Changing Placeholder entries

sgoldberg124

I have a transaction (actually several) that have N/A in the Cash Amt column in the Register. I read that these are Placeholders and to check at the bottom of the Register for Placeholder Entries. But I have none shown, the count is zero. Its possible I did a "Accept All" when I should not have. (This is my first time working with downloaded transactions.)

I have deleted that transaction and tried to manually create it, and it still shows N/A.

How can I change the transaction to have a value in there and not N/A?

Thanks

Steve

Windows Quicken R53.32 Build 27.1.53.32

Jim_Harman

Sometimes Placeholders are hidden.

First go to Edit >Preferences > Investments and make sure the Show hidden transactions box is checked. This will reveal the Placeholders if they are hidden.

Placeholders will have a gray background in the account’s transaction list (register) even if they are not selected, and will have “Entry” in the Action column.

Placeholders compensate for missing or incorrect investing transactions by forcing Quicken’s share balance for a security to match a specified value on the date of the Paceholder. This is usually the share count downloaded from your financial institution (FI).

Because transactions are missing or incorrect, Quicken will not be able to compute the cost basis or performance for the affected securities. You will see asterisks in the Portfolio views for this data.

Placeholders also prevent new transactions like Div, Bought and Sold prior to the security’s Placeholder date from affecting the account’s cash balance. It does this by creating a linked Cash Balance Adjustment just before the affected transaction. Deleting one of these will delete them both. This shows up as N/A in the Cash Amt column of the transaction list. To allow the cash balance to change when entering missing transactions that affect the cash balance, you must first delete all the Placeholders for this security that have later dates than the transaction you are entering.

Always back up your data file before changing historical transactions.

sgoldberg124

Thanks Jim.

Here is what I have done. I transferred using Xin $100 from a different account into my current account. I turned on "Hidden" and I now see a transaction Xin Balancing Cash adjustment $100. Now I want to do a Buy $100 of investment ABC and the transaction shows N/A in the Cash Amt column. And the Cash Bal remains the same, $100. (FYI: Values are not the actual values)

I deleted the "Hidden" transaction and the attempted Buy, but it still could not let me buy the $100 of ABC, still shows N/A in Cast Amt column.

When closing down the minimized Account Summary, I accidentally closed Quicken. When I opened it and went to the same date, there was a Buy but for $125, not the $100. No idea where that number came from.

And now I have Placeholders(39) at the bottom of the Register for different investments, some going back to 2010.

As I said previously, this is my first time into downloading transactions. For the past bunch of years, 15+, I have balanced out at Fidelity every month. I was just trying to avoid about 30 sells/buys transactions. I may now go find a backup from before I started this process and put in the transactions manually. I was just trying to save some time by downloading.

Thanks, Steve

Jim_Harman

I am surprised that Placeholders would create a Balancing Cash Adjustment related to an XIn. Usually the adjustments are connected to a Buy or Sell transaction for a security, to prevent the cash balance from changing.

Do any of the Placeholders adjust the share balance of your ABC security and have a later date than the date of the transaction you are trying to enter? If so, you must delete those Placeholders before you can enter the transaction and have it affect your cash balance.

Please let us know what you find.

sgoldberg124

Jim,

Thanks again for the reply.

I was modeling my $100 ABC transaction after an actual situation. But I can't find now that ABC with N/A in the Cash Amt column. So I can't really answer your question.

But I have another along the same lines. If I close Quicken and open it again, it seems my Register changes in the values of the transactions. Like this one I am trying to find. Does closing and opening change the Register entries? I saw this several days ago working on this issue.

Thanks, Steve

Jim_Harman

Closing and opening should not change anything, unless of course you have Quicken set to download transactions on startup.

sgoldberg124

Jim,

I do not have Quicken download trans at startup. I checked the Preferences / Startup to make sure. They do not download.

I am attaching a screen shot of my Register showing the N/A and the Balancing Cash Adjustment entry.

At this point I'm thinking on going to a backup from the end of October, and then entering the transactions myself to bring up to date and not pursue the "download transactions" process.

Hidden trans 2023-12-24 162658.jpg

Thanks for your time and help. Enjoy the rest of the holiday.

Regards, Steve