Why doesn't my IRA balance in Quicken agree with the actual fund balance?

Question

I'm using a Mac with OS Sonoma 14.6.1 and Quicken Classic Deluxe for Mac.

The balance of my IRA on the Quicken account bar does not agree with the fund balance. In fact, the difference has been getting larger. This started after I transferred the balance from the American Funds Target Date 2030 fund to the their Target Date 2035 fund. I closed the 2030 account in Quicken and opened a new 2035 account.

See attached screenshots.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Anne

Quicken question.pdf

Jon · Accepted Answer

According to the register at the bottom of your attachment, your IRA started with a cash balance of $15882.04 on May 31st, which you immediately used to buy $15882.04 worth of your target date fund, which would reduce the cash in your account to zero. Since that time you've made 5 additional purchases of shares in that fund without putting any more money into your IRA. I think that's why there's such a discrepancy between the value of your investment and the total value of your IRA - you have a sizable negative cash balance in your account. You can actually see that in the screen shot - in the very upper right corner of the register you can see"7 items (-$6849."; that negative number is the negative cash balance I'm talking about. If you turn on the Balance column in your register you'll see the cash balance growing more negative with each transaction.

If the transactions after 5/31 were really purchases then either the starting cash balance should have been higher or there are some missing deposits that would provide the money for those purchases. OTOH if those transactions were something else then they should not be simple Buy transactions. For example, if you received dividend distributions which were reinvested into the target date fund you can use a Reinvest Dividend transaction to record those dividends in a way that doesn't change the cash balance. Or if you were transferring in additional shares from the old IRA account then using Add Shares transactions would add shares without changing the cash balance..

Jon · Accepted Answer

For the Employer contribution, you have a couple options. One way is to do what you did, which is to use an Add Shares transaction to record the additional shares coming in to your account. The other way would be to record a cash deposit transaction showing the employer contribution coming into your account followed by a Buy transaction investing that cash. The latter would make more explicit the amount of money your employer was contributing to your IRA.

I'm not sure what a "salary deferral purchase" is so I'm not certain of the best way to address that. But you still have the same fundamental problem of needing to either show cash coming into your account to fund the Buy transaction, or changing the Buy transaction to some other kind of transaction that doesn't modify your cash balance.

volvogirl · Accepted Answer

Buy is probably right from the company.  But you can use Add Shares if you are not tracking the cash going into it especially the amount the employer is contributing.  Where did you get the money to put in the account?  Did it come out of your paycheck?  It should be a split line in your paycheck as a transfer to the IRA account.  And if it is deducted from your pay it might not be to a IRA but a 401K.