Account Reconciliation for Edward Jones

Chris Harris

Greetings,

I've had an Edward Jones account for years, but never knew how to reconcile it properly.  I know how to reconcile my other accounts (checking, savings, CC, etc.), but this investing account has always seemed to require a different approach for some reason.  Recently, I my old account was changed to a new account (with a new account number) that is letting me start from scratch.

I found this button which I'm assuming is the correct method to reconcile it.



When I click it, the reconcile screen shows up with a bunch of 0.00's in the Decreases section with nothing in the Increases section.  This means there is always a difference at the bottom.



This is how the transactions are downloaded...



My question:  How am I supposed to reconcile this account since the cash balance is always zero and there isn't any offsetting increases?

Thank you for any assistance!

Boatnmaniac

The process I use to reconcile my investment and retirement accounts:

1. Click on Reconcile Shares:  If there is a discrepancy in the number of shares held in Quicken vs. what the FI has reported to Quicken, it will be identified by this.
2. Click on the blue underlined Cash Balance (assuming Cash is not held in a separate linked checking account) on the right below the Register.  This will bring up a popup that will show what the Cash Balance in Quicken is vs. the Cash Balance as reported to Quicken by the FI.  (NOTE:  Do not skip this step.  Even though it might be that EJ does not actually hold cash, some FIs will download the value of sweeps into Quicken as Cash.)
   
3. When these prior 2 steps show there is no disagreement between what is shown in Quicken and what has been reported by the FI in both the number of shares held and in the Cash Balance, click on Reconcile and enter the current Cash Balance.  The Reconcile popup should then show no issues (i.e., the Difference = 0) and should be able to be completed properly.

Since there is an issue identified in the Reconcile popup, it means there is a discrepancy in the Reconcile Shares and/or in the Cash Balance procedures listed above.  Identify what the discrepancy(ies) is via those steps.  Let us know what you find out so we can perhaps provide some suggestions as to what can be done to correct it so the account can be successfully reconciled.

Tom Young

When you click on that reconcile selection a window comes up with a "prior statement" balance (that Quicken calculates) and asks for the "current statement" balance, which you enter.  So it looks like you entered that $32,910.04.  Maybe that's the statement balance of all the securities and cash in the account?  If the cash amount really is $0 per the statement, that's what you should be entering here, resulting in $0 difference.

splasher

With investment accounts, every download cross checks the number of shares per security in Quicken with the financial institution, so it is effectively reconciling the share amounts with each download.

As pointed out by Tom Young, the reconcile only considers the cash holdings in the accounts, the overall value (MV) of the account is never checked.

gooddog50

With all the above taken into account, doesn't he still need a one time entry to reflect the current cash balance of $32,910.04 if that's what his statement reflects?

Jim_Harman

Try the Reconcile Shares function instead. This compares the shares of each security in Quicken to the shares downloaded. It will show any discrepancies. 

Generally you do not want to let Quicken create placeholders to correct imbalances, but add or correct transactions instead. You can reconcile shares again to make sure everything is correct.

Jim_Harman

[Duplicate]

Boatnmaniac

The process I use to reconcile my investment and retirement accounts:

1. Click on Reconcile Shares:  If there is a discrepancy in the number of shares held in Quicken vs. what the FI has reported to Quicken, it will be identified by this.
2. Click on the blue underlined Cash Balance (assuming Cash is not held in a separate linked checking account) on the right below the Register.  This will bring up a popup that will show what the Cash Balance in Quicken is vs. the Cash Balance as reported to Quicken by the FI.  (NOTE:  Do not skip this step.  Even though it might be that EJ does not actually hold cash, some FIs will download the value of sweeps into Quicken as Cash.)
   
3. When these prior 2 steps show there is no disagreement between what is shown in Quicken and what has been reported by the FI in both the number of shares held and in the Cash Balance, click on Reconcile and enter the current Cash Balance.  The Reconcile popup should then show no issues (i.e., the Difference = 0) and should be able to be completed properly.

Since there is an issue identified in the Reconcile popup, it means there is a discrepancy in the Reconcile Shares and/or in the Cash Balance procedures listed above.  Identify what the discrepancy(ies) is via those steps.  Let us know what you find out so we can perhaps provide some suggestions as to what can be done to correct it so the account can be successfully reconciled.

Chris Harris

Thank you all!  I haven't had a chance to work through this yet, but really, really want to!  I'll report back here when I get a chance.

It's wonderful knowing so many really smart people are present in this community.

Chris_QPW

Boatnmaniac said:

1. Click on the blue underlined Cash Balance (assuming Cash is not held in a separate linked checking account) on the right below the Register.  This will bring up a popup that will show what the Cash Balance in Quicken is vs. the Cash Balance as reported to Quicken by the FI.  (NOTE:  Do not skip this step.  Even though it might be that EJ does not actually hold cash, some FIs will download the value of sweeps into Quicken as Cash.)

Learned something new today.  I never clicked on the cash balance before.
I will note for Vanguard the answer is always "Not Provided".  That is because Vanguard doesn't "hold cash", "cash" is always held in a Money Market Fund.

A few points that I noticed in reading this thread.

splasher said:

With investment accounts, every download cross checks the number of shares per security in Quicken with the financial institution, so it is effectively reconciling the share amounts with each download.

This is the default, but can be not be true under a couple of situations.
If you go to Edit -> Preferences -> Downloaded transactions and select Settings for "Compare account portfolio after download" it is possible to turn off this check for a given account (the default is the check is on).  One might do this if their financial institution tends to send down incomplete statuses like sending a buy transaction, but not updating the share balance.  And instead of fighting Quicken suggesting placeholders just turn this off and do the check manually with Reconcile Shares when you know the information is properly up to date.

But also if a user has the "Automatically add to investment transactions lists" setting on in that same Downloaded transactions section, the check for shares isn't done, no matter what is selected in the above settings.  So in that case the user should select Reconcile Shares from the account menu before doing and kind of cash reconciling.  It is problem a good idea to select it any case just as a double check.

Personally I have customized the action bar to have both the Reconcile shares and Reconcile button on it so that I can just quickly click them:

gooddog50 said:

With all the above taken into account, doesn't he still need a one time entry to reflect the current cash balance of $32,910.04 if that's what his statement reflects?

I would bet that in fact the $32,910.04 is the total value of the account, not the cash balance.  And as such the balance entered to reconcile to was wrong.  And therefore that number entered needs to be corrected (which I will bet is zero) not put in any kind of balance adjustment.

And I will state that reconciling the cash in an investment account isn't like in a non investment account where you are almost guaranteed that you have to select the right transactions of the reconcile will fail.

What do I mean?
Here is a credit card reconcile:


Clearly if I deselect either of these transactions my reconcile will fail.
Now look at a reconcile for my Vanguard brokerage account.


I can deselect any one of the above transactions and still reconcile.

The reason is because reconcile only deals with the cash part of the transactions, and investment transactions don't have to involve cash.

Now here another that involves cash:


If I deselect either the Bought or Sold transactions I will fail to balance, but if I deselect the reinvest dividend it won't change the balance at all.