Security amounts not increasing or decreasing correctly

inneedofhelp

I manually enter all my transactions for my securities. I have run into an issue where I post a sale for $4,000 as an example; cash correctly increases by $4,000 but the security value decreases by $3,966.67, overstating the security value by $33.33. This only happens on some securities when a sale is posted, not all. Anybody have a suggestion on what causes this and how to correct?

Sherlock

I suspect the share price in the security's price history is not the same as the share price in the Sold transaction.

Jim_Harman

When you enter the sale, do you enter the total proceeds and the number of shares sold and let Quicken calculate the price per share? That is what you should be doing.

Is there a commission or fee on the sale that might be affecting things? Some mutual fund companies make it difficult to see the commissions in their statements.

inneedofhelp

Jim, I am doing as you stated, entering proceeds and number of shares sold and letting Quicken calculate the price per share. Since I am entering all transactions manually (not linked to website), I am not entering a commission or fee. This anomaly does not happen on all sales transactions.
I update share prices each month on the "Investing" tab. Also, this particular brokerage firm takes a flat fee monthly for "management fees" which is recorded as a separate transaction.

q_lurker

inneedofhelp said:

I manually enter all my transactions for my securities. I have run into an issue where I post a sale for $4,000 as an example; cash correctly increases by $4,000 but the security value decreases by $3,966.67, overstating the security value by $33.33. This only happens on some securities when a sale is posted, not all. Anybody have a suggestion on what causes this and how to correct?

What “security value” are you looking at?  

Where are you seeing this 3966.67?
Why are you expecting to see 4000 there? 

inneedofhelp

q-lurker, I am looking at the Securities Value in the bottom right-hand corner, not Total Market Value. I posted a sale of a holding of $4,000, expecting to see cash go up by $4,000 (it did) and expecting to see the security value decrease by $4,000. It only decreased by $3,966.67. I sold another security for 2,000 and the security value decreased by $2,000, as expected.

Jim_Harman

Are you also downloading quotes or entering security prices manually?

If you sell 100 shares and receive $4000, you will see the $4000 in cash in your account. If you also enter or download a share price of $39.67 for the same or a later date, that is what will determine the security value.

You can check the security's price history by clicking on the security name to bring up the Security Detail view. Click on More then Edit price history.

q_lurker

Adding to Jim’s comment, if you are selling the security at a price different than the price currently in place, you’ll see that type of change 

Example:  your data in Quicken has the security priced at $3900. You enter a sale of that security for $4000. Essentially, immediately before the sale, your ‘Securities Value’ increases by $100 and it is from that new point that the sale swaps security value for cash value. 

inneedofhelp

Jim, I am manually entering all transactions. Also, I had updated the security price under the Investing tab before I entered the sale transaction, hoping that it would calculate correctly. I did go to the Security Detail View, clicked on More and the price for the day of the transaction is exactly what I had changed the price to before recording the Sale.

q-lurker, Would what you are suggesting occur even if I am manually entering the transaction and manually updating the share price? If so, what do I do to get Quicken back in balance? (i.e. reduce the securities value)

I thank both of you for taking the time to respond to my questions.

Jim_Harman

Aha. For Quicken's price history, a manually updated the security price "wins" over the price from a Buy or Sell on the same day. The price in the transaction sets your cost basis or capital gain/loss, but the manually entered price sets the security value for the day. This is just as if you bought 100 shares of a stock for $41 but it closed at 40. Your cost basis is $4,100 but the closing value is $4,000.

If you really want the transaction price to show as the price for the day, you should delete the Sell transaction, then  go to the price history and delete the price for that day, then re-enter the Sell and do not enter a manual price for that date. 

 

inneedofhelp

Jim, I did as suggested above, and the cash went up by $4,000, but the security value only decreased by $3,965.67. The Quicken security value is overstated by $34.33.
As long as you are being exceedingly helpful and generous with your time, could you tell me why when I update the share price at the end of each month on the Investing tab, why the value does not also update on the Transaction screen (the Home Page on Quicken). Thanks again for all your help.

Jim_Harman

What is the exact title of the Home page panel you are referring to? I see something called Investing Account Activity - is that it?

Or do you mean the account's transaction list (register)?

inneedofhelp

It is the register where transactions are either manually entered or downloaded into. When I receive the monthly statement, I manually enter all activity/transactions from the statement. Then I click on the Investing tab, change the current date near the top of the page to the last date of the previous month (statement ending date) and enter the share price for each security (called Holdings on the statement) that is listed on the monthly statement. The Total Market value on the Investing screen always matches exactly what the monthly statement says. The Total Market value on the register (bottom right-hand side) does not match the statement or the Investment screen. I have always been curious about how and why the two get out of balance when I am manually entering transactions. Just like this sell transaction is not creating an equal debit and credit amount.

Jim_Harman

Ok, thanks for clarifying. That is what we would call the account's Transaction List.

Note that the numbers at the bottom of the Transaction list include all the transactions in the list up to today, so any transactions between the statement closing date and today will affect the numbers there. They also use the most recent prices in the securities' Price History, so if there is an updated price since the statement closing date, it will use that and cause a discrepancy. 

Let's be very specific about the names of the columns, etc. to be sure we are looking at the same thing.

What happens when you click on the Holdings button at the top of the Transaction List? If you set the As of date there to the statement closing date, the number at the bottom of the Market Value column should be the same as what you see on the Investing > Portfolio views. Is that what you see? 

inneedofhelp

When I click on the Holdings button, I see the exact same Market Value as is on the Investing > Portfolio view. It is the Transaction list that is not matching. There have been no transactions entered since the end of October. I just received the November statement, but have not entered any November transactions yet. I would like to understand where my discrepancy is before going further.

inneedofhelp

To clarify, the Transaction list Market Value is not matching the Holdings or Investing>Portfolio Market Values.

Jim_Harman

Right. Look at the price history for the affected security. Is there an entry for the closing date that does not equal the selling price you recorded? Is there a newer price?

inneedofhelp

In looking at the price history, I do see that the price history is missing for the month prior to the sale. I found that if I updated the missing price, it came out to exactly the $34 and change that I was off! I am so grateful that you stayed with me on this. I have never looked at the price history screen before and the missing history seems to have fixed my problem! Thank you again so very much.