Net Worth Report is not correct

princetonfrog

Long term user (20+ years) first time question.

For several years now, the canned Net Worth Report has been showing wrong numbers: the side bar showing all accounts and the net worth provides the correct data but the Report presents different (and wrong) dollar amounts.

The Quicken file has been validated, investing lots have been rebuilt and investing price history has been repaired (do not want to Delete and Rebuild and lose history beyond 5 years)

Drilling down on the issue it appears that: 1) all the accounts are correctly included 2) all the non-investing accounts show the correct numbers 3) some of the (usually older) investing accounts show incorrect values by 50 or 100k

Looks like a (serious) bug

Help appreciated. Thx in advance

Jim_Harman

First, is this the report at Reports > Net Worth & Balances > Net Worth, or accessed in some other way? Other versions of this report have had problems in the past.

If that is not it, I suggest working on one problem account at a time. Go to the account and click on Holdings. Set the As of date back in time and the ending date for the Net Worth report to match. Adjust the dates back until the numbers match, then go forward until you see a discrepancy.

Look for a transaction on the date when the discrepancy first appears. Correct any errors or delete and re-enter the problem transaction.

Always back up your data before changing historical data.

Please let us know what you find.

Bob_L

Also be sure that "no security includes cash" is checked.

princetonfrog

Jim,

Yes, this is the canned Report from Reports>…

No, all the transactions are correct, as over the last 20 years, I have done quarterly reconciliations of all my accounts and as stated am happy with the current net worth shown, account by account on the left side of the Windows interface.

Bob_L

Yes, "no security includes cash" is checked

Jim_Harman

The transactions may all be correct, but if you are interested in fixing the Net Worth report, I suggest that you follow the approach I outlined above - compare the Net Worth report to the Holdings view amounts over time to see when they first disagree.

princetonfrog

I am not interested in fixing the Net Worth Report because 1) I would have to go back 20 years and review more than 500 transactions when ONLY the Net Worth Report is incorrect but more importantly 2) Quicken customers are paying more and more every year for a product and I would expect a minimum of service, including Quicken taking care of bugs instead of having the said customers spending hours taking care of debugging.

Jim_Harman

• If you decide you want the make the Net Worth report correct, you don't have to review 500 transactions, but you will have to do some debugging to find this problem. Most likely this problem is in your data file and there is nothing the programmers could do to fix this problem; the best they could do would be to prevent it from happening again.

• You could contact Quicken Support, but if you are lucky they will just lead you through something similar to these steps. If you are not lucky, they will just tell you your file is corrupt and you must start over with a new data file.

• Here are some debugging steps you could take:

1. Save backup of your data file in case something goes wrong
2. Go to Edit > Preferences > Investing and make sure the Show hidden transactions box is checked.
3. Open the stock Reports > Net Worth & Balances > Net Worth report and set the date range to Earliest to date and the Interval to None.
4. Compare the account balances to those in the Accounts bar and note the problem accounts. Probably the differences will be in just one or a few accounts and will be due to a very small number of transactions.
5. To reduce clutter, click on the gear at the top right of the report and select just the problem accounts.
6. Now we will find when the problems first first occur, one account at a time. Set the Interval to Year. This will give a report with just the problem accounts and each account's year-end value.
7. Pick one of the problem accounts
   1. If the problem is in an investing account:
      1. Go to the account, click on Holdings, and change the As Of date to a year end about half as long as the account has been open.
      2. Compare that balance to the corresponding balance in the report
      3. If the balances match, move forward half the remaining time and compare again. If they don't match, the problem is earlier so move back in time.
      4. Repeat until you find the year when the problem first occurs, then set the report date range to that year and the interval to Month, and so on.
   2. If the problem is in a banking, credit card, or asset account, zero in on it as above but scroll up in the register instead of using the Holdings view..
8. When you have found a problem date, look through the account's register to find an unusual transaction. Often deleting and re-entering the transaction will fix problems like this.
9. Check the account's ending balance and if the report is still incorrect, repeat steps 7 and 8 until you have found all the problems in that account.
10. Go on to any other problem accounts.

If you decide to pursue this, please let us know what you find.

q_lurker

Personally, I would be comparing the Net Worth report to a Portfolio Value & Cost Basis report subtotaled by account, both with a suitable interval selection to identify when a divergence developed and its cause.

I don’t see this question as a matter of “fixing” the Net Worth report. Rather I see it as finding out why the Net Worth report is reporting as it is. If @princetonfrog is not willing to follow Jim’s advice - which is comparing presentations, not reviewing transactions - I can’t imagine how anyone else might provide help.

princetonfrog

Jim,

did bite the bullet and spent more time debugging. Thank you for overlooking my frustration.

Problem is originating from a set of Return Of Capital entries for one security across several dates in 2017/2018 and 3 portfolios.

Am about to delete and recreate transactions for one portfolio.

princetonfrog

Jim,

Deleting and recreating Return of Capital transactions did the trick.

Thank you for your help. Greatly appreciated