (no placeholders) in one lot of 438 shares with some undetermined (not clear to me) basis.
> 2) In exchange for your 438 shares of that RTN security, you received 1022.6424 shares of the new company (Raytheon Technologies Corp, Ticker RTX).
> 3) The 0.6424 shares were immediately sold by the agent for $36.24 (a rate of $56.4134/share).
>
> What would I want to do and see in Quicken? Two possibilities
>
> 1) In my security list I would want two Raytheons (which is what you seem to have). One as the older company (your RAYTHEON CO COM NEW, Ticker RTN) for which I would change the ticker to RTN(old) and I would make sure it is NOT "Matched with online security" (See Edit Security Details). The second as the new company (your Raytheon Technologies Corp, Ticker RTX). To get things right, if that is matched to an online security I would uncheck the box. With those two companies I would then expect to see in the Quicken transactions list three transactions * A Remove Shares removing 438 shares of RAYTHEON CO COM NEW
> * An Add Shares adding 1022.6424 shares of Raytheon Technologies Corp. The transaction should reflect the original basis of those older 438 shares and their acquisition date.
> * A Shares Sold selling 0.6424 shares of Raytheon Technologies Corp for $36.24
>
> With those three transactions in place, I would go Tools, Online Center for the relevant financial institution, Holdings tab, applicable Account, then Compare to Portfolio button. That should provide you the opportunity to properly match what the broker shows as Raytheon Technologies Corp to your Quicken Raytheon Technologies Corp.
>
> 2) The second possibility is that you only have one "Raytheon" in your Quicken file. To make this happen this far after the fact may require some additional cleanup. But the gist would be: * Delete the current Raytheon Technologies Corp with the RTX symbol and all its related subsequent transactions,
> * Change the name of the older Raytheon to Raytheon Technologies Corp,
> * Change that ticker from RTN to RTX copying the RTN prices
> * Generate the change in share count by either the Remove / Add process as in possibility 1, or by a 2.3348 stock split
> * Sell the fractional share as in possibility 1
> * Uncheck the Matched with online security if so checked and do the Compare to Portfolio exercise.
> * Put back in any deleted transactions.
>
> After either of those approaches, you should be away from these Raytheon related issues. (I used something closer to #1 in my records.)
>
> I continue to put the onus on the user ...

First of all, I have advanced degrees in computer science and had a long successful career as an aerospace software system engineer and architect and can easily recognize buggy code, poorly implemented UI features and lazy code maintenance practices, so you don’t want to go down that road with me. (I’m not interested in a personal p!$$!^& contest).

That said, I am a complete idiot when it comes to accounting, but ASSUME that “Corporate Name Change” or “Corporate Acquisition (stock for stock)” means just that and should provide the entry fields that, when filled in properly, end up with holdings that agree with the investment company statements. Look at those two transaction types in Quicken and you will find they are insufficient to do either of the tasks their titles suggest – at least nothing like the Raytheon transaction or simple name and ticker changes like several other mutual funds I’ve had to do.

1. I’ve compared the transactions from printed versions of statements for the Raytheon transactions with those in Quicken, and they appear similar. That is, the investment company journalled an additive transaction (1022 shares) for Raytheon Technologies as a “Merger” under a CUSIP number from the CUSIP of the old Raytheon Co New shares. Then it journalled a subtractive transaction (438 shares)for Raytheon Co New including that it was a 2.3348 shares of the Raytheon Co New CUSIP shares for a “Merger Payout”.

2. This appeared in Quicken in some weird way that I had to fix according to instructions found in the forums like those you alluded to earlier in this thread. I also had to go into the “Holdings” pane for this account and manually add the RTX and remove the RTN holdings to get the “Securities Comparison Mismatch” to not appear when I did a manual download of transactions to make sure Quicken and the brokerage account were “in synch”.

3. All well and good - until the next auto update (scheduled once per week) ran and there were new transactions to enter (dividends etc.). Then up popped the “Securities Comparison Mismatch” pane when I went to review/accept the new transaction before entry into the register. A check of the “Holdings” pane showed the correct holdings, SO WHAT IS THE “SECURITIES COMPARISON MISMATCH” TALKING ABOUT? The brokerage holdings, and the Quicken “Holdings” pane agree, but I keep getting the damn “Securities Comparison Mismatch” pane. Why is this panel in Quicken DISAGREEING WITH ITS OWN “HOLDINGS” PANE AND THE BROKERAGE ACCOUNT HOLDINGS? IS THIS SOMEHOW A STUPID USER PROBLEM AND NOT A CODING PROBLEM? ENLIGHTEN ME!!

And speaking of coding problems and lazy maintenance: how about the task bar panel yellow “New Transactions Downloaded” flag? I download once a week but after an update made earlier this year, it appears every day during startup every time I boot the system DESPITE the fact that I have turned off every option I can find that puts ANY of my account information on Quicken online servers / services. So how can it be downloading new transactions? Then when I open the program it shows no new transaction downloaded?

In conversation with Quicken (lack of) Support, instead of recognizing / accepting they introduced a bug with an update, and that it could be fixed with a simple reversion to the flag code that worked before the update, their solution was to tell me that I NEED TO DELETE MY QUICKEN FILE AND RECONSTRUCT A NEW ONE BY REBUILDING ALL MY ACCOUNTS FROM SCRATCH!?!?!

Quicken does do some amazing things and most common things quite well. But when they break something with an update, (like the new transaction flag, the downloading of mileage rates et. al.) they will NEVER fix them, nor will they listen to users requests for sorting out other features that just don’t quite reflect the way the real world actually works (like mergers and stock name/ ticker changes).

This willingness to allow simple annoyance bugs to exist in perpetuity, to not provide proper data fields for less common real-world transactions (like merger and name change transactions that are becoming more common these days) shows contempt for users and a lack of professional care and concern in building the product those users pay for. Try as I might, years of experience with Quicken support under Intuit and its independent stewardship lead me to no other logical conclusion than that Quicken management and tech support just don’t give a crap once they have your money.