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Unable to close account to due phantom account balance

yetanotherdave

Quicken Classic Premier R52.23 (Win10)

I have an old account that I would like close. My first attempt to close this account was some time in 2021. It has been on my list of annoying issues since then.

It displays the following balance:

When I try to close the account I receive the following message:

When I examine the account to "cleanup" the securities balance, I see NOTHING in the holdings display:

No stocks, no bonds, no funds, no nothing. I performed a "Validate and Repair", nothing found, nothing fixed. What to do?

Edit: @Chris_QPW (since you helped with my previous "annoying" problem. 😁 )

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UKR

In the Holdings view (or in a Portfolio view for this account) turn on the option "Show closed lots" and see if this shows some non-zero values, perhaps for fractional shares, real small numbers like 0.000012
If you find one, try changing the last Sell or Remove shares transaction from the entered number of shares to "sell all shares" without changing the total sale amount. This should get rid of this left-over fractional share number.

yetanotherdave

Good thought. Every line item shows "0 shares". I'm guessing that the shares column has maybe 2 or 3 decimal places where anything less than 0.5 is rounded down to 0, I am still unable to identify any fractional shares, it is still a mystery. thanks…

UKR

Look in Edit / Preferences / Reports only and set the "Decimal places …" option to "6", then try the view or report again.

yetanotherdave

I tried "8" just for fun… I still didn't find any fractional shares, but I did find two securities listed with a cost basis of -0.01 dollars. When I look at the bought/sold entries (one each) they look AOK. All other securities show a cost basis of 0, so really I have no clue what this column means (other than the security was sold long ago).

UKR

How about capturing a quick image of those transactions?
Maybe one of us can come up with a solution other than "try to delete and reenter the Sell transaction, making sure to enter only number of shares, commission, total amount. Let Quicken calculate the price per share to hide any rounding errors."

yetanotherdave

I appreciate the thought but I need to reveal that I have been a Quicken user since 1988. This account was created in Quicken on 4/20/1990 and closed on 7/8/2021. There are way more Bought, Sold, ShtSell, and CvrShrt transactions than I can reasonably go through "by hand".

Is there a super-Validator that can integrity check all the transactions in a single account? (just one account in a QDF that has many accounts).

It's not about the $0.36, It's about the OCD that demands to know why the balance isn't 0 as it is supposed to be. 😁

q_lurker

First, I am not a fan of Closing accounts, simply because it cannot be undone. Personal preference. So I don't go through that process very often.

How about Reports / Investing / Portfolio Value — Set Accounts to this account only. Set date to today or 7/8/21 (last transaction date). Balance = 0.00 or 0.36? (Balance should be equivalent to Market Value.)

Backup to 7/7/21. Right Balance? Use the Show Lots button to see if there is something odd. Like balancing short and long positions.

Also, any placeholder transactions throughout the history with this account?

yetanotherdave

I'm including this to show that you folks have put me on the right track: (and for your amusement)

This security was sold on 11/22/1993. I edited the transaction and checked the "sell all shares in this account" box and re-saved the transaction.

That eliminated these vestige shares, but it did not correct the bottom line $0.36 issue. Getting closer but not there yet. I'll look again in the light of a new day. Thanks for your help.

q_lurker

When you redid the sale, did you let Quicken adjust the total amount (bad) or the price per share (good)?

Was that security marked as hidden, and thus not showing up, or maybe disguised by a placeholder?

yetanotherdave

"did you let Quicken adjust the total amount (bad) or the price per share (good)?" Quicken didn't give me an option. It just did its thing.

Honestly, I didn't notice other than the fact that the Securities Value remained $0.36 and the Cash Balance stayed at $0.00.

Your question did make me go back and look at all the transactions for this security again. There was a 1 for 1.099 split on 7/27/1993. I changed it to 1:1 just to understand how altering that ratio would affect the finale Securities Value. Then I changed it back to 1:1.099 again. Much to my surprise I now see:

I guess that error has been in there for 30 years. I didn't notice until 2021.

I'll refrain from closing the account on the advice of counsel. Thanks!!!

I'm not sure what was wrong or why a "recalculation" fixed it, but I'll take this of my list of low priority annoyances. 😎