Quicken account balances are way off of what we actually have in UBS accounts

nancy@

Quicken R5515 Windows

We have several accounts with UBS. Most of their balances as shown in Quicken are way off of the numbers in the actual accounts. Way more than unreconciled checks, etc.

The transactions seem to be coming through OK.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated? Is there a way to have Quicken automatically plug in numbers to reconcile the total to the UBS version?

Thanks Chuck

splasher

Check the Opening Balances in the accounts. Quicken lately has a quirk where it changes the OB when an account is setup or re-setup for One Step Update.

We suggest putting the correct OB amount in the Memo field for future reference to make sure it has not changed.

nancy@

thanks…let me ask about some other possible approaches

What if is just "reconcile" my accounts with incorrect balances….entering the correct balance? One issue….for accounts with both a Banking and an Investment portion……would I be entering the "correct balance" for the entire account ….or do it separately for each portion?

thanks very much

splasher

I have no experience with an account that has both Banking and an Investment portions, so hopefully someone else will be able to help you.

Tom Young

I think that any transaction that affects "cash" in an Investment Account will automatically show up in that Account's linked Checking Account. You certainly can force-balance the number of shares in an Investment Account and I can't see how that could affect in any way the linked checking.

But force balancing simply isn't good practice since, clearly, there's something wrong in these Accounts, and force-balancing might have to be done all the time. The better approach is to figure out what the problem is.

Is this a somewhat "recent" problem or has it always been this way? If it's fairly recent then it should be relatively easy, by comparing transactions at USB to the transactions in Quicken and figuring out what the problem is, then fixing it.

Is this problem both affecting both cash accounts and brokerage accounts, i.e., differences in share balances?

nancy@

Tom

Thanks for weighing in.

This has been gong on a long time. I spent several hours on the phone with Quicken and UBS….they couldn't figure out a systemic problem/solution.

so, I sort of gave up. There seem to be only 2 times that our total assets as Quicken sees them. The first is when we use the lifetime planner…which I like to play around with as we think about big decisions….now and then. Finally, I just compare current account balances….Quicken vs actual accts….and plug an asset change into the first month of the planner simulation. That seems like an ok work around.

The other is that my wife watches the cash in the checking account (which now shows a big negative balance…which doesn't match with actual). And, I am not sure what Q counts in Bank accounts. Our bank counts as cash both cash and Treas notes. The work around there is to ask the bank to watch the balance and to make sure we don't bounce any checks.

So, that's where we are.

One more point…..the differences between Q and actual are fairly stable. This is why I have considered a one time plugged number.

the # of shares seem to match. As I compare the bank statement with Q it looks like Q may not recognize a line item that says FDIC Insured deposit Program. That would be a start…but doesn't explain all the significant difference.

thanks very much for helping me with this……let me know if you have more questions

by the way is there a way to elect to get an email when someone like you answers my post? Otherwise I just check in now and then.

Thanks much…..Chuck

Tom Young

Click on the small icon for your account at top right of screen, click Account & Privacy Settings, click on Notification Preferrences and you can get notified of new comments.

Unfortunate this is all pretty vague at this point. When referring to "balances" I'm not sure if we're talking about cash, securities, of a combination of the two. To really fix this situation, to even understand it, you do have to dive into the details, something it's just about impossible to do in a forum like this.

I expect that the "FDIC Insured Deposit Program" is a "sweep" situation, but it's still just "cash", cash that's being held in Banks and not necessarily USB Bank; obviously USB can send this money to non-affiliated banks, getting a fee in return. But UBS has to keep track of this cash and report it to you as "your cash" or maybe money in an "FDIC Insured Deposit Program." Intuit, the aggregator, should "see" this, send it to Quicken (the company) who, in turns sends it to Quicken (the program). That should be an easy fix.

Within Quicken does the "Securities Value", "Cash Balance" and "Total Market Value" down at the lower right corner of your Investment Account agree to what you see in the "Holdings" portion of the Account Overview, and do all these number jibe with the information shown in the "Account Status" section of the Account Overview. (I've seen people report differences in these areas, which might be your situation.)

If this "internal" Quicken information all agrees, then differences in the Securities Value between you and USB simply has to come down to some identifiable difference that deserves investigation. I suppose the other thing to mention here could be Placeholders in your Investment Accounts. Make sure that the Placeholders (if any) are visible in the Transaction List to see if those might be the crux of the problem.