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Account Balances Report pulls wrong amounts

kenumber10

In Quicken Deluxe for Windows, the Account Balances pulls wrong amounts for some accounts. This same error has been for many years. This is the 'Account Balances Report' button from the 'Property & Debt' tab of Quicken.

Does anyone know how to fix this? I have submitted tickets to Quicken in the past but it never gets fixed.

To clarify, the correct amounts are pulled by Quicken and I see them on the screen in 'Accounts' menu on the left of the screen. But when the 'Account Balances Report' is opened from the "Property & Debt' tab of Quicken…. The Account Bakances Report pulls completely wrong amounts for many of the accounts. Some accounts the report seems to have never updated since they were opened… Some accounts it seems to never close even though the accounts are now zero…. Some accounts are pulling just flat-out wrong amounts that make no sense whatsoever. So many errors the 'Account Balances Report' is worthless. Asking for help getting this fixed for like the third time now.

Thanks! KE

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Jim_Harman

The first thing I would try would be to go to Reports > Net Worth & Balances > Account Balances and run that report. In the past there have been issues with the report on the Property & Debt tab. Make sure the ending date for the report is set to today.

Then I would back up the data file just in case, then go to Tools > Validate and Repair File and validate the file.

If you still have issues, please post back and we can do some more troubleshooting.

kenumber10

Thanks Jim. The Account Balances report under the 'Reports' tab pulls the correct amounts. After validating the file, the Account Balances report on the Property & Debt tab still shows incorrect amounts (completely different amounts than shows in the same report in the Reports tab). Thanks, KE

Jim_Harman

This problem has been fixed in R54.9. Thanks, Quicken!

Dean Mechler

Same problem. NOT FIXED in R54.9….

kenumber10

I checked today and it IS fixed. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Jim and Quicken! Been wanting to get this issue fixed for three years. So happy it is fixed.

JClean

I beg to differ the problem is fixed. I am running R54.9. I started to see the Account Balance report go wrong on 11/23/2023, and when I click the detailed report for the one account that is reporting the wrong balance, the detail is correct. Somehow the roll-up is pulling in some erroneous data. I checked the report for each week following, and the amount of error swings randomly between $717 to $9,633 variance between the summary and the detail for the last 11 weeks of the report. I looked at the month-by-month transactions, and nothing looks askew, most of them are unrealized gain with a few interest and reinvested dividends. Since this is an IRA, I do not do any bill payiing or withdrawals/deposits except for annual RMD. I ran a file validate, and the account in error does not come as needing any corrections. I do not have any stock splits (once before reported as potential cause of the problem).

Only one account is affected, which would indicate some sort of corruption, but I have no idea how to wring out whatever happened starting 11/25/2023.

Jim_Harman

@Dean Mechler @JClean

This discussion is specifically related to the Account Balances report that runs when you click on the corresponding button in the Property & Debts > Net Worth tab. That is what has been fixed for me.

Is that where you are still seeing errors, or do you also see errors when you run the report from the Reports > Net Worth & Balances menu?

JClean

The reports are the same, whichever path you use. Accounts Balance report is not fixed.

Jim_Harman

Thanks for clarifying, @JClean

As I understand it, the built-in Account Balances report shows one account that has an incorrect total but if you click on the gear to customize the report and check the Account detail box, each of the holdings in the account is correct.

Also if you change the end date for the report, the balance is correct until 11/23/23 but incorrect after that.

Is that what you are seeing?

Are you running the built-in report or one you have customized and saved?

Are there any transactions in the account on the date when the balance starts to be wrong?

What are you comparing the balance to?

Does the Net Worth report have the same problem, or is it OK?

JClean

@Jim_Harman I just tried to post a full reponse to you, but I don't see it. I hope it's not lost. It was quite detailed.

Jim_Harman

@JClean I see 2 posts from you yesterday but only the one above today. It's possible your detailed post is being reviewed by a moderator; hopefully we will see it soon. Did you say anything nasty? That can trigger a review.

JClean

I have configured the built-in Accounts Balances report to provide me a rolling update that tracks the past year of Bank and Investments account of my choice set for one week interval. So, the first customization is the selction of the accounts of interest, then the Display for Interval = Week. I saved this report as "My Portfolio Track" and have been running it every Saturday for about six years.

The built-in Net Worth report is correct, and that's the report that actually caught my attention on the problems with the Account Balances report. I then checked the balance in the Quicken Transaction register and the balance on my broker's web site, both of which match the Net Worth balance.

I didn't use the customization gear before this to check the Account detail box, but when I just tried that, the reported security values do match the Holdings from the Transaction Register for that account. The summary balance when I uncheck the detail box is off by $9,633. The way I was getting to the detail was to click the value in the Account Balance report which would bring up a list of all the transactions, but the ending balance in that view has always been correct.

So the vote is unanminous that the problem child is the Account Balances report.

I narrowed down the first occurence of this problem to the report ending 11/25/2023 and checked each of the subsequent 10 weeks to see the amount of error and try to spot any possible data correlating to the error amount.

For the date of 11/25/2023, the first date the report went off-balance, the only transactions for that week were Unrelaized Gains, but the amount of the error does not match any of those entries or totals for any of the securities listed. Looking at each subsequent week, one-by-one, I found random error values, none of which are traceable to any transactions or unrealized gains values. The real curiousity is that this is affecting only one IRA account, but my wife and I have the same securities in several different investment accounts, and since no other accounts are going hay-wire, I have to eliminate one cause of a particular security affecting the balance calculation.

I've run Validate File to include Rebuild Investing Lots and Correct investing price history, and that did not fix this issue.

Any other tricks to isolate the possible corruption of data, or can this be treated as a software glitch of rolling up detailed transactions to the summary level?

You didn't ask, but I am using Quicken Classic Premier for Windows running on Windows 10. Any chance that Release R53.16 (US Versions, November 2023) did something to trigger this issue?

Jim_Harman

Thanks for the detailed description of what is going on. I hope you didn't have to re-type it.

Just to be sure, please go to Edit > Preferences > Investing and make sure the Show hidden transactions box is checked. That will reveal any Placeholders that might be affecting the report.

Also please try the Account Balances report with the interval set to None but changing the end date. Do you see the same problem? In the past I have seen issues with the reports acting differently when an interval is set.

And did you try starting with the built in Account Balances report rather than the one you have saved?

Please let us know what you find.

JClean

first, I did not have to re-type my detailed response. whoo hoo.

second, I set the show hidden transactions box, but that did not change the results

third, I set the interval to none using today as the end date, and the report is correct. Every interval I use other than none has the wrong balance, and only on this one account.

fourth, I have tried using the built-in Accounts Balance Report and that did not change what I had been seeing.

I really have become dependent on managing my portfolio by watching the trends, but if I cannot trust the validity of the data, my modeling technique is useless.

what next?

JClean

@Jim_Harman I should add that I export the Accounts Balances report each week to Excel and do some of my own analytics. That's the modeling technique I'm referring to, but GIGO is unacceptable to me.

Jim_Harman

After checking the Show hidden transactions box, you must go back to the account's Transaction list (register) and look for Placeholders within the date range of the report. These will have a gray background even if not selected and an Action of Entry.

Also please go to Edit > Preferences and look for Early Access at the bottom of the list. Is it present? If so, select it and un-check both boxes. Does that affect the report?

What version of Quicken are you running now? (Help > About Quicken)

JClean

I did find some old Placeholders that I was unaware existed, but they are 2022 and earlier. My report is past 12 months, so today's starts with 30 Jan 2023. No placeholders in the reports date range. I'll need to do some deep research on these old placeholders to either clear or resolve them, but I don't see how they would have affected my report suddenly in Nov 2023.

I never new about Early Access and those boxes were unchecked.

I am using Quicken Classic Premier for Windows running on Windows 10, R54.9, Build 27.1.54.9. I asked before if there is any chance that Release R53.16 (US Versions, November 2023) did something to trigger this issue? That release would coincide with when my faulty balances started to appear.

Thanks, @Jim_Harman, for your persistent attention to this case.

Jim_Harman

It is possible that a Quicken release caused this issue, but if so it does not appear to be a widespread problem.

I see above that you have done a File > Validate and repair and that did not help. Please back up your data file then do that again just to be sure. Does it report any errors?

You could also try a "super validate". I'm not sure what that does different from a regular validate, but it is worth a try. To super validate, click on File then hold down Ctrl and Shift while clicking on Validate and repair file and select Super validate.

JClean

Super Validate did not fix anything related to the one account with the difference between detailed and summary data. Error difference between reported balance and true balance in the Transaction Register is now at all time high of $13,468. Noteworthy is that the balance from last Saturday (1/27) and today (1/30) in the report did not change despite the unrealized gain listed in the detail for yesterday of $3,825. There is definitely a bug in the rollup logic, however that may have been introducted or to what degree it is "widespread."

JClean

@Jim_Harman This morniing, Quicken updated to R54.16. The Accounts Balance report is now correct.

Jim_Harman

Hurray!

I wish they had said something in the Release notes about that if they made any changes.

JClean

My 47 years in the IT field taught me many lessons about software reliability. We used to refer to spaghetti code that represented very complicated, and somewhat fragile, software implementations. Modular software engineering worked to solve these architecture and design problems, yet changes in one module can still ripple to other modules resulting in Inadvertent consequences. Given the age of the Quicken product and the number of features added over the years, it is safe to assume that the regression testing is complex and time-consuming to wring out these issues. With the use of agile software development processes, resulting in quicker turnaround releases, regression testing can often lag the release cycle, so it is safe to assume that unintended anamolies can be introduced in one release and not be corrected until several releases later. Even the best software houses can have faults that have to be found after release and repaired, and the release notes may not tell the whole story all the time. As we used to say, to err is human, to really screw things up needs computers.

As long as the report is now accurate again, I'm not diving any deeper to analyze the possible causes. The discrepancies in the balance on one account that I was seeing were too random and virtually untraceable from my end. I'll move on, and I want to thank you for hanging in through this to do what you could to wring out the issue. Best regards, @Jim_Harman

GlennQuackenbush

Report Balances and Net Worth reports are incorrect for me. When I look at the detail transactions pulled for the report, I see tons of transactions that should not be included. For example: paycheck gross amount, then every single deduction including employer contributions for 401k deductions. It is screwed up badly. The account totals on the left hand side are correct, the net worth at the bottom of the account list is correct but the reports are definitely not.

I’ve run file validation, switched to old reporting method, no luck.

JClean

@Jim_Harman I have one more potential culprit to consider in trying to reconcile the account balance report errors. Today, I found the Accounts Balance report was again in error. However, I discovered one of my securities was listing the wrong price in my security pricing history. It took some digging for me to isolate the security, and when I edited the pricing history to today's market quote for that one security, correcting what Quicken was obtaining through "One Step Update, Download of quotes and investment information," the Accounts Balance report returned correct results.

I do not know where Quicken gets its security price data, and this appears to be a rather random, isolated occurence, but it is a headache to have to pay such close attention to what should be a reliable and accurate process. As I explained before, software reliability is truly a rat hole with many branches, tunnels, and warrens where vermin can be hiding.