Incorrect download on one account out of 11 at a financial institution

longtimeuser70

I have 11 accounts at Schwab linked to my Quicken Classic on the Mac. Ten of them download and update correctly. One account downloads with almost twice its actual value. I have deleted and re-added the problem account. I have changed its name. The problem persists. Any ideas?

Quicken Kristina

Hello @longtimeuser70,

Thank you for letting us know you're running into this issue. When did this behavior start? Was the account previously connected and updating properly, or has it behaved this way ever since you first connected it? Which value is doubling (market value, cash value, etc.). What kind of securities are in that account?

There are a couple funds that map to cash (see the post below for more information). Is it possible this is causing the doubling you're seeing?

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7907735/swvxx-value-advantage-money-market-fund-and-swgxx-schwab-government-money-fund

I look forward to your reply!

longtimeuser70

When did this behavior start? I am not sure. I noticed it a few weeks ago when I realized that Quicken account totals did not agree with the actual Schwab accounts. A few accounts were mis-matched by a small amount, but this one account was about double.

What value is doubling? It was the market value that was about double.

What kind of securities are in the account? The securities are mostly bonds in this account. There is some cash. I have just reviewed the securities list. One security is off by a huge amount, which seems to be the main problem. The actual market value is about ~$12K, but it transfers as ~$495K.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

If you haven't already done so, I'd recommend checking for placeholder transactions that may be causing the issue. For more information on placeholders, see this article: https://info.quicken.com/win/about-placeholder-entries

Please let me know how it goes!

longtimeuser70

I have done some research with the account manager.

The bond in question is a Ginnie Mae bond, and it pays with a combination of principal and interest. All of the other bonds in the account pay only interest until maturity. So….the principal of this bond decreases with each payment of combined principal and interest. (This is news to me.) As this bond is near maturity, the principal is now quite small. The current factor decimal is 0.02509398, and if this is multiplied by the quantity you get the actual market value of ~$12K. Doing the math Quicken uses Qty/100 X Price=Mkt Value you get ~$495K. This large difference distorts all of my financial data in Quicken.

My questions:

Has Quicken dealt with this type of bond before? If so, is there anything I can do to get it to transfer correctly?

I would be happy to discuss in more detail, but I did not want to put account or security details in this public forum.

longtimeuser70

Hello? Anyone out there?

No one has addressed the incorrect download for this specific type of bond and it’s causing my asset total to be wildly on the high side.

Others must have this type of bond. Why won’t it download correctly?

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @longtimeuser70,

Thank you for your patience, and I appreciate the detailed research you’ve done on this issue. Based on your explanation, it sounds like Quicken is not properly factoring in the current factor decimal when calculating the market value of your Ginnie Mae bond. Instead, it's using the standard Qty/100 × Price = Market Value formula, which does not account for the principal reductions that occur over time with this type of security.

To better understand how Quicken is handling this type of bond, I have a few questions:

• Have you noticed if Quicken is tracking the declining principal correctly in your transaction history, or is it maintaining a static quantity?
• Is the bond classified correctly in Quicken? Sometimes reclassifying a security type can impact how it’s displayed.
• When you download transactions from Schwab, does the broker provide an updated factor or principal reduction amount, or is that detail missing from the data Quicken receives?
• Have you attempted to manually adjust the security’s quantity or price to reflect the correct market value, and if so, does Quicken override it upon the next update?

Let me know your findings, and I’ll do my best to assist!

longtimeuser70

• Have you noticed if Quicken is tracking the declining principal correctly in your transaction history, or is it maintaining a static quantity? This security was recently added to my account, and it has always downloaded incorrectly. I just didn't notice it immediately.
• Is the bond classified correctly in Quicken? Sometimes reclassifying a security type can impact how it’s displayed. It's classified as a domestic bond. I'm not sure what else it could be. Any ideas? I noticed one option is US Savings bonds. Do they return both principal and interest together?
• When you download transactions from Schwab, does the broker provide an updated factor or principal reduction amount, or is that detail missing from the data Quicken receives? The Schwab display does not show the decimal factor, so that detail is missing. If you click to get more details on the bond, you can find the factor and its date, which is now 2/1/25. It appears that the factor changes, but I'm not sure of the frequency.
• Have you attempted to manually adjust the security’s quantity or price to reflect the correct market value, and if so, does Quicken override it upon the next update? I did try to do that, but I could not see how to manually make a change to the either quantity or price. I'll try that if you tell me how to do it, but I'm inclined to think it won't be a permanent fix.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Based on the information you provided, it sounds like Quicken isn't receiving the factor or principal reduction amount, and is using the default formula as a result.

You can edit the price from the Portfolio or Dashboard tab in your investment accounts. Each security name is a blue link. Click on the security name and you should see a menu with several options.

Select Edit Share Price, and you will get an option to put in an updated price.

To adjust the quantity, you would need to create a transaction or add or remove the proper amount of shares.

Note - Using the Add Shares or Remove Shares options will allow you to update the number of shares without impacting your cash balance.

I hope this helps!

longtimeuser70

I edited the share price so that the #shares/100 x Price is equal to the market value of the bond per Schwab. Then I did a download of the current Schwab data to Quicken. The share price remained as I edited it. So…This works to make my total balance in the problem account approximately correct. It’s a useful workaround. Thank you.

Of course, this isn’t ideal. Is there any information about how bonds of this type are managed by Quicken? Should I be categorizing the bond in another way? Is there something Schwab does differently from other financial institutions? In other words, if this bond was in an account at Edward Jones, would it transfer correctly?

Boatnmaniac

I've seen this happen with a couple of my brokered CDs (which are classified as a type of Bond) where 10% fractional share sales are supported. In these situations placed 1 order of each for 10 CDs @ $1000 each for a total of $10K each. But what was downloaded for each CD was 100 fractional shares @ $1000 each for a total of $100K each. I edited the quantity of each order from 100 to the correct 10 and everything was then fine.

I have not seen this happen with any brokered CDs nor Bonds that were not being offered for sale as fractional shares.

longtimeuser70

I downloaded from Schwab again today, and the problem with the value of one bond in the account happened again. So…manually editing the price is a temporary fix.

Do you have any solution to this problem? (Again, we are not dealing with a small error here. The mkt value of the bond in question downloads as hundreds of thousands of dollars over its actual value.)