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placeholder frustration

bravoechofoxtrot

I'm on Quicken for Mac v. 8.1.2

A couple days I transferred two IRA accounts (a rollover and a Roth) into two new IRA accounts, all at Charles Schwab. To do so within Quicken I created a new transaction, selected "Transfer Shares" as the Type, then selected "All Securities" and clicked "Save." In both accounts all of the securities transferred to the respective new accounts, with the share total, market value, and cost basis all being correct in the new accounts. However, one security in the rollover and two securities in the Roth had their entire share balance and market value remaining in the old accounts, due to placeholder entries Quicken inserted back to the date the old accounts were opened SIX YEARS ago.

I update my accounts every day, and the share balance and basis have always tied out exactly. Why is Quicken doing this? How can it be corrected?

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Quicken Kristina

Hello @bravoechofoxtrot,

Thank you for sharing your experience. To clarify, when you transferred shares, placeholders remained in the original accounts, resulting in Quicken seeing those securities in multiple accounts, when they should have just been in the account they were transferred to? Did this happen with all the securities for which Quicken had created placeholders 6 years ago, or only some? If it happened with only some of them, was there anything the ones this happened with had in common?

I look forward to your response!

bravoechofoxtrot

Hello Kristina:

Thanks for the reply. Here's a summary:

when I transferred shares a placeholder was inserted (not remained) into the original account
prior to transferring shares there were no placeholder entries in either of the accounts that I transferred
prior to transferring shares both original accounts tied out exactly with the brokerage for both number of shares and cost basis
after transferring shares both of the new accounts tied out exactly with the brokerage for both number of shares and cost basis
for the rollover IRA a placeholder was inserted for only 1 of the 18 securities in the account, meaning the same security is now reported in two different accounts.
for the Roth IRA a placeholder was inserted for 2 of the 21 securities in the account, one of which was the same ticker symbol as the rollover IRA. these two securities are now reported in two different accounts
the combined value of the residual securities remains in the market value of the Investing dashboard, even though I have made those accounts "Separate."

I just want to be able to zero out the original accounts, both shares and market value. Thank you for your help!

Brian

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

If you're just trying to zero out the original accounts, does backing up your file, then deleting the placeholders that were added when you transferred shares bring it back to zero?

Thank you!

bravoechofoxtrot

Hello Kristina

I was finally able to attempt deleting the placeholder entries, and in short it made things worse, with the overall balance going from +$xx,xxx to -$xx,xxx. What a mess.

How does this happen?

Brian

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

That would imply that the placeholders were for a greater amount than the balance discrepancy. If that's the case, then you would likely need to make an adjustment transaction to bring the balance to zero. To do that, you can create an Add Shares or Remove Shares transaction, as appropriate, to zero out any shares shares that should not be in the account. To adjust the cash balance, you can create a payment/deposit transaction, and set the category as a transfer back into the account.

Screenshot 2025-05-02 at 11.34.40 AM.png

I hope this helps!

bravoechofoxtrot

Kristina:

I was able to zero out the dollar amount by transferring back to the same account so at least the value is no longer included in my net worth calculation. The share balance, though, is another matter - each attempt to make an adjustment creates a retroactive accretive CHANGE (not an adjustment!) to a prior (i.e. existing) 2:1 split transaction, and any attempt to adjust the "new" total just increases the share amount. At this point I'm inclined to not make any further changes because the dollars are now correct, but it is very odd that Quicken handled this as it did.

Thank you for your assistance!

Brian

bravoechofoxtrot

As an example: the initial share balance was 50 shares which became 100 shares due to the 2:1 split and subsequently both transferred to the new account but also left as residual (what has happened) in the original account (never minding the dollars, since that has now been resolved.) If I attempt a "Remove Shares" adjustment of 100 shares then Quicken restates the share balance from the split transaction to ADD another 100 shares (new share balance of 200), even though it's supposed to be removing shares. I had other securities in this account that also went through a 2:1 split that day and those transferred correctly. So odd.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for the follow-up,

I'm glad to hear you were at least able to get the balance of the account to reflect correctly, even if the share balance is still off.

Based off of the information you provided the issue may have originated with that 2:1 split transaction.

Deleting and recreating that transaction may help correct the problem, but I strongly recommend that you backup your Quicken file first, so that you have a good point to restore to if it makes the problem worse instead.

Thank you!

bravoechofoxtrot

Hi Kristina

I think I found out how to adjust things to zero out everything - use a date (such as today) AFTER the date of transfer (i.e. 4/22), rather than backdating the adjustments. Fingers crossed, but now share balances have zeroed out, and after deleting the previously entered cash adjustments dollars zero out as well.

Brian

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for the follow-up,

I'm glad to hear you found a resolution to the issue, and thank you for sharing the resolution you found.

If the issue returns, or you need further assistance, please feel free to reach out!