Live Opening Balance - how do I make it fixed, not live? (Q Mac)

Carolyn Strecker

I manually set up a new brokerage account in Quicken for Mac. I started it with a cash amount and then recorded the securities purchased from there. Quicken insists on treating the initial cash amount as a "live opening balance" and continues to show the amount in the cash balance column two month later after scores of transactions balance still in italics.

I want the opening balance to be the fixed amount I said it is, and I want the cash balance column for the account not to be in sketchy italics

Jon

The "Balance" column is the cash balance. If it's in italics that means you're not sorting the register on Date, so the values in the Balance column don't correspond to real balances. Click on the Date column header to sort on that field and the italics should go away.

Jon

Delete the Live Opening Balance transaction and add a transaction depositing whatever the starting balance is. Give it the category "Adjustment".

Carolyn Strecker

Your suggestion did not work for me. The whole Balance Column is still in italics. I need a column for the account's Cash balance.

I have a good number of working brokerage accounts, and in all the others I have a cash balance column that behaves normally (and is not in italics.) But I set those accounts up so long ago that I cannot remember if the "live cash balance" was even thing then, or, if it was , what I did to get rid of it.

Any other ideas? I'd greatly appreciate the help.

Jon

The "Balance" column is the cash balance. If it's in italics that means you're not sorting the register on Date, so the values in the Balance column don't correspond to real balances. Click on the Date column header to sort on that field and the italics should go away.

Carolyn Strecker

Wow. I have no idea why that was an issue here, and I wouldn't have thought of it trying it as a troubleshooting tool in 1000 years. Thank you for solving my problem. I was SO frustrated!

jacobs

Wow. I have no idea why that was an issue here

It's easy while moving your mouse to accidentally click a column heading without intending/realizing it. Once you know the effect of sorting by a different column, it's easy to recognize and correct. 😀