How Correct Data Gets Corrupted and How to Fix?

Question

I am using version R53.16 Quicken Deluxe in Windows. I have a problem in 1 Vanguard IRA brokerage account where I have 2 interest income amounts showing of $9.75 both on 8/31/2023 which does not belong in that account and doesn't appear to be from a different account. And in that same account, I am missing 2 reinvestment of dividend transactions. One is from 12/16/2022 for $150.48 and the other is from 6/16/2023 for $144.80. I tried to update the file by downloading the transactions from that period from Vanguard and open it to get Quicken to get the correct transactions. Quicken responded with "There are no new transactions." This seems to imply that Quicken has those transactions but is corrupting them as interest income transactions. Why would it do that?  Is there a way to fix? If I delete the bad ones and rerun the Vanguard data file, will that hurt or help? Or do I delete the bad ones and just input the good ones? I note that my Quicken data file is very large at 146,531kb.

I found that a backup prior to 8/31/2023 had the correct transactions in that account. However, there are too many transactions since that backup to deal with if I use that backup as a starting point. A backup from a date after 8/31/2023 has the problem.

Boatnmaniac · Accepted Answer

It's hard to know what might have caused the transactions issues you described.  Sometimes when the connection method for a financial institution gets reset, deactivated/reactivated, reauthorized (in the case of EWC+) or some other type of change to the connection method Quicken will enter some incorrect or duplicate transactions data.  So, whenever one does these things with the connection method, it is a really good idea to review the account balances right away because that will provide a fast and easy means to confirm that all is well or something is amiss and needs to be corrected.  The easiest way to do this quick check on investment account balances:

* Account Register > upper right Gear icon > Reconcile Shares:  This will bring up a popup informing you that the shares in Quicken and as reported by the investment company are in balance.  Or, if they are not in balance the popup will identify the security(ies) that are out of balance and by how much.
* Check the blue font "Cash Balance" dollar amount:  This will show you the cash balance in Quicken and the cash balance that was downloaded by the financial institution.  If they are in agreement, then it's a good indication that there probably is not issue regarding cash transactions.  If they are not in agreement, it is definitive that something regarding cash-related transactions needs to be fixed.

And, yes, Quicken "memorizes" previously downloaded transactions ID information.  Then when we download, again, in the future Quicken will be able to screen out any transactions that have been previously downloaded so they do not get added to the account register as duplicate transactions.  There is nothing we can do to get Quicken to "forget" the previously downloaded transaction IDs so nothing we do to get those transactions to download and get entered, again, even when the original transactions themselves have been deleted, will be possible.  The only want to overcome this would be to restore a backup file from before when the issue started because that file will not have those transaction IDs memorized since those transactions have not yet been downloaded into that backup file.

It's good to know you have a backup file with the correct transactions included.  That makes the resolution of this issue much easier.  Since you were looking at needing to fix only 4 transactions and all the other data in the account register appears to be correct, I think you will find the easiest and fastest resolution will be as follows:

* Backup your data file.
* Manually delete the two $9.75 interest income transactions.
* Manually enter the two missing dividend transactions.
* Confirm that your investment account now fully balances correctly.

That's it.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Boatnmaniac · Accepted Answer

I should add one additional comment:  Since we don't know what might have caused the issue with the 4 incorrect transactions it does raise the question about whether or not there might be some data file corruption that occurred.  I do not think that is going to be the case but you might want to do a relatively quick check by running Validate & Repair (File > Validate & Repair File > Validate File > OK).

You will get a log file after the process is completed letting you know if no issues were found or if some were found what was done to fix the issues.  The report will provide very no to few details about what was actually done to fix the problem.  That missing level of detail is something that the Quicken team has been requested to add as a product improvement so we'll just have to wait and see if/when that might happen.