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Why are cash balances and security balances listed incorrectly in investment Account Overview?

dana.goldman

I have an online banking investment account that downloads transactions fine. It contains one security (publicly traded ETF) and cash. My question is about a discrepancy in the Account Overview window.

In the account overview window, the market values of the ETF and "Cash" display the correct amounts. So, in the upper pane, the total market value of the account is correct.

However, there is an additional frame below that displays "Account Status." This frame lists a "Cash Balance." For an unknown reason, cash balance is different than the market value of cash in the upper frame. In addition, the "Security Value" is different for the ETF, resulting in an offsetting error so the "Total Market Value" is correct (two offsetting errors).

This creates problems when I reconcile -- basically, I have to put in the offsetting error.
I am trying to understand why the market value of "Cash" might diverge from "Cash Balance", and why the "Market Value" of my single holding might diverge from "Security Value".

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Accepted answers

NotACPA

@dana.goldman Actually, in your graphic, the "Security value" is different also.

I'd interpret this to mean that VTI holds some cash, which is necessary for simple trading operations.

Jim_Harman

Your screen shot does not show the As of date, it should be today. It affects the Holdings section of the account overview but not the Account status.

Also if you have just made a transaction but it has not settled yet, the Account status section may be reflecting data downloaded from your broker and not what Quicken shows in the Holdings section.

Perhaps you just purchased 327.55 shares at $225.12, bringing your share balance to an even 5,000. That would cost $73,737, which matches the difference in cash between the sections.

If you click on the gear in the account then pick Reconcile Shares, does it say the holdings are in agreement?

All comments

UKR

I'm not quite sure which investment view you're looking, but in my investment account register, the "Cash Balance" refers to the amount of uninvested cash sitting around in the account, after cash was subtracted for any stock purchases.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words …
Can you please capture one or more images of the parts of your Quicken window showing the issue, sensitive information blacked out as necessary to protect your privacy but annotated to describe the situation, and attach the image(s) here?
The Windows Snipping Tool (available with Windows 7 and up) can be used to capture a partial screen image and save it to a file. Microsoft Paint can be used to annotate the image.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13776/windows-use-snipping-tool-to-capture-screenshots
To take a screenshot in Mac please see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201361
Please create image files of type PNG, JPG or GIF only.
To attach the image here, start composing your reply in the "Leave a Comment" box at the bottom of this webpage. Drag and drop the image file or, at the top of the text entry window you'll see a row of icons possibly beginning with B I S
Click the "Attach image" icon (the one that looks like a tiny landscape with mountain and sun). It will allow you to select and upload the captured image file(s) from your computer. The captured image(s) will be inserted at wherever the cursor is located in the text.

dana.goldman

See image of the discrepancies.

NotACPA

@dana.goldman Actually, in your graphic, the "Security value" is different also.

I'd interpret this to mean that VTI holds some cash, which is necessary for simple trading operations.

UKR

Could it be possible that one of the views, Holdings, is expressed in a currency different from the other, Account Status?

dana.goldman

@UKR thanks; these are all in USD.

@NotACPA The cash position in the underlying security itself is an intriguing explanation. It does appear that the fund may hold about 0.7% in cash. That is an order of magnitude that might explain it. Well done!

Tom Young

@dana.goldman

I don't think the "cash in ETF" explanation is the answer here. I have several ETFs in several different investment Accounts and none of the Accounts show any difference between the Holdings and Account Status panes as far as Cash Balance and Security Value.

I'd probably start with a file Validation with a rebuild of investment lots to see if that puts things to right. You shouldn't be seeing that disconnect.

NotACPA

@Tom Young If ONLY the cash balance was at variance, I'd agree with you. BUT, the Security Value is also at variance BUT the TOTAL matches exactly.

IF file corruption is the issue ... it would be extremely strange that the total still matches while the 2 numbers that add to that total don't

dana.goldman

Thanks @Tom Young and @NotACPA. I tried the file validation and it didn't change anything. However, the cash in the ETF story doesn't seem right either on second though, as I made a decimal error. The cash/security holdings are off by 75K or so. The ETF value is about $1.1M, so that would require cash holdings in the ETF of 7% (not 0.7%), which seems high.

dana.goldman

It turns out I have another IRA with similar holdings (VTI and cash). That account shows the same cash balance in both frames.

Chris_QPW

There definitely seems to be something strange about that one account.

One thing you might try (in a copy of your data file) is moving all the transactions in that register to a new account. Create a new offline account, and then in the old account select the gear icon -> Move Transactions -> Select All, and set the account to the new one, and then Move.

Jim_Harman