How can I add shares to a retirement account.

Craigbot

This one is driving me absolutely nuts. Quicken 7.12 for Mac, Mac OS 12.6.7.

I recently sold some shares in a retirement account. I synced with the investment company as I've done for years, no problem, except the share balance is suddenly negative rather than 0 after the sale. This is not a problem with the company, as when I look at their transactions and statements, all is correct. And in both Quicken and the company's statements, the cash balance is correct, just the shares are wrong in Quicken. So I thought that I'd just add shares to correct. It's crazy—if I say add 200 shares, then magically the previous share balance subtracts 200 shares. Like if it was -500 then it's -700, so there's no way to add shares to correct. To me this seems to be a bug in Quicken for Mac, but maybe despite the few hours that I've put into this, I just can find the secret sauce to actually add shares. So… any solutions out there?

RickO

Search the transaction register for "placeholder". Placeholder transactions are those that Quicken creates to attempt to make the share balance match the brokerage. But sometimes they get messed up. Deleting the placeholder transaction for the security in question will usually resolve the issue.

Craigbot

Thanks, RickO! Sadly, there is no separate "placeholder" transaction. I've been over the transactions a billion times, turning on the view for transactions in, out, etc., and it just isn't there. I'd be happy just adding shares to negate what is wrongly subtracted, but every time I add shares, it subtracts from the entire account. It's quite literally hellish 😂

Craigbot

@RickO I found it! On a vehicle I bought in 2021, there was an entry for shares subtracted in 2003 😂 It wasn't named "placeholder"—it was just there. But your cluing me in to Quicken throwing transactions in as updates, placeholders, etc., made me start looking for such a possibility, and there it was. So many thanks!

RickO

Glad you found it.