accounts do not compare acct portfolio after download even though box is checked

Mark Jay

Windows 10, version R 57.16. I have 6 brokerage accounts, all reconcile properly as to holdings and cash. Only in one, when I update transactions, is there an automatic comparison of the brokerage holdings with Quicken account. The others do the comparison, but only after I click "Reconcile Shares". In Preferences, "Compare account portfolio after download" is checked for all the brokerage accounts. Why do the other 5 accounts not automatically compare the holdings with the Quicken registers?

Quicken Kristina

Hello @Mark Jay,

To assist with this issue, please provide more information. Are all six accounts with the same financial institution? Do you have your investment account registers set up to automatically enter downloaded transactions into the register, or are they set up for the transactions download into a section below the register to be reviewed and accepted? Are you reconciling your investment accounts after they download? If so, are they set up to automatically reconcile, or are you manually starting the reconcile?

I look forward to your reply!

jeeper

I think you will only see a dialog box IF the values don't MATCH…..
Compare Account Portfolio After Download …. select which accounts are auto-compared after a download.
Works different than when you do it manually -

Mark Jay

For the single account that works as I expect it to, Quicken immediately compares my holdings in the register with the holdings in the brokerage account. And because the two match, the immediate comparison generates a message: "Your Quicken account and your brokerage holdings are in agreement." For the other accounts, no such comparison is carried out.

Mark Jay

Are all six accounts with the same financial institution? YES

Do you have your investment account registers set up to automatically enter downloaded transactions into the register, or are they set up for the transactions download into a section below the register to be reviewed and accepted? THEY DOWNLOAD INTO A SECTION BELOW THE REGISTER

Are you reconciling your investment accounts after they download? If so, are they set up to automatically reconcile, or are you manually starting the reconcile? FOR THE ONE ACCOUNT THAT WORKS, RECONCILIATION IS AUTOMATIC. FOR THE OTHER FIVE, I START RECONCILIATION AUTOMATICALLY.

mshiggins

I think Quicken is working as intended.

I also have told Quicken to "Compare account portfolio after download" for all my investment accounts. I never see anything unless there is a discrepancy. That's been true for years, and I believe that's the way it's intended to work.

The "Reconcile shares" option in investment accounts (which I believe your Auto Reconcile is initiating) must always display the current status of holdings, whether there is a discrepancy or not.

[I think Quicken needs to update the Help for Preferences > Downloaded transactions. There also should be information on this subject for the quicken.com Search feature.]

-JP

Mark Jay

"I never see anything unless there is a discrepancy." This is precisely where we differ. In this one account, I DO see something even though there is no discrepancy. The something I see is "Your Quicken account and your brokerage holdings are in agreement".

NotACPA

I've never seen that "agreement" message either. And, when I click the Settings button adjacent for "Compare portfolio", all investment accounts are selected.

SO, @Mark Jay can you please show us a graphic of the message that you're receiving?

Also, what Q product are you running and what BUILD of that product? Do HELP, About Quicken for this info.

jeeper

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441847#Comment_20441847

I've also never seen that dialog unless there is a mismatch - which shows the comparison numbers….
The manual - Reconcile Shares - always shows the info message box - or the mismatch numbers -

NotACPA

OH, so that's a Reconcile message … not an update/download message as suggested in the OP.

Mark Jay

Build 27.1.57.16, Version R57.16, Windows 10. The message I get is exactly the same message you get when you hit "Reconcile Shares". It's just that I get that message without hitting "Reconcile Shares". It comes up automatically on that one account.

Mark Jay

From the answers I have been getting, I think that I just have to run "Reconcile Shares" on each account every time I update my accounts. Thanks, everyone, for your time in answering my question.

mshiggins

"In this one account, I DO see something even though there is no discrepancy. The something I see is 'Your Quicken account and your brokerage holdings are in agreement'.

As I said previously: the "Compare account portfolio after download" is not the same as an Auto-reconcile (or a manual reconcile, for that matter). I believe it is intentional that the two do not exhibit exactly the same behavior (*).

I believe the reason you are seeing the difference between your accounts is because only one of your accounts is set to Auto-reconcile.  If you set the rest of the accounts to auto-reconcile, I assume you'll get the message you want after every download.

[ (*) I would never want Quicken tell me that "Your Quicken account and your brokerage holdings are in agreement" after every download. I assume they are in agreement and do not need my assumption confirmed after every download. I suspect I'm not alone in that feeling - you're the first person I can recall ever wanting that.]

-JP

mshiggins

Earlier in this discussion I said, "I believe the reason you are seeing the difference between your accounts is because only one of your accounts is set to Auto-reconcile."

I have since done more thinking on that statement.

I've come to believe that I shouldn't have accepted the original poster's claim that, "FOR THE ONE ACCOUNT THAT WORKS, RECONCILIATION IS AUTOMATIC", as necessarily meaning "auto-reconcile".

After further thought and testing, I don't think it is possible to "auto-reconcile" an investment account. Concluding that caused me to think that perhaps the original poster meant "Automatically add [downloaded transactions] to investment transaction lists".

I tested the combination of "Compare account portfolio after download" and Automatically add [downloaded transactions] to investment transaction lists", and that combination did NOT cause Quicken to report, "Your Quicken account and your brokerage holdings are in agreement", when there was no discrepancy between the Quicken account and the downloaded holdings.

The bottom line is I can no longer think of any way to cause Quicken to always report when "Your Quicken account and your brokerage holdings are in agreement" immediately following a download.

My conclusion is in more agreement with original thought: I believe "Compare account portfolio after download" does not intend to report anything to the user unless Quicken finds that there is a discrepancy.

If the original poster's concern were my concern; I would create a New (test) Quicken file, setup my 6 brokerage accounts in that test file, and see what results I get: 
- when I only select "Compare account portfolio after download" for all 6 accounts
- when I attempt to cause 1 of the accounts to duplicate the results originally reported here (perhaps even trying to cause a different account to report "Your Quicken account and your brokerage holdings are in agreement")

If I were reporting this problem from scratch, in addition to the original problem description, I would include:
- my Quicken release (in the form Rnn.nn) found at Help > About Quicken
- the Financial Institution name(s) for the 6 investment accounts (as shown on the General tab of the Edit Account Details dialog for each account
- the Connection Method for each account (as shown on the Online Services tab of the Edit Account Details dialog for each account
- the update method that produced the reported results (One Step Update for all accounts, or Update Transactions for each individual account)
- any other information that might offer more clarification of the situation

-JP