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Close Accounts error message - "This account has securities balances"

davidmarketing

Hello Quicken community:

I am a long time Quicken customer - since 1994 or 1995. I am trying to "Close Account" on an old account with a broker company that doesn't exist anymore so I will never need the account anymore. Cash Balance = $0. No securities in the Account. I also did a "portfolio value" report and the account shows $0.

The error message is "This account has securities balances, please clear the securities before you close the account. "

I have seen this discussion before but there doesn't appear to be a solution.

I tried with customer service, and their recommendations didn't work. We did the "validate option". I also tried reentering the last few transactions to remove the last 4 equities.

I have closed maybe 20-25 accounts with no issues. This account has data from 1998 so it's been a long time. I will probably just Hide the account but I like to "close accounts" for good data management for accounts that will never be needed again.

Any recommendations?

Thanks,

David

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NotACPA

How did you remove any securities in that account? If via a SELL, you might try going into the account and changing those SELL transactions to "Sell All".

It's possible that there are tiny fractional shares remaining that's causing this.

davidmarketing

Hi @NotACPA

I tried that on the last few. I would have to go through every final sale since 1998 to accomplish this.

I generally use a sell all when I liquidate the final shares but it's hard to know for 16 years.

Boatnmaniac

Usually this is caused by a fractional share of a security remaining. It is not usual for an actual transaction to include a fractional share of the security, especially when it comes to Reinvested Dividends or Reinvested Interest. Then when selling the security you might have sold 10.000 shares but there were, instead maybe 10.00000001 held shares leaving a 0.00000001 share balance that does not show up in the Holdings view of the account because of truncation. Usually, selecting "Sell All" for a sell transaction will capture that fractional share but most sells are not "Sell All" so that fractional share could be there for years and you might never know it….until you try to Close and account.

What I have done to resolve the issue is:

Back up your data file before proceeding.
Pull up the Portfolio Value report…All Dates…Subtotal=By Account…Sort by=Security. (You can further Customize the report to include only the Account that is in question.)
Scroll down the report to the Account in question and make note of all securities that have a Balance of <1. Given how old the account this there might be several securities that still have fractional shares.
Once you have identified the securities with fractional shares, go to the Account in question and click on Enter Transactions > Sell - Shares sold > enter the Security > check the box for Sell all shares in this account > enter a Price received (I enter $0.00) > Enter/Done or Enter/New if you have another security that this needs to be done for.

When you have completed entering Sell transactions for all of the identified fractional share securities, try to closing the Account. It should now close without issue.

davidmarketing

Thanks. I am getting close. I added the number of decimals to view to 8 and using the portfolio view I identified the problem equity.

and then I found a Stock Split with this investment. So now to figure out how to fix it.

Thanks!

davidmarketing

@Boatnmaniac

I am not sure why it's not working.

I tried adding the .000001 shares and then "selling all" shares

I tried adding a share adjustment at the time which was 07/27/2021 and that didn't work.

I tried a share adjustment using today's date to 0.

I tried adding the .000001 shares and then doing a share adjustment to 0.

I tried to see if there is another questionable security that has more digits in case this one isn't the only issue.

But, nothing seems to clear it out.

David

davidmarketing

@Boatnmaniac and @NotACPA

Thanks for your help. Interesting, Quicken had a fix in the latest software update. I wish I had waited just a few days but anyway, the message now when you try to close the account is:

This account contains one or more positions with a share balance greater than zero. These positions should be removed before closing the account. Would you like Quicken to set these positions to zero so you can close the account? Select 'Yes' if you want Quicken to do this. To do it yourself, Select 'No'

I hit yes, and then Quicken added a "remove" transaction with today's delete and then I was able to close the account.

Then I deleted that transaction that Quicken added and it looked like everything was good.

Sharing for others.

Thanks,

David

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20431509#Comment_20431509

Interesting. Which version of Quicken are you running (Help > About Quicken)?

I reviewed the Release Notes for all the versions from R55.12 thru R56.9 and did not see anything about this fix mentioned in them. If this fix was included in one of these versions it should have been mentioned in the Release Notes.

davidmarketing

R56.9, Build 27.1.56.9

And, no it is not in the "release notes" as I check them everytime there is an update. It should have been listed as an update.

David

Boatnmaniac

Thanks. Good to know that R56.9 has fixed this issue.

I am curious, though, why you decided to delete the Remove transaction that Quicken had entered? Not criticizing. Just wanting to understand the rationale.

davidmarketing

Quicken added 0.000001 shares to an equity but then that .000001 shares stayed in the account when I looked at holdings so it would always be there.

Deleting that transaction made it go back to 0.

It was weird though - the equity it adjusted I don't think ever had an issue. And it didn't touch the equity I thought had an issue.

Boatnmaniac

Weird. Thanks for the update.