Income By Security Report = Remove Old Unrealized Short/Cover Detail

Gary Strand

Goal is to close old transactions (dating back to 2008) listed in current Income By Security Report?

Tried for Cover Short transactions to specify lots from original short sales. The Unrealized detail nets to zero (short = cover). But the detail doesn't drop off the current year report?

Thanks

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @Gary Strand,

Thanks for reaching out! I understand you're trying to clean up old transactions from 2008 that are still appearing in your Income by Security Report, specifically regarding short and cover transactions. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you resolve this issue in the most current version of Quicken:

Step 1: Close Old Transactions

1. Open Quicken and go to your Investment Account register where the original short sale transaction is recorded.
2. Find the short sale transaction from 2008.
3. Match the cover transaction to the original short sale. Make sure that both transactions are correctly paired (the short and cover).
4. Right-click the short sale transaction and select Edit Transaction. If the transaction is still marked as “Unrealized,” change it to “Realized” or Mark as Closed. This will indicate that the transaction has been completed and should remove it from the Unrealized section of the report.
5. Click OK to save the changes.

Step 2: Adjust the Report Date Range

1. Go to Reports in the top menu and select Income by Security Report.
2. In the Report Options section, click Customize.
3. In the Date Range section, set the start and end dates to ensure you're only seeing transactions within the desired time frame. If you're seeing transactions from 2008, ensure that the range doesn’t include that year unless needed.
4. Click OK to apply the changes.

Step 3: Reconcile the Account

1. Navigate to the Accounts section and select the investment account in question.
2. From the top menu, click Reconcile.
3. Follow the prompts to reconcile the account for the years in question. Ensure all transactions are accounted for, and make sure that any unrealized transactions are properly cleared during this process.

Step 4: Manually Adjust the Report (if needed)

1. If the above steps didn’t remove the unrealized details, you can manually exclude specific transactions from the report.
2. Open the Income by Security Report and click on Customize.
3. Go to the Categories tab, and under Include Transactions, uncheck any securities or categories that are still showing the Unrealized Short/Cover details.
4. Click OK to apply the changes.

Let me know how it goes, and if you need any more help, feel free to ask!

Gary Strand

Jasmine Thanks!

Currently I test one Short Sale by choosing the Specific Lot in the Cover Short transaction.

When I return to the Short Sale, click on Edit Transaction, I do not see any Mark as Closed or Realized/Unrealized options?

I have 100's of these transactions to Edit!

rxrodrigues

I have similar issues when using ShtSell and CvrShrt to short sell and cover the short.

Gary Strand

Jasmine?

Please revisit my request because I am not able to find "Mark as Closed" or Realized/Unrealized" options per your recommendation? Hopefully I am missing something because I would like these "marriage ceremonies" to live happily ever after!

Rxrodrigues, hopefully we can resolve our mutual issue in this discussion?

rxrodrigues

@Gary Strand - I would be curious if you temporarily reverted back to the Nov 2023 R53.16 update with a copy of your quicken data file to discard after this test, the problem does not exist, that would be a clue that something broke after that update. Since I have so many option transactions to go back and adjust, it was not worth the effort for me and I ended up creating a filter to exclude options.

When I choose Reports, Investing, Portflio Value, I see positions that are actually closed reappear and these are not even consistent with positions shown under Reports, Investing, Portfolio Value & Cost Basis. So I just created some custom reports with filters to match what is actually true. Good luck with a solution that hopefully evolves soon.

Gary Strand

@rxrodrigues - I've used Quicken since 1991. Basically I maintain the most current versions of the software. Aside: The financial report writer in 1991 was far advanced compared to today's basic capabilities which I find frustrating. I like to categorize my P&L by Fixed Residence Costs, Variable/Discretionary Costs like Travel/M&E…plus for Tax Planning I want focused estimated taxes paid/withheld vs 4/15 accruals +++

My investment activity is very tame compared (although I am very complicated for risk management, etc.) to GFC (Great Financial Crisis of 2008) where trading was like shooting fish in a barrel do to "playbook" volatility flights to safety (did very well), today out of control Treasury/FED Monetary Debasement Fiscal Dominance is not investing, it's a Casino of Monkeys! Lot's of different Global Zoos!

Today I like to use the Income By Security report to recap each Taxable Account by Tax Return Schedules & Forms. My 2006-2009 trading non-closed trading positions is polluting what should be a 1 page report with 7 pages of irrelevancy detail. Yes I can manually turn off the old trades from appearing, but it's a pain in the rear and I simply want to do what Jasmine believes should work?

Hopefully she will provide a doable solution?

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @Gary Strand,

Thanks for providing more information! I suspect that this could potentially be a data file issue. Therefore, I suggest that you please try validating and/or super-validating your data file. However, I recommend that you save a backup file before performing these steps.

Validate: 

1. File
2. Validate and Repair File...
   
3. Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log
6. Close Quicken (leave it closed for at least 5 secs)
7. Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.

If the issue persists, proceed to Super Validate. If the issue is resolved after performing validation, then please disregard the instructions to Super Validate.Super Validate:

1. File
2. Hold CTRL + Shift and click Validate and Repair File...
3. Super Validate File
   
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log
6. Close Quicken (leave it closed for at least 5 secs)
7. Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.

Let me know how it goes!

Gary Strand

Jasmine

Thanks again for the troubleshooting. Unfortunately I ran both Validate routines with no success. The error logs were minor.

My confusion is what I cannot see? You reference an Edit Transaction feature for Realized/Unrealized and/or Mark As Closed? These options are not revealed on my Quicken 2017 version with latest Revisions all updated.

My focus is very simple. Tons of trades in 2006-2008 which were shorted and many times closed within 2-5 days. If I can get ONE to Mark As Closed, I can get all the rest.

My sense is you've provided all the solutions? Please confirm you can SEE the Mark As Closed option on your end? This is Ground Zero to fix!

Thanks again,

Gary

q_lurker

@Gary Strand How about a screen shot of the top of your Security by Income report with as many lines of holdings as you might be comfortable sharing so we can see what selections you have made and where you are having a problem.

In part my confusion is increased by your terminology. The report is not showing transactions, it is showing securities held or traded during the Date Range. If your sold a security short in 2008 (ShtSell transaction) and covered it (CvrShrt transaction) a few days later for a realized gain or loss, I would expect that income (or loss) to show in a report that included that time frame and included realized gains as a selection.

If you are saying a date range of Current Year (2025) includes securities that were bought short and covered in 2008 and are not currently held, I'd like to see the transactions for that security. In that context, other users have had issues where they have not properly covered a short position, such that Quicken sees the holding as a short position of x shares and a separate long position of x shares for a total net holding of 0 shares. That can appear to be Quicken showing a closed (0-share) position when it should not be.

Gary Strand

Jasmine

Income by Security 2024 Date Range.pdf

YES THIS IS ISSUE:

If you are saying a date range of Current Year (2025) includes securities that were bought short and covered in 2008 and are not currently held, I'd like to see the transactions for that security. In that context, other users have had issues where they have not properly covered a short position, such that Quicken sees the holding as a short position of x shares and a separate long position of x shares for a total net holding of 0 shares. That can appear to be Quicken showing a closed (0-share) position when it should not be.

Attached PDF is for Date Range last year. The Mutual Fund & Partnership ETF Security Types relate to 2024 activity. But ALL the other detail, net zero, transactions date back to 2006-2008

q_lurker

That was certainly more information than I expected.

Can you share the relevant actual transactions used for one or two of those securities - preferably one of the stocks like AMD, AAPL, or AMAT?

Gary Strand

AMAT.pdf

AMD.pdf

Actual transaction detail. APPL had tons of trades!

q_lurker

I've finally had a chance to poke at this report. I'll certainly agree it is fully screwed up when ShtSell/CvrSht transactions are in play. I'll be trying to identify what can be said about what it is doing that is so clearly wrong. Somewhat simply, where you see those two lines with a positive share count and a zero share count, the zero line is behaving as if it is a negative share value, which misses the aspect that the two lines should net to zero shares and the security not appear at all.

This is still a relatively new report (couple of years old now - maybe?) and obviously still has bugs in it.

As soon as I figure out what I can describe, I'll use the Report a Problem link with a reference to this discussion.

Thanks for raising the issue. Wish I had a workaround to offer for this but I don't see one.

Gary Strand

@q_jurder

Thanks. I really like this report and my intent is to build all my tax transactions and investment performance by account and in total AMU Assets Under Management.

Clearly you recognize the core issue. Yes I could build a custom version by only selecting current period active securities. Obviously, given the time I already have invested, I want this report to work as featured.

I am not conversant about Report a Problem Link (I interpret PUNT) in the Quicken support community?

q_lurker

Within Quicken, under Help, is a Report a Problem option that gets the info more directly to the programming team. The submission can include multiple log files, though I don’t see that as a factor in this case.

PS I suggest including a link to this discussion in the report.

Gary Strand

Thanks!

I added this link to the Report a Problem! Hopefully a quick(en) fix!

q_lurker

My investigation:

I duplicated the transactions @Gary Strand offered for AMD and AMAT in my test file as shown below. I just changed the year for no particular reason. These are the only transactions for these securities in this file.

Note that the total investment amount from the ShtSells for AMD and AMAT respectively are -10,069.19 and -26,372.88.

A customized Income by Security report (limited columns, these two securities, Yearly for 2024) produces

The 2024 year end prices in my records for AMD and AMAT are 125.19 and 166.83, respectively. Thus it is apparent that the ending Mkt Values are that year end price times the number of shares, except for the 'red-line' data where shares appear to be negative 250 and 1600 for the two securities rather than the shown 0 shares.

Further, one can now see that the Unrealized Gains and Mkt Value columns relate through the total investment value I just computed.

• AMD: 31,297.50 - 10,069.19 = 21,228.31
• AMAT: 266928.00 - 26,372.88 = 240,555.12

The real picture here should be that the AMD holdings should be recognized as 0 shares total and the two lines omitted from the report. Likewise for the two AMAT lines. That is, in 2024 neither security produced any income.

The aspect that negative shares are presenting as 0 is also problematic as it is plausible that an investor could be in a short position on a security at the end of the period.

It should also be recognized that in investor might have a short position and a long position in a particular position at the same time. This needs to be considered as well. I suppose when a CvrShrt has covered a ShtSell, that should be treated one way (no remaining holding). When there is an open ShrSell (not yet covered), it gets its own line in the report.

One more oddity: When I use the report's Back Arrow icon (upper left) and then go forward to this same report, I get:

The data is still wrong, but for some reason the red-line has gone away.

Posting a Report a problem next citing this discussion.

q_lurker

@Gary Strand The other consideration for working with this report is to copy the report to Excel and therein delete the bad rows. Probably faster and easier than customizing the security specifications. You'd need to replace the totals at the bottom line with summations. You might also choose to format within Excel to make is nice looking again.

Gary Strand

@q_lurker

Excellent troubleshooting analysis. I appreciate it! I like your caveat about holding a Long & Short Open positions in the same current report requiring valid current position values.

The quirk of going "back", then return dropping the zero shares computation is quite baffling?

Personal Usage: I really like this Income By Security Report for taking a comprehensive snapshot of all my Account current Holdings with date range performance activities. My Top Down broad brush will report all Taxable Accounts (5 over 3 brokerage platforms) and Non-Taxable Accounts (4 over 2 brokerage platforms)

Unfortunately, your download Excel and make the report pretty by deleting "error transaction" details is something I don't want to invest my time in. For me, work arounds that software debugging should "fix" is my work method (i.e. is this an exception or not an exception? = prone for errors and lack of Summary Total actual Real Fair Market Value holdings with reconcilable Schedule B, D & E gain loss realized/unrealized conditions) Aside: It is my punt understanding that Quicken doesn't have Wash Sale Basis tracking capability? which I certainly understand why not based mind numbing complexity)

I love the Summary Tax vs Non-Tax Reporting analysis this feature can offer. Hopefully, this puzzle can be brought to accurate completion by an expert programmer? I am rooting for success! Thanks again, Gary.