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Bug?? Inconsistent cash balance reported between 2 Quicken views

RedCab

Hello,

Using Quicken classic deluxe on Win, fully updated.

For a Fidelity brokerage account, I can see it 2 ways and Quicken is showing the cash balance inconsistently …. one of them has to be incorrect!

The actual account cash balance is $0. Confirmed on the Fidelity website.

On the Quicken account screen there is a $3453 cash balance. It is shown in the far right "cash bal" column and at the bottom right of the screen, just above the "total market value" field. These entries are both incorrect.

On the Investing/Portfolio screen, the account does not show any cash balance. Correct.

I've "validated" and "super validated" the date file to no effect.

Tried to use the "Update Cash Balance" feature (see screenshot) which highlights the discrepancy perfectly.

Side note: I tried to fix this by entering a dummy withdrawal… the account screen's cash went to zero and the portfolio then shows negative cash in the account. So that confirms that these are out of sync.

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Quicken Kristina

Hello @RedCab,

Thank you for letting us know you're encountering this issue. To assist with this issue, please provide more information. Is this a manual account, or is it connected to Fidelity to download into your Quicken during One Step Update? Was this account recently added to your Quicken? Are there any placeholder transactions that may be causing this discrepancy? Do you have any reminders that may impact that account?

I look forward to your response!

RedCab

Kristen,

Thx for your followup.

I have many Fidelity accounts for many years, all connected via direct connect / one step update. The problem occurs in more than one acct.
There are a few placeholder entries. You'll have to explain to me the connection, if there is one.
No reminders used in any of my Fidelity accounts.

Note this… When I click on the "cash balance" at the bottom right of the account screen, the pop up gives me the opportunity to adjust the account's cash balance. I can do this but no matter what the cash reported on the account page is incorrect, and the portfolio screen view is correct. What I'm saying is that if I make an adjustment to lower the cash on the account screen by X, the amount reported on the portfolio screen is changed by the same X. Still out of sync!

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Do you see any error messages when you try to update your Fidelity accounts? Are the problem accounts missing any transactions, or is it just the cash balance that is incorrect? Is the cash balance in the affected Fidelity accounts kept in any sort of fund, or does it just stay directly as cash?

Thank you!

RedCab

Do you see any error messages when you try to update your Fidelity accounts?

» No.

Are the problem accounts missing any transactions, or is it just the cash balance that is incorrect?

» Just the cash balance. Note the cash balance on the portfolio screen MATCHES my actual Fidelity cash balance. My issue is that the cash balance reported in the account screen is both incorrect and not matching what's on the portfolio screen which is correct.

Is the cash balance in the affected Fidelity accounts kept in any sort of fund, or does it just stay directly as cash? » Just cash.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Based on the additional information you provided, the issue you're encountering isn't being caused by the known connection issue with Fidelity.

It is possible that placeholders could be causing the issue. Placeholders are transactions that Quicken automatically creates to make up for history that didn't download. They can cause issues if the history was there, and Quicken didn't recognize it. I recommend that you backup your Quicken file and try resolving the placeholders in the problem accounts (for instructions on resolving placeholders, click here).

If the issue persists after that, please let me know, and if you're willing, please also provide screenshots of what you're seeing in the account register vs the portfolio for one of the problem accounts, so that we can investigate further. Please make sure to redact any personal information from the screenshots. If needed, please refer to this Community FAQ for instructions on how to attach a screenshot. Alternatively, you can also drag and drop screenshots to your response if you are not given the option to add attachments.

Thank you!

RedCab

Hello… There are no placeholders in the account.

Is there a functionality in which quicken treats a specific fund as cash? If it does, I think it may be confused on that and it may be worth diving into if that function is there. THx.

UKR

In the Investing tab's Portfolio view, to see the Cash balance of an account, please be sure to customize the view as follows:
Click the Customize button. Select the Securities tab in the popup view. Make sure there's a checkmark at the very first security entry in the view, the one named "No Security (includes cash)"

As far as the incorrect cash balance is concerned:
Is there a process in place in this account which rolls over idle cash into a Money Market Fund? Does the broker's MMF holding match your register's cash balance?
If so, does the broker download the cash-rollover transactions and have these been recorded in your register?

Have all buy / sell / etc. transactions been recorded properly to put or take cash from the cash balance?

Please review settings in Edit / Preferences / Downloaded transactions. There are some settings related to downloading investment transactions from your broker.

Rocket J Squirrel

@RedCab have you tried CTRL-Z in the brokerage register to recalculate transactions? Sometimes this clears things up. Backup first, of course.

RedCab

@Rocket J Squirrel Thanks for that suggestion…. never heard of the CTRL-Z function before. Tried it and unfortunately, no impact to my issue.

I did try various combinations of dummy transactions to buy shares (bring cash reported on the account page in line with what it really is) and then "removing the shares". That didn't work.

Simple description of my issue: the cash reported on the account page is out of sync with the cash reported on the portfolio page for one of my very active accounts. No matter what I do to add or subtract dollars or shares they remain different by the same constant. The portfolio page is reporting position quantities and dollars, including cash if there is any, exactly correctly. I think the problem is the account page is counting cash incorrectly.

BTW I did try toggling "Never interpret downloaded Money Market funds as cash". Made no difference. THx ALL.

[Deleted User]

@RedCab have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Quicken program. Doing do doesn't affect your data file directly, but it might clean up some "garbage" in your installation. It might be worth a try.

RedCab

@CaliQkn Thx for the suggestion… I uninstalled re-installed quicken … no luck. Problem persists.

[Deleted User]

@RedCab have you searched for that amount 3453.31 in the register? You use the "find" in the upper right of the register to make it easier to search. Hopefully that amount is a single transaction. If you do find a transaction with that amount, then you would want to delete it out completely and re-add it.

Otherwise, the only other thing I can think of is doing a Copy-File process. Do so would clean up some file or transaction corruption if that is the issue. It would also require you to reactivate your online connections for all your accounts.

https://info.quicken.com/win/how-do-i-copy-a-quicken-data-file?_gl=11oza3wx_gaMTU3NzUxNDgyNi4xNzM0MTM4MTA3_ga_800C54VH4B*MTc0NDk5NDY1Mi40Ni4xLjE3NDQ5OTU1MzQuNDguMC4w

If all else fails, and you haven't done so already, maybe contacting Quicken Support would be a good idea.

RedCab

One more clue to add.

Starting point: portfolio page shows cash balance in acct as $0 which is correct. acct page shows positive balance "$X" (incorrect).

I then do "update cash balance", and (randomly) update the cash balance to $1000.

The result: portfolio pages is still "correct" - shows $1000 cash now. Acct page shows cash at $X + 1000

I'm now pretty sure the account page is counting something incorrectly to arrive at the $X cash balance.

Boatnmaniac

@RedCab - Log into your online account at Fidelity and click on the Positions tab. The first position listed there should show "Cash". Click on that.

What security is shown there for "Cash"? (It should be either a money market fund or a bank sweep account.)
Also make note of the value of that security.

Go back to Quicken and on the Account Register for that account click on the Holdings button.

Do you see that "Cash" security listed there in Holdings?
If so, what is the value of that security?

Also, in the Account Register: Click on the Gear icon at the top right and then click on Reconcile Shares? What does the popup say?

Jim_Harman

A couple of things to check:

Instead of comparing to an Investing Portfolio view, try going to the account and clicking on Holdings. This view is pre-configured and will always include all the securities in the account. Next to Show: pick Value if it is not already selected. Does the Market Value there match the Total Market Value at the bottom right of the Transaction List (Register)?

Click on the Date header in the Transaction List to make sure it is sorted by Date. Click on the Date header again if necessary to put the most recent date at the bottom. Are there any future dated transactions? Do they account for the difference?

Click on the gear at the top right of the account and select Reconcile shares. Does it show a discrepancy, a missing money market fund for example? Do not let it create a Placeholder.

[Deleted User]

@RedCab I think I may have found the solution to your issue. Since your issue is only with the account register, if we create a new account and then move all of the transactions from the old to the new account, that will either flush out or correct the problem transaction.

Make a backup of your Quicken Data File. Just in case you need to go back before any changes were made during this process.
Create a report of all transactions in the current account register. Save it to Excel (if available). Otherwise, a hard copy or PDF, or text file will work. You are just using the report for verification and troubleshooting, if necessary.
Rename the current/old brokerage account to something that will distinguish it from the new one you will create.
Deactivate online services in the old brokerage account. Then, on the General tab, blank out the FI name and account number.
Create a new manual brokerage account.
In the old brokerage account, click on the "gear" menu and select "Move Transactions". In the window, click on "Select All" transactions. In the "Move to account" box, select the new brokerage account you created.
Keep the "Select all transactions for the same security as a group" checked.
Click on "Move". Depending on how many transactions you have, the process may take some time. Keep an eye out for prompts.
If necessary, use the report (spreadsheet) you created to verify and reconcile transactions in the new brokerage account.
When the new brokerage account has been verified and reconciled, delete the empty old brokerage account. If you have any information in Account Details, be sure to copy it over to the new brokerage account.
Activate online services with new new brokerage account.

This process of creating a new brokerage account should fix the issue since only the account register was affected. Here is some documentation from Quicken Support.

https://info.quicken.com/win/how-do-i-move-investment-transactions?_gl=11d9jkb9_gaMTU3NzUxNDgyNi4xNzM0MTM4MTA3_ga_800C54VH4B*MTc0NTAxMDAwOC40Ny4xLjE3NDUwMTAwMjAuNDguMC4w

RedCab

@CaliQkn @Jim_Harman @Boatnmaniac Thank you for the suggestions…

The "holdings" view matches the "portfolio" view which matches my online "positions".

Choosing "reconcile shares" or "reconcile cash"… quicken reports what's on the portfolio page equal to the downloaded current balance… which it is.

As stated before, any dummy or placeholder transactions I enter to "fix" the register cash balance does the same operation on the portfolio view… making the later incorrect.

In the accounts effected, I currently have zero cash balance - I manually "sweep" my cash from dividends and such into a higher yielding fund so the default money market fund if it had a position it would be zero. That's why the error is so noticeable. Should be zero. (I'm not usually A-R about such things, just thought if it wasn't difficult to fix…)

I'm ever more convinced that the account register has developed an error it won't let go of.

The accounts effected are old with many hundreds if not thousands of transactions so I'm not wild about a "Move" strategy.

BUT along those lines… what if I delete the account (w/ backup of course) and then find it as a new account? Will the initial download of the account include all lot history of currently held securities? That may be a workable work-around. (If that works I would probably manually remove all the shares rather than delete it so that I can maintain the history in the original account).

[Deleted User]

@RedCab if you create a new account and download transactions from Fidelity, you are limited to a fixed number of months or years that would be available for download. It depends on how many months or years Fidelity has available for download. If you go into your online Fidelity account and try to download transactions, it will tell you what the limit is. I know that Wells Fargo Advisors has only 120 days of transactions available for download.

RedCab

@CaliQkn thanks… I think we're talking about 2 subtly different things. You're referring to the actual transactions, and yes Fidelity limits that to far less than the probably 30 years of data I have in Quicken. I'm referring to just the lot details (cusip, qty, price paid, etc) for each individual lot currently owned. I know that when you move assets from one firm to another that lot history will be transferred (but of course individual historic transactions will not).

Jim_Harman

@RedCab

When you set up an investing account in Quicken for downloading, only the transactions for the broker-determined period and the current share balances are downloaded, not the lot data or total cost basis for your holdings. Quicken generally creates Placeholders to force its share balances to match the broker-reported balances, but the cost basis will not be correct unless you resolve the Placeholders by entering any missing transactions.

If your register is showing a cash balance but it should be zero because you sweep all the cash to a money market fund, try scrolling back through the register to find when the balance is not zero after any trades have settled and sweeps have completed. Look for an incorrect, duplicate, or missing transaction that accounts for the difference. If the transaction is incorrect, you may need to delete and re-enter it to correct the problem.

Then repeat the process, moving forward in time until your current cash balance is zero.

Another situation that can lead to cash balance problems is if you had Placeholders at one time and corrected them by entering one or more missing transactions before deleting the Placeholder. This will create Balancing cash adjustments that can be difficult to find. First, go to Edit > Preferences > Investments and make sure the Show hidden transactions box is checked. Make sure there are no Placeholders in the account. If there are Placeholders for zero shares, delete them.

Here is an example where I had a Placeholder that added 5 shares to the account and I tried to correct it by Buying 5 shares earlier. Note the the Buy automatically created a Xin - Balancing Cash adjustment that prevented the the Buy from changing the cash balance. You can find these by searching for "Balancing Cash Adjustment" and/or looking for an N/A in the Cash Amt column. To correct this you must delete the Placeholder, then delete the Balancing cash adjustment.

[Deleted User]

@RedCab I don't think lot detail will be maintained. The download would be transactional and not contain "bucket", or historical tax lot information. When you create a new investment account on Quicken and and transfer assets as of a particular day, the current cost will be established in the new account as a starting point.

Moving from one investment firm to another is a different animal. The receiving firm has a vested interest in maintaining accurate cost, so they would make adjustments.

I think your issue stems from a transaction gone awry or file corruption which is almost impossible to find. That is why I think moving the transactions to a new account is worth a try. I understand your hesitancy, but you can always restore a backup if something goes wrong.

Have you considered contacting Quicken Support? They would probably have you open a new account and start over as of 1/1/2025 and maintain the old account for historical information. You can ask them about moving transactions to a new account and see what they think. They can also guide you through the process, if that is the route you go.

[Deleted User]

@RedCab if you do contact Quicken Support, also ask them about exporting transactions from the account to a QIF file, then creating a new account, and then importing the transactions to the new account. This is another way to move transactions from one account to another that was used before the Move command was available in Quicken. But it some ways it's better than a Move command because it imports "pure" transactions only.

Quicken Support can see system files and work remotely with you and maybe find a viable solution for you.

q_lurker

@RedCab

Forgive me for jumping in on this late in the game. (I'll be using the term 'transaction list' for what I believe you are calling 'account page'.)

a) I am not positive about your placeholder assessment. Edit / Preferences / Investments — Is the "Show hidden transactions" checked? However, even if there is a placeholder in your transaction list, I'd still expect to see consistency between the transaction list (account page) and the portfolio views. Nevertheless, with hidden transactions shown, does anything change?

b) You are citing the difference between the Transaction list presentation of Cash versus the Portfolio view presentation apparently as of 'today'. My question would be is there some date in the past when the two were properly aligned. You can vary the "As of" date on the portfolio views to go back to any date you choose.

Now the companion sidebars to that thought. I am not a Fidelity customer, but I understand they have been through some perturbations as to their treatment of 'cash' vis-a-vis money market sweep funds within Quicken. Those changes may be a factor. However, it also appears you have a longer history with at least some of your Fidelity accounts that would predate those perturbations. I'd expect that you likely were buying and selling the MM sweep fund to balance the security transactions (Buys, Sells, Dividends, etc.) such that your cash balance would go up and down but frequently return to $0 as trades settled. Is that correct? If so, it seems to me you should be able to find a time when they two views did agree and get close to when this change developed.

Hope this helps

RedCab

Before I take the next step… is there a way to "find all" only the account register page that I'm on? I'm finding that whether I use the search box at the top right or the find dialog (with find all checked) I'm getting overwhelmed with results from all my accounts.

Searching one by one is an option… but a time sink. THx.

One other thought about finding the root cause. My issue is that cash shown on the account register is different than what is shown on the portfolio page or holdings page - not that either is zero or non-zero. What type of transaction/placeholder/adjustment could possible cause the cash amount on register to be treated differently than in holdings or portfolio (the later matches my online Fidelity amounts). THx.

[Deleted User]

@RedCab I would run an "Investment Transaction" report just for that account. It would be interesting to see what cash balance it reports - 3453.31 or 0.00. If it does show the the bogus number then maybe that's a good thing because then you would be able to find where the cash went off, and then find the offending transaction(s).

To aid with the search, you could export the report to Excel and use search and filtering there.

Jim_Harman

@RedCab If you are looking for when the transaction list and the Holdings view first become different, go back a long way, say 2 years, in the register and compare the cash balance on that date to the balance in the Holdings view when you set the same As of date. If they are different, go back another 2 years or so and repeat until they are the same.

Then go forward by smaller increments to see when they are first different and take a good look at that transaction, deleting and re-entering it if necessary.

Repeat until you have found all the bad transactions, hopefully only a few.

To restrict a search to one account, click on All transactions at the top of the Accounts Bar and select the account to search. This only finds cash transactions, not Buys, Sells, etc.

Jim_Harman

My issue is that cash shown on the account register is different than what is shown on the portfolio page or holdings page - not that either is zero or non-zero. What type of transaction/placeholder/adjustment could possible cause the cash amount on register to be treated differently than in holdings or portfolio (the later matches my online Fidelity amounts). THx.

I may be wrong, but I think it will be one or more defective transactions that you will have to delete and re-enter. As I have described above, I think you will be able to find these by going back in time to the point where the balances agree, then going forward until you find the first transaction where they disagree. Fixing that transaction should make the balances agree again at that date, then you continue going forward until the balances disagree again, fix that transaction and repeat. This sounds tedious but should not take long. Take notes as you go so you know the key dates. I have had good results with this technique.

Be sure to back up your data when modifying historical transactions, in case something goes wrong.

Please let us know what you find.

RedCab

Aha! I think I've resolved the issue. Made the fix in one account and still have to get to the other, but I'm optimistic. Thank you @Jim_Harman especially.

Short summary… Tracing back in time comparing the register's account balance vs the holding view I found 3 suspect transactions. There were 3 times I had "transferred in" funds to do a balance adjustment. Looking at the register more closely, I noticed a day or two prior to recording those transfers there were "bought shares" transactions in which the "Cash Amount" was shown as "N/A", but otherwise no sign that it was a placeholder. BTW, these 3 transactions date from 2007 and 2012… so don't ask me to remember what I was going on!

Especially perplexing is that for each of the transactions showing an "N/A", the edit dialog (example below) shows no sign that the total cost is the mysterious "N/A". But re-entering the buy and deleting the one with "N/A" brought the cash balances on all pages into sync. BTW, I first tried editing the "N/A" transaction to fill in the details, but the "N/A" would not go away. That's when I tried re-entering and deleting the old.

miklk

If it was me and I couldn't get it fixed I would try 2 things that may be easier than finding it and fixing it.

Archive the account which will basically leave the old account with old transactions and start a new account with currently held transactions and positions.

Do a file copy as Template which does a record by record copy and could clear the bad transaction. (This requires you reconnect all connected accounts)

Jim_Harman

That N/A for the cash amount is a sure sign of a Placeholder for that security at a later date than the transaction you are viewing. Perhaps you eventually deleted the Placeholder but the transaction did not get fixed.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that you found the problem(s).