Portfolio Value Report shows securities not in Brokerage Statement [edited]

gksmith5

When comparing my statement from one brokerage account, I see that it is much under what I show in Quicken. When comparing line for line, I see that Quicken shows 3 accounts that the brokerage statement does not show. Two of the accounts have the same symbol as another on the statement, but the line and details are not on the statement, hence two line items for the same symbol, The transactions all seemingly take place prior to when I started to export the information to Quicken. The 3rd does not show on the statement. I cannot delete any of the accounts, as I get a message that transactions take place in other areas of Quicken. However, if I could delete these accounts, the Quicken report would tie to the brokerage statement, other than the cash, which might be another problem to tackle. Any help will be appreciated!

Jim_Harman

 [edited] It is hard to understand what you are saying because I think sometimes you are using "accounts" when you mean "securities".

A brokerage account can hold several securities, both in real life and in Quicken, where a security is a stock, mutual fund, ETF, etc. 

So I think you are saying that you have an account in Quicken that corresponds to your brokerage account, but this account shows that you hold 3 securities that are not included in your brokerage statement. Two of these are duplicates of securities that are listed in the statement and the third does not appear on the statement at all.

Or are you saying that the extra securities in Quicken are in other accounts, separate from the brokerage account? 

And you are saying that if you exclude these 3 securities, your holdings in Quicken, i.e. the the securities and share counts, would match the statement.

Before plunging in to help straighten this out, do I have the situation correct?

gksmith5

Yes, you are correct. I used the term "account" incorrectly. Thank you for paying attention to my problem. I look forward to your resolution.

Jim_Harman

OK, so in you brokerage account in Quicken there are 3 securities that do not appear in your brokerage statement. Two of these are duplicates of current holdings but the transactions for these are before you started downloading transactions from the broker. Let's deal with them first.

Probably what happened is that when you started downloading, these securities were not matched properly to the downloaded securities and Quicken created new ones for the downloads. 

-- First, back up your data file in case something goes wrong.
 
-- Then go to Edit > Preferences > Downloaded transactions and make sure Show hidden transactions is selected, so you can see any Placeholders that are in the account.

-- Then look back through the account's Transaction List (register) and look for Placeholders or Added transactions that match the duplicated securities. These will probably be around the time you started downloading.

One "quick and dirty" solution would be to enter a Removed transaction for all the shares of each of the old duplicated securities just before the placeholders or Added transactions. This will get rid of the duplicates but Quicken will lose track of the cost basis for these securities.

Or you could edit the security name in all the transactions for the old securities to match the new ones, then delete the placeholder or Added transactions. This might take a lot of effort if you have years of reinvestments for example, but will preserve the cost basis.

Post back if you need more help and for info on dealing with the 3rd security.

gksmith5

Thank you for your prompt response. Your response prompted me to investigate more thoroughly and accordingly I have learned more about the investment aspects of Quicken, which are amazingly powerful. I followed your initial directions. I then proceeded to locate my oldest brokerage statement on file, which is 02/28/2018. Interestingly the Quicken securities balances tie exactly to the securities and number of share shown on the brokerage statement. This supports my belief that my investment balances shown in Quicken were accurate until the recent comparison that I made, which brought forth the existing problem that I am trying to solve. Further exploration, month by month matches until my 12/31/2018 statement where the problem started. Two securities show in Quicken that do not show on the brokerage statement and two securities show on the brokerage statement that do not show in Quicken. Furthermore, my wife and I have separate brokerage accounts, and the same mysterious securities show on both accounts. The two securities that started showing only in Quicken have continued from 12/31/2018 report to present and the number of shares stayed constant starting with the 02/28/2019 Quicken report. What is really confusing is that in February 2019, my broker started buying these same two securities, creating the duplication of the securities in my Quicken reports, one valid and the other invalid. I believe that the broker sold the securities and Quicken did not record the sales and then later the broker reinvested in the same securities. I am sure I have you confused and I am definitely confused. I see what has happened, but I do not know how to proceed. I did not know that I could reconcile my brokerage statements and see that I should have over the years. Entries show cleared but not reconciled. Is this a step that I can take at this point? Any ideas will be welcome!

gksmith5

I now see that I have tons of placeholders for certain securities which I have ignored. They even occurred before when I stated that my Quicken reports tied to the brokerage statements, as I was only looking at the number of shares and market value, not paying attention to Cost Basis, which I am sure is off, The number of placeholders for one security is 167! However, I seem to have all statements since opening the accounts September 2016. Would it be wise to go back and enter the needed information? I never knew what to do with the placeholders and got into the habit of ignoring them, Or can I change the settings of the accounts and ignore the placeholders? And can this even be done retroactively? I am not an active trader, so how important is it to have accurate cost basis in Quicken, as the brokerage has it and this is a managed account. And is monthly reconciling an alternative since I have the statements at hand? Again, many thanks!

gksmith5

Thoroughly confused! I took a look at placeholders and do not know what to do with them. I took a look at reconciling the monthly statements and that seems to only deal with the cash balance of the account, which is way off at present. I feel pretty dumb!

Jim_Harman

If you don't care about Quicken's performance or capital gains calculations, you can just ignore the Placeholders and/or fix them later.

To force the balances to agree with your statements going forward, you can click on the gear at the top right of the account's Transaction List then pick Update Share Balance and enter the requested information. Repeat for each problem security. This will create Added or Removed transactions to correct the balances.

If you want to be able to track cost basis and performance in Quicken, you must go back and resolve the placeholders by adding any missing transactions and/or fixing any incorrect ones. We can direct you to detailed instructions if you want to pursue that. 

Jim_Harman

And in case you have not already, you should click on Holdings while viewing the account. This will show the securities in the account as of today, and you can pick a date next to As of: to see the holdings on a different date. 

Setting this date to match a statement date gives a quick way of comparing the account in Quicken to your statement.

gksmith5

By being able to rename the duplicate accounts and being able to update share balance and cash balances, I have been able to get one account to tie to the broker statement and the other account to be much closer. I will see what my April accounts show. I am not going to worry about the past placeholders because I think they pertain to the problematic accounts. However, I would like to know how to handle them in the future as I am going to pay more attention to my investment accounts. Strange how I have paid close attention to my cash accounts, dealing in thousands of dollars, but little attention to my investment accounts, dealing in hundreds of thousands! I sincerely appreciate the attention and help you have given me!

Jim_Harman

You are still mixing up accounts and securities, but it sounds like you are making progress!

gksmith5

Yes, I digressed. Thanks for correcting me. At least I am making progress in ways other than my vocabulary!