Mutual fund share balance is way off!

GerryRoston

I found some weirdness in my Windows Quicken account and I cannot figure out how to fix it. I purchased a mutual fund a few years ago and let’s say that its ticker is MF_ORIG. In February of this year, the broker replaced those holdings with the same number of shares of a new mutual fund that replaced the old and let’s say that its ticker is MF_NEW.

In Quicken, it shows that I own only MF_ORIG. When I clicked on one of the transactions, in this case a ReinvDev transaction, the only thing I could change was the date.

On the date that the broker changed my shares, I see a Removed transaction followed by a BoughtX transaction with the proper number of shares. However, one month after that, the share balance increase by the number of shares that were exchanged and there is no transaction visible associated with that. Basically, there is a ReinvDiv transaction that claims it is adding about 16 shares, but the share balance increased by 5,000+ shares.

How on earth can I fix this? Note that I do sync this account with the broker and it is up-to-date.

Mark1104

if you delete the errant REINV transaction and re-enter it with the approiate amount of shares, is it that simple? 

otherwise, I'd do a validate and repair and rebuild the lots 

Tom Young

I'm having difficulty following your explanation of the history of the Account. 

Let's start here: "On the date that the broker changed my shares, I see a Removed transaction followed by a BoughtX transaction with the proper number of shares." 

The assumption is that the Removed transaction had the name of MF_ORIG in the Security column and had the proper number of shares of MF_ORIG that you owned on that date.  It would look something like this:

And, the assumption is that the BoughtX had the name of MF_NEW in the Security column, had the same number of shares as the number of shares removed, had the correct per share cost, and specified the name of the Quicken Account in which this transaction happened in the "Use cash for this transaction" box. It would look something like this:

IF these assumptions are correct THEN after the downloads the Holdings window of the Account should have shown that you owned the correct mutual fund, with the correct number of shares and correct cost basis.  But you say that Quicken continues to show ownership of the old mutual fund, so clearly something's off. 

Explain or show what those two transactions actually looked like in your Account.  Also, down below the transaction list itself does Quicken show that you have any Placeholders in the Account?

From the way that you describe your transactions it sounds to me like you're using downloads into the Account to "do your accounting for you", and the fact of the matter is that you simply can't do that and keep your Account properly stated.  It happens, frequently, that financial institutions send you transactions that aren't really correct and you have to be the brains behind your accounting system and catch their errors.

GerryRoston

Tom,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, but I have one issue, that if it were resolved, I could probably fix this mess. When I select the Removed transaction (or any other transaction is account) and click the Edit button, the Security Name dropdown is grayed out and I cannot edit that field. The date field and the Number of Shares fields seem to be editable.

A bit of searching indicated that is the box 'Single mutual fund account' were set, that would account for this issue. That box is not checked for this account.

Mark1104

@GerryRoston- have you vallidated and repaired the file (and checked the rebuild lot button? 

have you tried to delete the entire transaction and then entered it again? That avoids the :edit' function. 

GerryRoston

Mark1104: First, just to be safe, I created a backup. I then did 'Validate and Repair', but it didn't seem to find anything and the security name field is still grayed out. I could delete and re-enter, but there are several dozen transactions and that would be a real pain...

Mark1104

@GerryRoston - did you also check the 'rebuild lot' button when you did the validate and repair.  ? 

Tom Young

At this point you might want to contact Quicken Support directly as there might be a deeper problem with the file.  As a test of your hypothesis that the Account is acting as an SMF Account even though that option isn't selected, you could try simply Adding any other security to that Account to see if that's possible.  If it's not an SMF Account that should work.

Another option might be to create a new MANUAL Account within the file and move the "known good" transactions to that new Account.  IF the downloaded(?) transactions are appropriate for your situation, (and I'm not sure they are), THEN enter them manually to get the Account in the correct position after the February transaction.  After that's set, then do Tools > Add Account and LINK the account Quicken finds to the new Account. 

The activity in the Account subsequent to the February exchange is completely unclear and if it shows up again you're going to have to do some research; you don't want to mindlessly simply accept anything that shows up in the Account.

q_lurker

I can’t come up with any reason for the security name to be greyed out other than the SMF yes/no setting. Maybe toggling that from the No you see to yes, then back to No will get it set correctly. That is from the wild [Removed - Profanity] guess checklist. 

GerryRoston

Tom - I tried your idea of making it a SMF account, but I clicked that box, hit okay, then reopened the account and that box was no longer checked. Out of desperation, I disconnected that account from the broker and everything got fixed (without my having to do anything). I then reconnected it and no issues. Very weird...