Error in Securities Comparison Mismatch Reported Share Count

clorup

In Quicken Classic for Windows, has anyone encountered an issue where the Securities Comparison Mismatch report show a wrong share count in the Shares Reported column (i.e. leftmost column), which neither matches the Brokerage's (Schwab) actual count nor Quicken's transaction register share counts with the latter two being correct? I.e. the Quicken transaction register share total matches the brokerage share count, but somewhere Quicken appears to maintain a different share count (likely only updated during activity for that security), which the Securities Comparison Mismatch report uses.

I suspect something went wrong in Quicken's coding logic during a transaction download where a stock split for one security caused the resulting split new share count to also be added to another security with no activity during the transaction download with the split transaction in it.

Deleting the share split transaction does not reverse the problem. Adding a placeholder (share count need to be reduced, not added) does not work either. Nor does removing the shares as that changes the cost basis. I am reluctant running the 'File Validation' as I have 30 years of transaction history and who knows what may result. And running the 'Rebuild Investing Lots' says error could also change the cost basis.

Thus, the question: Does Quicken have some other sort of internal share count somewhere, that I can edit to correct this issue as restoring and catching up would be quite labor-intensive? And if so, how?

MangoMan

I think there is a bug in Quicken. Reports that I have relied on for years are showing incorrect share counts for stocks where there was a prior RS. More of that quality we've come to expect ever since Intuit divested Quicken.

mshiggins

Note: Quicken has no direct access to a financial institution's data. All Quicken knows about financial institution data is what Quicken receives in a download.

"Adding a placeholder (share count need to be reduced, not added) ....". Not sure what you're trying to say there, but a Placeholder will reduce or increase the number of shares - whichever is needed to cause the account share balance to always equal the Placeholder share balance, as of the date of the Placeholder.

As to investment holdings: every investment account download should include the investment transactions AND the "holdings". Quicken directs the downloaded transactions to the specific Quicken account, and the downloaded holdings to the Quicken "Online Center". It does not matter what you see at the financial institution's web site or in a printed statement: the only holdings that matter to Quicken are the holdings downloaded by the financial institution.

To determine whether Quicken's holdings match the financial institution holdings, Quicken adds up the transactions in the Quicken account and compares the results to the downloaded holdings in the Quicken Online Center. In the Security Comparison Mismatch screen, the "Shares Reported" comes from the downloaded financial institution holdings, found in the Online Center. Quicken compares its holdings to the downloaded holdings as of the date of the downloaded holding. Easily seen on the Holdings tab in the Online Center.

I think one of the first things a user should do when faced with a discrepancy between Quicken's holdings and the financial institution holdings in the Online Center, is to look for transactions that account for the difference (either transactions in Quicken but not accounted for in the downloaded holdings; or transactions counted in the downloaded holdings which do not exist in Quicken). And if it doesn't appear that extra Quicken transactions could be involved, look for transactions at the financial institution that have NOT been downloaded.

I can tell you that Schwab sometimes does not download "holdings" that account for all the downloaded Schwab transactions. This appears to happen when one or more transactions occurred on, or very near, the downloaded date; and were included in the download transactions, but were not included in the downloaded holdings. By comparing the MisMatch difference to transactions in the download, this problem consistently has a mismatch amount equal to one, or more, downloaded transactions. In those situations it seems that Schwab may be downloading transactions that have occurred but not settled; while the Schwab downloaded holdings only include transactions that have settled.

[You can't "change" the downloaded holdings found at the Online Center. Only the financial institution can correct this problem (can insure that NO incorrect "mismatch" occurs). It's the financial institution's responsibility to insure that the downloaded holdings cover ALL, and ONLY, transactions that have been downloaded.]


When that problem has occurred with Schwab in the past, I first determine that the mismatch amount is caused by downloaded holdings not including transactions that have downloaded. Then I just wait until a subsequent download (almost always the very next download) that includes transactions and holdings that are synced: the Securities Mismatch dialog then does not appear.

[If you put too many limitations on the steps you'll take to try to find and fix the problem, you may make the problem impossible to fix.  But luckily, most of your concerns can be allayed by simply making a backup of your Quicken data before you attempt any of the fixes. If an attempted fix doesn't help (or it makes matters worse), you just revert to the backup.]

-JP