Balances in quicken don't match statements

James Petillo

Every month I reconcile my statements (credit card, bank and investment accounts) with no problem. The balances match. This last month one credit card statement would not balance ( had to make an adjustment) than when reconciling my investment accounts 5 of the seven account balances in quicken were different statement balances. It seemed as if previous transactions in quicken just vanished. The accounts balances were correct last month but when in look at them now the are incorrect. I'm a long time user and I can't explain why some accounts changed during the month. I've make adjustments so the balances match but am concerned about the future. Can anyone explain what could have happened?

skeleton567

James, as a developer of computer systems for 42 years I can offer a probable explanation. This has been argued on here a number of times but the usual conclusion I receive is "What difference does it make?"

I have half a dozen active brokerage accounts, including IRA's, non-IRA's, 529 plans for five grandchildren, and I reconcile statements every month. The thing that causes any individual account balance to change is this:

The Quicken design hierarchy of price data seems to be:

Security → Price (by date for history) → Account → Shares X (common)Price = Total for security for THIS ACCOUNT

The more accurate design hierarchy for the data would be:

Security → Account → Price (by date for history) → Shares X (unique)Price = Total for security for THIS ACCOUNT

Admittedly there are ramifications for this, mainly the increased number of entries for the price history and increased storage (file size).

What happens is this: When you record a security price for a certain day, it can be calculated to a number of decimal places in order to make the calculated TOTAL match your statement. Quicken even RECOMMENDS that you modify the PRICE in order to keep the number of SHARES accurate. This is recorded in the price history for that security.

Now you proceed to the next account, which can hold the same security with a different number of shares. When you enter the price, and follow the Q recommended practice of allowing it to modify the price instead of shares, the ROUNDING logic in Q may cause a DIFFERENT price to be recorded. Recording this different price for the same day for the same security now changes the price recorded under the previous account, and thus the total for that security in that account, and the overall account balance. So now the total for the previous account no longer matches your brokerage statement.

This problem is avoided for individual transactions because the TRANSACTION records its own number of shares and its own price with the necessary number of decimal places.

It is argued that this 'makes no difference' because 'only the brokerage total matters'. Also they argue that the closing price for the day for the security is the same for all accounts. That is basically true, but makes your reconciliation very frustrating. This design 'feature' causes the totals for my various accounts to be 'out of balance' by several hundred dollars month to month. Each time I reconcile an account, the first thing I do is compare its balance for the previoius month to the opening balance on the new statement and they very often do not match.