Cash balance adjustments in offline Muni Bond Fund acct

Judy

I manually entered all Dreyfus Bond Fund transactions into Quicken, from statements going back to the first transaction in 1992 (no Quicken). Between 12/30/92 and 5/20/93, the account had deposits of cash, totaling approximately $33K. After 5/20/93, no more cash was deposited and the account has continued to receive reinvested dividends. Each time one of those early deposits was added to the account, there was a Cash Balance Adjustment for the amount of the deposit.

So currently, the information shown in Quicken for this account shows: Security Value, Cash Balance and Total Market Value. The Total Market Value equals the sum of Security Value and Cash Balance. The TMV agrees with the statement from Dreyfus (now BNY Mellon), however the current statements do not show the $33K deposits at all. If I multiply the current number of shares times the Share Price, for a particular day, I get the same TMV as shown in Quicken.

So here are my questions: 1) Are those cash deposits from the first year needed to calc the taxable profit/loss for the Fund or for some other reason? 2) What would happen if I delete the Cash Balance Adjustments entries? 3) Should I keep them?

Thank you!

Jim_Harman

Aha. See the N/As? Those indicate that at some later date there are one or more Placeholders in the account for this security. Placeholders, trying to be helpful, prevent any Bought transactions from affecting the account's cash balance by inserting a Cash Balance Adjustment to balance the Bought. 

To make placeholders visible, go to Edit > Preferences > Investment Transactions and make sure the Show hidden transactions box is checked. 

Placeholders will have a gray background in the account’s transaction list (register) even if they are not selected, and will have “Entry” in the Action column.

Placeholders compensate for missing or incorrect investing transactions by forcing Quicken’s share balance for a security to match a specified value. This is usually the share count downloaded from your financial institution (FI).

Placeholders also prevent new transactions like Bought and Sold prior to the Placeholder date from affecting the account’s cash balance. This shows up as N/A in the Cash Amt column of the transaction list.  

For information on resolving placeholders, please see this FAQ:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7267839/quicken-faq-managing-placeholder-entries-in-quicken-for-windows

Since you have already entered the Bought transactions, you will need to delete the Placeholders. If the number of shares in the Placeholder is zero, you can simply delete it. Otherwise, note the date and the number of shares in the Placeholder before deleting because you still have missing transactions. 

Be sure to back up before changing your historical transactions.

Jim_Harman

[edited] The Cash Balance adjustments might better have been entered as Deposits, but in any case the cash should be used to purchase the shares you bought, using Bought, not Added transactions. As the securities are bought, the cash balance should go to zero. The cash will be part of the cost basis of the securities when you sell them.

You should be able to edit your transactions to match this. 

Be sure to back up your data file before making any changes, in case something goes wrong.

Judy

Jim, thank you so much for the very quick reply. They were entered as Bought. I'm attaching a clip of what it looks like now and would appreciate your suggestions.

Jim_Harman

Aha. See the N/As? Those indicate that at some later date there are one or more Placeholders in the account for this security. Placeholders, trying to be helpful, prevent any Bought transactions from affecting the account's cash balance by inserting a Cash Balance Adjustment to balance the Bought. 

To make placeholders visible, go to Edit > Preferences > Investment Transactions and make sure the Show hidden transactions box is checked. 

Placeholders will have a gray background in the account’s transaction list (register) even if they are not selected, and will have “Entry” in the Action column.

Placeholders compensate for missing or incorrect investing transactions by forcing Quicken’s share balance for a security to match a specified value. This is usually the share count downloaded from your financial institution (FI).

Placeholders also prevent new transactions like Bought and Sold prior to the Placeholder date from affecting the account’s cash balance. This shows up as N/A in the Cash Amt column of the transaction list.  

For information on resolving placeholders, please see this FAQ:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7267839/quicken-faq-managing-placeholder-entries-in-quicken-for-windows

Since you have already entered the Bought transactions, you will need to delete the Placeholders. If the number of shares in the Placeholder is zero, you can simply delete it. Otherwise, note the date and the number of shares in the Placeholder before deleting because you still have missing transactions. 

Be sure to back up before changing your historical transactions.

Judy

Wow! Thank you so much! You are a wonderful person to be so helpful. I will attempt to fix up the account and hope I follow your instructions correctly. I so appreciate your help!