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Net worth in the reports significantly differs from Net worth in Accounts

madbrain

My net worth shows correctly in the GUI at the bottom of the "Accounts" window.

However, if I do a "Reports / Net worth" , and look at the total for 2024, it is higher by about $200,000. All accounts and all categories are selected for this report.

I checked the details of this report by clicking the green bar in the "Asset Comparison balance as of 6/12/2024 (today)" page. I see all my accounts listed, open and closed, though no distinction is made of closed and open accounts in the list.

In the main GUI, "More accounts" shows $0 total for for both Banking and Investing, meaning all the closed accounts balances add up to $0. And when clicking on "More accounts" and going through the list, each of the closed accounts has a $0 balance.

3 issues immediately come to attention :

1) I A currently open Fidelity Cash account is listed as having a balance of $409k, when it's actually $227k in the register. That accounts for a good chunk of the error in the report.

2)I At the bottom, there are 5 accounts with negative balances. All of them have been closed. For example, there is a "401k brokerage" account listed with a -$20,000 balance. However, when I open that old account, in the register I see that the final account balance as of 6/21/2021 is $0. The same is true for the other 4 closed accounts, though the negative balances are smaller.

3) An ESPP for a company I left in 2009 is showing with an $18k positive balance. It is a closed account, and shows $0 balance in the register.

I did not review the balance for all the other accounts. As I have been using Quicken for 17 years, and playing the bonus games with credit cards, bank and investment accounts, there are about 170 accounts in total, with about 40 currently open. The vast majority are correctly showing $0 balance. There are about 37,000 transactions in total, according to grep "\^" exported.qif (I couldn't find a place in Quicken that lists all transactions). Obviously, I don't want to start over with a new QFX file.

This is not a recent problem. It has been there for a while. Having the current year net worth show incorrectly is not as bad, since the "Accounts" view shows the correct number. However, it is much more problematic for looking at previous years reports, where the totals are also off by hundreds of thousands.

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Comments

Rocket J Squirrel

Lacking specifics, I will guess that your are on Windows, not Mac, and using the latest release, R57.12. If any of that is wrong, please specify.

When I click on the green bar in the Net Worth report graph, the balances are correct and match what shows in the Account Bar (as long as Show Current Balance in Account Bar is set). I see lots of closed accounts but no negative balances.

Have you tried Validate & Repair?

Rocket J Squirrel

I couldn't find a place in Quicken that lists all transactions

It's kind of in your face all the time. Such things tend to become invisible.

mshiggins

Doesn’t the Account List (Tools | Account List) have transaction counts for each account? Also the special key combo for Help | About Quicken has an overall transaction count. I think that is CTRL Help | About Quicken.

madbrain

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20438496#Comment_20438496

Thanks for your response. Yes, your assumption is correct, I'm on Windows - I posted in the Windows forum for this reason.

I'm using the Premier version.

The most recent green bar (to the right) in the net worth annual report is exactly what I clicked. It shows all the accounts - open and closed - and, if I scroll to the bottom of the list, there are the 5 closed accounts which should have a zero balance as of today, but have negative balances.

The Fidelity account with the overstated balance is near the top of hat list.

And yes, of course, I tried validate and repair many times - I should have mentioned that. That doesn't fix it, unfortunately.

madbrain

Indeed, I had never thought to click there. When selecting all accounts / dates / type / transactions, I get a total of 31204, significantly less than what my grep found. I'm not sure if this is relevant to the problem I reported in my OP. I was just trying to get a count to show why I wasn't going to start fresh.

Also, I'm using R57.12 .

madbrain

I spent 45 minutes with the level 1 support, going through their script, which fixed absolutely nothing. I had to take a break by which time the support was closed. Looks like I have to call back tomorrow. Is there really not a web or e-mail based ticket system ? Doing it all via phone with odd accents on each side is very taxing. Also, if anyone knows how to get transferred to level 2 or higher, PM me. There is a level 2, right ?

I did find something interesting on my own regarding the original problem. In the report, in the green bar, when I double-click one of the accounts listed with the wrong balance, it opens a register. The final balance in that register matches what's listed in the report. But in no way matches the final balance listed under "accounts". I'm assuming there are some wrong transactions in there, counted in one view, but not the other. It's not a date issue for sure - the report covers "earliest to date". In the case of the Fidelity account, it was opened in 2010. Fidelity only keeps statement for 10 years. Looking at the year 2014 balance on 12/31, it was already overstated by $85k. I don't really have a way to sift through all the transactions going back 14 years manually. I know they are correct in the main register (from "accounts" view) but incorrect in the register open from the reports ..

madbrain

So, I investigated this with an account with less history, that was also showing the wrong balance in the net worth report.

In the register, it started at $0 on 4/8//2020, and closed at $0 on 6/21/2021 .I
I opened the net worth report, clicked the green bar, and double-clicked on the account in question.
It showed a final balance of -$20,000 on 6/21/2021 . At least it got the date right.
II then used the "save" button to "Export to Excel workbook". I then opened the document in Excel.
I used a "SUM" formula to add up all the transactions listed. They added up to -$20,000.
I added a "running cash balance" column
I then closed the net worth report report, and opened the closed account register, under Investments / More accounts.
I started comparing the transactions in the Excel spreadsheet (exported from the report) with the ones in the register.
Immediately, I could see a difference, at the second transaction.
Here is what it looks like in the data from the report :
Here is what it looks like in the register for the same account :
Notice that the 4/15/2020 transaction is very different between the two. It's for $5,000 in the report, and $25,000 in the register. The report clearly has the wrong amount.
The 4/20/2020 running cash balance is only $5,000 in the net worth data, which is incorrect. The balance in the register is correctly $30,000 .
Notice that one transaction is an "Xin", while the other is a "Deposit". I'm not quite certain why. It may be that one was downloaded, and the other entered manually.
If I double-click the "Deposit" 4/17/2020 transaction in the register, it shows :
It is actually a transfer, with the source account linked in [ ] brackets. The cash is coming from the same account as in the 4/9/2020.
The first transaction is being counted in the net worth report, but the second transaction is not. Seems like a bug to me.
If I modify the 4/15/2020 transaction and change it from a Dep to an Xin, and re-run the net worth report, the account correctly shows with a $0 final balance.
Unfortunately, it then shows as +$20,000 in the register, even though there is no cash or securities in it. The "holdings" button shows this :

It's as if there is "phantom" security in the account, worth $20,000.

I then ran "validate and repair" again, and it fixed that particular issue - now the register and the report both agree that the final balance on this account is $0.

However, with 168 accounts, who knows how many "Dep" transactions I have that are actually transfers ?

It's a bit odd to have 2 ways of registering the exact same transaction - Xin or Dep. The reports should be treating them identically, though, just like the register does.

Unfortunately, that is not the only cause of discrepancies. I found one account with about 1,500 transactions, which is off by 3 cents between the register and report, and no "Dep" transactions. Probably not the top priority to fix that one, but it still looks odd.

The Fidelity account also has 5,867 transactions, but not a single one is a "Dep" transaction. So, it looks like there is still another problem.

madbrain

I found another major problem. I have about 5 years worth of split transactions that are not balanced, meaning that there is an amount left over at the bottom of the transaction - the lines on the split transaction do not add up. The amount leftover is not added to the account the transaction appears in the register. However, it is counted in the balance for purpose of the reports.

Theses split transactions are paychecks, for which I painstakingly entered all 25 lines of the paystub. Many of these lines are transfers to other accounts, such as 401k and ESPP. These other accounts do have corresponding transfer entries. However, those transfers appear only one account, and not the other.

I had for sure balanced all these transactions in the past. But starting in late 2012, 4 to 5 lines are missing for each pay stub. This isn't resolved until 2017, when the split transactions are balanced again. This affects over 100 pay stubs, with 4 lines to add to each one on average. And then, in the other accounts, the existing "ghost" transfers need to be deleted. This is quite the undertaking. I don't know how all those transfer lines disappeared.

madbrain

Been investigating the Fidelity account. The register and reports final balances agree for 2010 and 2011. They diverge in 2012.

I compared monthly balances, and identified that the change happened at the end of October, on 10/30/2012.

It came from a split transaction from a paycheck. I bothered to enter every single line of every paystub into Quicken as split transactions the last 17 years. Don't ask why. Anyway, on that particular date, line 25, the last line of the split transaction, had nothing listed in the "Category", "Tag" or "Memo" column. Only an amount of $925.75 . In the register, that amount disappears - it is not added to the cash balance. of the Fidelity account. It just vanishes, apparently.

In the report, however, it does appear, and gets counted in the Fidelity account balance. The error affects all subsequent dates. And of course, this is the only such transaction I found with the problem. There are likely many hours.

I'm scratching my head as to where that $925.75 went. I looked at the previous paycheck on 10/12/2012. . Lines 1-24 are identical with 10/30/2012. Line 25 was for the company ESPP, but for a different amount, $675.75 .

Even stranger, the ESPP account shows deposits of $675.75 for both dates. And they are listed as transfers from the Fidelity account. The 10/12 deposit is from the split transaction, and can't be changed.

The 10/30 ESPP account deposit, for $675.75, can however be edited (date, amount). It claims to be transfer from the Fidelity account. But that transfer never appears in the Fidelity account register ! Seems like it would be an obvious thing for the "validate and repair" process to check - whether transfers have proper cross-references or not. But apparently not.

I still don't know exactly what to do with this hidden amount. I know I balanced the split transactions at the time I entered them. I am sure the amount was transferred somewhere. Just can't see where at the moment. It seems to affect every paycheck for that employer through 1/2017, at which point I changed the direct deposit to my credit union, and those split transactions are fully balanced. They can't directly be compared with the previous pay stubs for various reasons, new means new tax tables, higher benefit costs, 401k deductions starting again, etc.

It looks like some transfer data from split transactions got lost somehow.

ChumpedbyChuck

I've been having the same problem. Bottom Line, my balances look correct in the accounts bar, but when I run a net worth report the amount is off by 60K or so from two accounts; checking and savings. I am running Windows and have R57.16

I also noticed weird add lines in my paycheck splits.

So, quicken, what's the fix?

drichman

Add me to the list.

I have a $31k difference. Let me know if anyone comes up with a fix.

drichman

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20443759#Comment_20443759

I found the difference in an old 401k account. The account is closed and hidden within Quicken and if you drill into the closed account, its balances are at zero.

I can exclude this account from the Net Worth report, but why is the account even showing up, let alone with a balance? I have run Validate and Super-validate.

madbrain

Another issue I found was related to a short sale transaction - specifically, writing option contracts. listed.
There was no share count. This did not pose a problem as far as the register balance was concerned.
But it very much did for the net worth report.

The fix was to :
a) set a share count . In this case, it was 4 contracts, so it had to be 400
b) set a share price . It was $0.01, per my brokerage statement
c) set the commission in the transaction - it was $2.06
d) create a balancing transaction to buy back these 400 shares for $0 (since the options expired)
After that, the closed account with $37.94 no longer showed up in the net worth report.
Sigh.