My investment portfolio was out of balance
On 11/18 a 25k bond was redeemed but still showed on my portfolio, The broker invested the 25k in government bonds which also appeared on the portfolio. However, the total balance for the accounts were out of balance by about 50k until 11/30 when the account seems to be back in balance. I didn't make any investing decisions on the Quicken spread sheet, but other people can have the same problem and make wrong decisions on the wrong info.
Answers
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I'm not exactly following along with you in the description of events but I'm not surprised that "bonds" seem to be throwing you out of whack.
Are you relying on "downloads" to enter transactions into the Investment Account? If so, the hard fact of life is that downloads from brokers often don't work properly, resulting in errors both in the accounting for the event(s) and balances that are misstated. Frequently you have to delete what they've sent you and make your own entries to get both the accounting correctly stated and the positions in balance with the "real world."
It would be extremely helpful to get a screen shot (or shots) showing the entries for the "redemption" event and the entry for the subsequent "invested" event and the resulting balance errors. That would allow for some specific instructions as to how to set things right.
Problems with bond entries sent to Quicken by brokers is a common problem. For example, when a bond held at Schwab matures Schwab sends a "Deposit" transaction for the full amount of the maturity (principal + any interest). That puts the cash into the Account but, importantly, doesn't remove the bond that matured and doesn't split that maturity amount between principal and any interest. That sort of sounds like what you encountered with the 11/18 redemption/maturity; the bond was still being show as an owned security and you had the redemption/maturity cash in the Account, a "double counting."
In the situation I've described above the "cure" is to delete that downloaded deposit entry and make your own entry or entries, depending on whether the deposit amount contains both principal and interest. Assuming the deposit amount does include interest you'd typically make two entries in its place, one for the "sale" (redemption/maturity) of the bond with any resulting gain or loss, and a second IntInc entry for the interest.
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I think you identified the problem. However, the Quicken program is violating the first rule of accounting, namely debits equal credits. When the bound matured the broker received the funds and deposited (debits) them in Fidelity Government Cash accounts, because it bears some interest, and credits the bond. Quicken shows the account a s stock with each share at 1$ and that doesn't change. Somehow Quicken showed both the cash and the bond at the same time. I don't know how to manually enter the entry. If I click the investment account, there is no longer a check register. I am also a loss to how to get a screen shot.
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"I think you identified the problem. However, the Quicken program is violating the first rule of accounting, namely debits equal credits."
No, Quicken ALWAYS observes the double entry rule of debits = credits, even if you can't see the other side of a particular transaction in your list of Accounts.
For example, if you create a new Account in Quicken, an Account that exists in the real world and has a balance but doesn't exist in Quicken, Quicken will ask for an "Opening Balance" amount as of the last statement date. You make your entry - let's say an amount owed in a Credit Card Account. That's the "credit" side of the entry. Within that particular transaction Quicken will show the same Account in which you made the entry, which in a way doesn't make sense as you'd expect the net effect of that transaction would be $0. But in this case Quicken will lower your Net Worth (the debit side of the transaction) even though your Net Worth account doesn't actually exist in Quicken (as best I know).
The $25K deposited into your Fidelity Government Cash might very well be be similar to the example I've outlined above, which has the effect of increasing your cash (and your Net Worth) without removing the bond itself. That's the failure (I'm guessing) in the broker's download. Here's where seeing the actual downloaded transaction would be useful, as well as understanding the nature of the bond.
In Quicken a bond redemption/maturity needs to be treated as a "sale." That gets the cash into the Account and removes the bond. If the Fidelity Government Cash (Fund?) exists as a separate Account from the Investment Account that held the bond, then you sell the bond in the Investment Account and Transfer the cash to the Fidelity Government Cash Account.
Here's an FAQ about posting pictures in this community:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7867159/faq-how-do-i-post-a-screenshot-in-the-community-from-windows
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If the account is not showing a transaction list, it has likely switched to be in Simple mode. Edit the account details to switch it back to Complete mode. You should then have control.
It is possible something got missed while in Simple mode. Beyond that, it is also possible your financial institution did not send or provide a complete set of information. I have found it necessary to oversee such information and at times fill in missing specifics to fit the way I keep my records. Again in simple mode that may not be possible, but complete mode lets you do that.
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Just so people are clear about what simple mode does. It looks at the "summary information" that is downloaded from the financial institution and updates the securities shares, price (which might also be updated by downloaded quotes from the quote service), and the amount of cash in the account.
Provided there isn't any bugs (there have been reports for some financial institutions for 401K/403b account "double counting" where the cash should be reported as zero but is instead reported at the full value of the securities) your security shares and cash should "magically" be set to whatever they were at the time of the download.
So, in the "hidden register" it is simply putting in Add/Shares and Misc Inc/Exp transactions to make whatever is in Quicken line up with what was downloaded from the financial institution.
But note that even without a "bug" (in Quicken), the information can be wrong for a time, because the financial institution is sending the wrong information. It isn't that uncommon for financial institutions to not update all the information consistently at times like say right after a purchase or a sell and then later send the right data.
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Sorry about the delay. I switched to complete mode and the missing entries appeared. This is the way I was used to, But while ago I had to reinstall the Quicken program and things changed and I was didn't know how to correct. Thanks for the help.
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