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HELOC showing positive balance when it should be negative

dgoepp

I've seen a few posts of this, but none of them seem to address the actual problem. I also can't seem to find any specific work around. I don't know if the problem is with my bank and how the online integration works, or with Quicken and how it treats an account.

I have a HELOC, and when I use it, the transactions show as positive for withdraws and negative for payments. I mean, I like the idea of the more I borrow, the higher my net worth is ;) But that is not how this is supposed to work.

My question is simple, how do I fix this?

Thanks!

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Tom Young

The sign of your Opening Balance is wrong. You've got the Account showing as a asset, not a liability. Accordingly the math is working contrary to what you'd expect.

I'd also advise getting rid of the "Amount" column and adding the "Charge" and "Payment" columns instead. That will make things much clearer.

dgoepp

Right, I agree, it's been wrong since the start. I added the account type "Line of Credit." Yes, the account is showing as an asset, and it should be a liability, which is what I would expect to happen when I set it as a line of credit account.

I don't follow your recommendation though. Just changing the columns doesn't change how this account is linked to my bank for updates. Unless I'm missing something. Even if I change the columns, the balance still remains wrong.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

Tom Young

I was wrong here because I didn't realize - though the information was there - that the dates were running "backwards" in your picture, from most recent to oldest transaction.

It looks like those "Internet Transfer From x0119 CK" transactions are payments - having a "Payments" column would make that crystal clear - are decreasing the Balance properly. And it looks like you made a new draw of $73,537.49 on 9/26, increasing the Balance. (Again, having a "Charge" column would also add clarity.)

Line of Credit Accounts are usually set up as credit card Accounts, since that's pretty much how LOCs operate. What Account Type is this and, is it really wrong?

Here's how that register, sorted from oldest to newest, should look:

(The first entry should have a Category of [Checking 2] for proper accounting, but I'm assuming you used Quicken's loan "wizard" to create the Account, and this is how the "wizard" would show things.)

dgoepp

I agree with your picture, that is how it should look. That's kinda my point, that's not how it looks. No, I did not run the wizard. I literally just connected it to my bank and let it create the account based on the account type "line of credit." Please note, that this is an option, so we don't need to just create an account as a credit card account, we can use the actual accurate account type:

My expectation is when I add an account connected to my bank of type "line of credit" that it would get the negatives and positives right :) Hence, why I'm asking here what the best way to fix this is, and if the problem is more likely with the bank or with Quicken.

Your points about "Charges" column vs "Payments" column don't really help, as the problem is not clarity or my understanding of how accounting works, or what a line of credit is vs a credit card. My problem is that the numbers are negative when they should be positive, and visa versa. Do you know how to change how a linked account to a bank works?

Thanks.

Tom Young

Are you using a Mac version of Quicken? The reason I ask is that neither of your pictures look familiar to me, a Windows user. Here's how the "Account Details" for the test Account I created for a line of credit (the register pictured above) looks:

As you can see, it's quite different from what you posted.

In the Windows version there's no way that I know of that that "the bank" can create an Account in your file. You either create the Account (unconnected) first, and then when you dial into the bank and it finds the account you're looking for you "Link" that account and the bank to the Account created in Quicken. Or, you start by by telling Quicken "Add Account", click on the correct financial institution (FI), Quicken finds all accounts of all sorts at the FI associated with that UserID/Password combo, and then selecting one of the accounts at the FI you click on "Add" and are guided by Quicken for the Account's creation.

I really don't know why this is showing as an asset unless there's some funkiness on the part of the bank.

Looking at those payments that occurred subsequent to the initial draw of $21.7K, you say that they are payments, and payments usually come out of a bank Account, reducing cash. But if this Account is an asset Account in Quicken then the LOGICAL offsetting accounting entry (double entry accounting and all that) is is that the checking Account is getting bigger (more cash) and you haven't said that's been happening.

I'd suggest creating a test file with two dummy Accounts in it. Create a manual checking Account and put some money in it and create a manual liability file and establish an opening balance of any amount. The over in the checking Account do a transfer from the checking Account the liability Account. I'd expect that will work and if it does I'm guessing the bank is at fault here.

But, if you're a MAC user I'll ask one of the Mac SuperUsers to take a look here.

dgoepp

Yes, I'm using a Mac.

Yes, I'm not saying the bank created the account. I'm saying I added the account by selecting "add account" and selecting my bank from the list, and entering my information which then linked to the bank and created the account from the details provided by the bank.

I appreciate your attempt to help here, but don't think we are getting anywhere. I know I can manually create accounts to do what I would expect, that's all in my control. I will reference again my original question. I have an account, connected to my bank, it's a credit line. The transactions and balances are opposite what they should be. Is this caused by quicken or the bank? Is there a way to "fix" it?

NotACPA

@dgoepp, You've got your signs backwards. Any Liability account should start with a negative amount, indicating that you owe money.

dgoepp

Right @NotACPA that is the problem that I'm asking about. To be clear, I don't set those values, they come from the bank, hence my question. I have stated that the signs are the opposite of what I would expect. I have created a line of credit account by adding my bank, this is what get's created. I want to know if "A" I can fix it by changing a setting, "B" if the problem is Quicken or "C" if the problem is with my bank.

jacobs

@dgoepp

You'll need to reach out to Quicken Support, and they probably won't know where the mis-match of signs is occurring. The best you can hope is that you will get someone who will screen share with you, an dudnerstand the issue, and document to escalate to their connectivity team. Connectivity is handled by Intuit and the problem could be that Intuit has mapped the downloads incorrectly or the problem may be that your bank is sending them backwards.

If you log into your bank's website, do they offer an option to download transactions as a .QFX or .OFX file? If so, I'd download such a file and open it in a text editor (TextEdit). It's a little cryptic, but you'll be able to see whether transactions are positive or negative. If they're wrong in this file, then the problem is with the bank. If they're correct here, it's more likely (but not conclusively) that the problem is with Intuit.

NotACPA

The 1st txn in the acct is where the bank downloads the credit limit. BUT it was downloaded from the bank's perspective … not your's.

Place the 1st txn in the INCREASE column of the liability of the HELIOC, a Liability account, and the 1st balance should show as negative.

BTW, is Check 101 the 1st txn? If so why does Balance not equal the check amount?

And dbl-chk that you have this acct set-up as a liability.

Tom Young

Assuming that each payment out of checking is properly reducing cash and assuming that each payment into the LOC Account - an Account improperly being carried as an asset - is also reducing the balance in that Account, then there's no logical, rational, normal accounting entry that you can make to do that.

That leads me to believe that each entry is what is frequently referred to as a "self-referential" entry, A self-referential entry is an entry where the "offset" to the entry - the "other side" of the balanced entry required by double-entry accounting - is the same Account into which the entry is being made. Such an entry has the desired effect in the Account - cash goes down, the balance of the LOC goes down - but no other Account or Category in the file is affected. (From an accounting point of view it's "as if" Quicken has an Account called "Net Worth" and the other side of the entry into the Account is going there.)

As to why the Account was set up as an asset in the first place - I don't know. Could be either entities fault.

As to why the entries are coming through as 'self-referential" instead of normal Transfers - I don't know, though I'd lean toward that being Quicken/Intuit"s fault.

As to "fixing" it - I'd say there's no button to be pushed or preference to be changed that will go back in time and put it all to right. If I faced this situation and wanted to fix it I'd probably go into the LOC Account (which does look to be a liability Account) and delete all the entries. Then I'd go to the checking Account and find all the transactions that interact with the LOC Account - draws and pay downs - and convert them to Transfers from/to the LOC Account.

dgoepp

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate your comments, but it sounds like you don't know why this is happening, which side it's happening on, nor what a good solution would be. It would kinda defeat the purpose of having transactions automatically load from my bank if I have to manually fix them all. Not just this once, but then going forward, they will still continue to come in wrong.

I will contact my bank to get their thoughts. I figured I would start here with the community first in case someone else experienced this and had a good solution like a check box or advanced setting or something that I'm missing. I literally just want to hit "reverse sign" on every transaction for this account :)

dgoepp

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20388343#Comment_20388343

@NotACPA

The first transaction is not where the bank downloads the credit limit. The first transaction is a check I wrote to buy a check. Nowhere is the credit limit referenced here, or in any way related to this problem.

The image shows the transactions sorted newest to oldest. You can see that in the first column (date). The reason the transaction and balance are different is because I had over paid off the previous balance by $85.71. You can see that in the previous transaction. Starting balance was 21770.31 when I pulled that money out to buy a tractor :)

The account is setup as a liability, see screenshot showing "Line of credit" as account type.

dgoepp

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20388342#Comment_20388342

@jacobs thank you for your suggests. You have been helpful and I will try downloading a transaction file from the back too, that is a good idea. I think it will give me an idea which side the the problem is on, I hadn't thought of that. I will be reaching out to both the bank and intuit for further information. I started here with the community first, as I usually like to with situations like this. I find a lot of my answers come from other people having similar issues, and if I had just gone to the company directly it wouldn't have been shared publicly for others to see. That said, I think I have failed here, since I don't think this thread is really going to help anyone ;) Appreciate it though, your response was the most helpful one I got.

Tom Young

@dgoepp

"it sounds like you don't know why this is happening, which side it's happening on, nor what a good solution would be."

Oh, please, don't sugar coat it. I said directly "I don't know" for the first two items. I think you need to contact Official Quicken Support here.

"It would kinda defeat the purpose of having transactions automatically load from my bank if I have to manually fix them all. Not just this once, but then going forward"

My suggestion was entirely in the context of fixing the historical problem with your data, I made no suggestion that you should just live with the problem and continue that in the future.

"I literally just want to hit "reverse sign" on every transaction for this account."

Since the Account does by all accounts seem to be a liability Account and if you're happy with self-referential entries then I'd say you could do exactly that to fix your historical data problem.

jacobs

I will be reaching out to both the bank and intuit for further information.

Just to clarify something: you can’t reach out to Intuit, even though the problem may be theirs. Intuit, who used to own Quicken years ago, is a service provider to Quicken. You can only talk to Quicken Support; there’s no way for a user to contact Intuit’s OFX connectivity team directly.

Quicken Support representatives can’t talk directly to Intuit, either. They can gather information and document a problem for escalation, which will end up as Quicken filing a bug report with Intuit. From an end user standpoint, what does or doesn’t happen after you talk with Quicken Support is completely behind the scenes.

If you can download a QFX/OFX/Quicken file from your bank, you’ll be able to see whether their data is correctly signed or not. My hope is that the error is at the bank’s end, because you may have better luck/faster results getting this fixed, talking directly with the bank. (Be sure to ask to an IT support person who deals with downloading data to Quicken; often that’s a second-tier support person — the front line representatives may only know that you can download data but not details about the issue you have.) Good luck!

NotACPA

Please post a register shot that's sorted by date.

dgoepp

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20388477#Comment_20388477

@NotACPA the original post contains a screenshot that is the entire register of the account, sorted from newest to oldest by date. But, it's okay, you don't need to respond any more here. I'm going to contact my bank and quicken for resolution. Thanks.