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Continued Problems with Automatic Placeholders--cannot stop

jcoley2

I have 20+ investment accounts and two with Merrill Lynch, both of which I have turned off Automatic Placeholders yet after every download they continue to put in Placeholders in the Register.

To be clear, I am turning them off as follows:

Edit>Preferences>Downloaded Transactions>Compare Account Portfolio after download

And then clicked off ML accounts.

For some reason it is not working and has not worked for 3+ months.

Any other suggestions?

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Comments

Tom Young

I probably haven't looked at that particular preference for years but when I looked at it today I see an "informational" symbol next to that option that reads:

"If you do not use these options, all downloaded transactions must be manually reviewed and accepted before they are added to your registers and lists. Unaccepted transactions will not display in reports, graphs and other product features." (emphasis added)

I'm not exactly sure what this is telling me but it suggests, to me at least, that the Account must not be set up to "Automatic entry is: On" Could that be the problem? (A real shot in the dark here.)

jcoley2

@Tom Young I have the Download Compare off for the Merrill Lynch accounts.

Chris_QPW

@Tom Young said:

I'm not exactly sure what this is telling me but it suggests, to me at least, that the Account must not be set up to "Automatic entry is: On" Could that be the problem? (A real shot in the dark here.)

I'm not sure what it is suggesting either, but I can give some insight on how this works in "Automatic entry mode".

When Automatic entry mode was on it was creating placeholders if the compare failed never given the user a chance to override this.

This of course, was reported as a problem. The "solution" was not to run compare in automatic entry mode. You have to run it manually. This predates the preference/list for which accounts to run compare on, and they never changed it. I have sort of mentioned it when I saw it, but since I don't want it run anyways never made a big deal about it, and evidentially it doesn't bug anyone else (probably mostly because people don't use this mode, especially not in investment accounts, it is off by default, whereas for bank it is on for new users).

I don't recommend automatic entry mode in investment accounts for people even though I have it on. There is a bug in it that they have never fixed where if you have any kind of "prompt" like the one for "near match" you won't see it until you turn off automatic entry mode (you see just a blue dot that doesn't go away).

But back to the problem with placeholder, in reality there shouldn't be a problem with them even with the compare on, which suggests that they have changed the flow and messed it up.

The compare should be happening after you have accepted the transactions into the register from the Downloaded Transactions tab, and at that time if the compare wrong it is supposed to show you a dialog that allows you to create placeholders or not. It shouldn't do it automatically. It has to be after you have accepted all the transactions into the register because before that happens there is no way you can compare the register to the downloaded information.

So, @jcoley2, when does the compare "kick in"?

This is what I expect to see from the compare (I removed some shares, and kicked off the compare manually):

And note if I select Done, the default isn't to create a placeholder. I have to select the Details button and then get this:

jcoley2

Ok I completely tied out this ML account causing me problems to their website to the penny including cash and then I reconciled the register to balance the minimal cash in the account.

Today after the download it did not automatically put placeholder transactions into the register. I am guessing since I am completely balances today.

But let's see in a few days when some transactions occur. Again I have the automatic placeholder checked OFF on this account.

Tom Young

What you might be experiencing is some sort of ML "lag" between the calculated balances based on transactions and whatever bucket in their system holds the "how many shares owned" figure that's fed to Quicken.

I used to experience every once in a while this back in the day of Direct Connect downloads from Schwab where I would get prompts for Placeholders that showed a balance difference between Quicken and Schwb that was exactly the same amount as the transaction that I had just downloaded. Typically, assuming no new transactions in the account, this difference would go away with the next download. It's difficult to understand how this would happen - we're supposedly in the world of "online, real time" information - but it happened often enough that I just learned to live with it.

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20425379#Comment_20425379

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20425440#Comment_20425440

To me this isn't what original complaint is about, and I agree that it sounds like a bug. Maybe two bugs.

He has the option for the compare off, and even if he didn't the compare should allow the user to block creating placeholders. The user should ALWAYS be in control of if Quicken creates placeholders or not.

The fact that you can bring the accounts into balance and no placeholder will be created is irrelevant. I have personally experienced "lack of information" both with Vanguard and Chase, it is "par for the course". But that doesn't mean that you should get a placeholder.

Look at automatic reconcile, if the reconcile fails, the reconcile stops and prompts the user of what to do, it doesn't just automatically put in a balance adjustment. This is the right behavior. A placeholder is a "security balance adjustment". It should work the same way. Also, if I turn off the automatic reconcile option, Quicken doesn't run it. @jcoley2 has turned off the "compare" the "compare" is the automatic reconcile of the securities.

And I would like to ask this question again and added another for clarification:

So, @jcoley2, when does the compare "kick in"?

Are you using automatic transaction entry mode on this investment account?

Like I said this is a bug (or two), but I'm wondering about "when in the procedure" they have messed this up. If they are doing the compare right after the download, that is the wrong time to do it. The compare should be done at the point when all the transactions have been accepted into the register. If automatic transaction entry mode is on, then that will be right after the download, but if it is off and transactions are going through the Downloaded Transactions tab then it definitely shouldn't be done until after the user has accepted all the transactions into the register.

Chris_QPW

@jcoley2 have you tried running Validate and Repair on your data file?

The reason I ask is because I just did another experiment. I got an old copy of my data file where I know there are transactions in one of my investment accounts. I turned on automatic compare for that one account and turned of automatic transaction entry mode. I also removed one old transaction so that I know it the number of shares will be wrong. Then did the download, the result was as expected. The compare didn't kick in until I accepted the new transactions into the register and when it kicked in it prompted me just like when I kicked off manually in the above comment. No placeholders were created automatically.

Then I repeated this experiment with the automatic compare deselected. When I downloaded, and then accepted the transactions into the register the automatic compare and therefore the prompt for a mismatch of securities didn't come up.

I don't know why yours would behave differently. Mine is working as expected.

Chris_QPW

P.S. I just tried with automatic transaction entry mode on, and as soon as I went to the account after the download it prompted me with the mismatched security dialog. So, even that old bug of not obeying the settings for whether to do an automatic compare while using automatic transaction entry mode, is fixed for me.

jcoley2

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20425485#Comment_20425485

Let me try that tomorrow and come back.