Error in Account Balances & Net Worth Reports after RtrnCap

PW2222

This is a problem that originated in 2018 but I'm now digging into it. I'm on the latest Quicken Classic Deluxe for Windows. I bought Qualcomm stock and eventually sold it, but not before receiving a total $240 return of capital. First problem - in the Net Worth Report below, the Amount Invested column should total 0 by my math, but Quicken shows $240, which happens to be the total of the RtrnCap. Second, forever after the Qualcomm sale the Account Balances Report shows -$240 for the value of my zero shares of Qualcomm. For this posting I limited the reports to the Qualcomm security only. File validation and repair does not fix this. Reentering transactions hasn't fixed it. Any ideas?

PW2222

Here are slightly more legible copies of the screen shots.

Tom Young

Historically, multiple "Returns of Capital" have created problems in Quicken Investment Accounts. That appears to be the case here and although the problem has been discussed in multiple Quicken forums over multiple years, no one that I'm aware of has ever come up with a fix. In fact I was able to duplicate, to some extent, your problem. I entered sequentially your listed out transactions in a test file (you only have $224 in Return of Capital transactions listed, not $240) and came up with an error of my own:

The "Amount Invested" sum is in error. Although the actual TOTAL is $0, Quicken is reporting $53.00, one of the RtrnCap amounts, And the "BALANCE" of the Cash column is off by the same amount. After moving out the actual accumulated cash in this Account of - $1,273.00 in dividends and net sales proceeds of $5,837.45 - the Account does zero out properly. Could the problem with your Account Balance amount be a result of using an incorrect Cash figure in zeroing out the Account?

q_lurker

I have made a similar check with my current install R48.8 with results similar to those from @Tom Young

Up until the Sold transaction was entered, the report was fine. After the Sold transaction was entered, the summations on the Cash and the Amount Invested columns went off track with only the first RtrnCap being properly included. Further investigation with that report was fruitless, it remained in error despite transaction changes. Only by starting a new report and (I believe) deleting and re-entering the RtrnCap and maybe the Sell, did the subsequent report get it right.

I had started this process expecting to see that editing a Div to a RtrnCap would be a factor. That expectation did not get met.

I believe Quicken tries to minimize recomputations within such reports but it seems to be missing something here.

Tom Young

@q_lurker

What's unclear here is whether the RtrnCap error amount shown in the OP's Account Balances report is genuine or simply the result of picking up an incorrect cash number from the Investment Transactions report, which seems unlikely. I would like to hear back from @PW2222 one way or the other.

I did get a correct report by closing down the report, deleting and re-entering the 1st RtrnCap transaction, and opening a new report.

However the OP said that they had re-entered transactions without specifying which transactions were re-entered, though you'd think the RtrnCap transactions would be the obvious choice.

You would think that the report would simply find transactions and throw dollar amounts in appropriate buckets, a recalculation with each transaction, and then present that information at the end of the process. But maybe that's too simple.

PW2222

I deleted the four RtrnCap entries and reentered them, and it solved the problem. I don't know why that would solve it. Sorry for my error in the original posting - the sum in error in the Amount Invested column was $224, not the $240 that I said. As Tom Young said, $224 was the sum of the four return of capital entries. Thanks for the help.

So how do you get the legible report copies into your posts?

Tom Young

I typically use Windows Snipping Tool to get the screenshot. The tool saves the shot automatically but it's also on your clipboard so a simple Paste gets the shot onto the screen.

PW2222

Thanks