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Allow users to resolve placeholder positions in Simple Tracking investment accounts

mpara28

Currently, investment accounts that only support Simple Tracking (such as D.A. Davidson & Co.) do not provide access to a transaction register. If placeholder positions are created incorrectly, there is no way for the user to review, resolve, or remove them.

If downloaded holdings become incorrect because placeholder positions are added, the only option is to delete and recreate the account, which may not resolve the issue.

I would like Quicken to provide a way to resolve placeholder positions in Simple Tracking accounts. This could be accomplished in several ways, such as:

Allow users to review and delete placeholder positions.
Provide a "Rebuild Holdings" or "Refresh Positions" function.
Automatically resolve placeholder positions when downloaded holdings already match the brokerage.

This would give users a way to recover from incorrect placeholder positions without requiring Detailed Tracking.

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Comments

Chris_QPW

I'm curious, how do you even know there are placeholders if you can't see the register?

I would think that there should never be placeholders, but if they were there, I would think it would make no difference.

One of the things that is given up with Simple mode is any kind of tracking of cost basis.

On Windows when I have had accounts where I could switch between the two mode and therefore see what it was putting in the register what I found is it was using Add and Remove Shares transactions. Basically, in the downloaded data there is a cash balance and the number of shares for every security. And Misc transactions were use for the cash and Add/Remove transactions for the shares, with no attempt on setting the cost basis. Shares can magically appear and disappear just depending on what the financial institution sent.

There is very little differences between a placeholder and an Add/Remove transaction. There are only really a couple differences, one is it is basically a flag to allow the user to change them to real transactions. The effect is to change the number share just like an Add/Remove transaction would. The only other difference it is that once a placeholder is place, the cost can't be calculated.

So, there is the double mystery to me why there is any placeholders in the first place since the correct action for Simple Investment mode is to notice any kind of changes in the number of shares and put in an Add/Remove share to make the shares in Quicken match what was downloaded from the financial institution.

Whereas a placeholder is for Complete Investment mode where it is looking at the same share balance information and adding a placeholder to get the number of shares in Quicken to match what was downloaded from the financial institution. And the only real reason for a placeholder is to flag that this kind of adjustment has been made and allow for it to be fixed. If Add/Remove share transactions were used in this case it would be a lot harder for the user to know when things were not matching up.

mpara28

Thank you for the thoughtful explanation. That actually helps me better understand how Simple Tracking is intended to work.

To answer your first question, I know they are placeholders because Quicken displays them directly in the Holdings view. Each security has a child row labeled "Placeholder" underneath it with the exact same share count and market value as the actual holding. Those placeholder rows are then included in the account total, which doubles every position.

For example:

ABC Fund 284.622 shares
Placeholder 284.622 shares

The portfolio total includes both rows.

Your explanation is also why I originally thought this was a software defect. Since this is a Simple Tracking account, I expected Quicken to synchronize positions using the Simple Tracking process, not create visible Placeholder entries that duplicate every holding.

Quicken Support and the Community moderators have since explained that deleting the placeholders would resolve the issue, but because D.A. Davidson only supports Simple Tracking there is no transaction register and therefore no way for the user to remove or resolve them.

That has made me realize the bigger issue isn't just deleting placeholders. It's that Simple Tracking provides no recovery mechanism when placeholder positions are created incorrectly, regardless of whether the cause is the downloaded data, Quicken's interpretation of it, or something else.

For that reason, I'd like to broaden my original idea. Rather than simply allowing placeholders to be deleted, I think Quicken should provide some method to recover from incorrect placeholder positions in Simple Tracking accounts. That could be accomplished in a number of ways, for example:

Allow users to review and remove placeholder positions.
Add a Rebuild Holdings or Refresh Holdings from Financial Institution command.
Add a Resolve Placeholders function that rebuilds holdings from the latest downloaded positions.
Any other recovery mechanism that restores the holdings to match the financial institution without requiring Detailed Tracking.

The important part, in my opinion, is giving users a way to recover when placeholders are created incorrectly. At the moment, users whose financial institution only supports Simple Tracking have no way to correct the account themselves.

Chris_QPW

Thanks for answering my question. I decided to test this in Quicken Windows to see what I might be missing and if maybe it is using placeholders.

I setup my wife's 401K account in Simple Investing mode. And the first thing to note is that in this mode there isn't any Holding view. Here is where it might get tricky comparing to Quicken Mac. In Complete mode Quicken Windows has two tabs the register and the Holding view. In Simple mode both of them are gone and they are replaced by this screen.

Besides this screen there is also a main Portfolio view that has all kinds of customizing for accounts, securities, and security information, but not how many placeholder shares there are.

No matter if there are placeholder shares or just regular transaction shares they will appear in this total.

This account does allow changing to Complete mode and that is how I can see the Placeholders. And sure enough, since I just created the account, it did use a placeholder to get started. I could see the placeholder in the register and a comment in the Holding view (but not an actual value like in Quicken Mac, that there were placeholders being used).

But the plot thickens. I switched back to Simple Mode and did a One Step Update and then switched back to Complete mode. And what Quicken Windows did is delete the placeholder and put in the Add transaction for the same amount of shares.

So, basically Quicken Windows automatically resolves placeholders once it has done the first download.

mpara28

Thank you for taking the time to test this. That's very helpful.

What you found is especially interesting because it appears Quicken Windows automatically resolves the initial placeholder after the first download.

What I'm seeing in Quicken Mac is different. The placeholders remain under every security, with the same share count and market value as the actual holding, and they are included in the account total, doubling the portfolio value.

Based on your testing, I think I'd broaden my original idea. Rather than simply allowing users to delete placeholders, I'd like Quicken Mac to provide some way to resolve or rebuild placeholder positions in Simple Tracking accounts, whether that's automatic resolution after download or a manual "Refresh/Rebuild Holdings" option.

Thank you again for taking the time to investigate this.

Chris_QPW

If Quicken Mac is doubling the share count, then I submit that this is a bug in Quicken Mac and should be treated as such, bypassing needing to get enough votes for an "idea".

mpara28

Thanks, I appreciate you looking into this.

I actually reported this as a bug first. After Quicken Support couldn't resolve it, they asked me to post it here as an Idea because there isn't currently a way to resolve placeholders in Simple Tracking accounts.

Your testing makes me wonder if this is actually a Quicken Mac bug rather than just a missing feature.

Hopefully one of the Quicken Mac moderators can take another look. Thanks again!

Chris_QPW

Here is my logic for calling it a bug. You are getting a doubling of the share balances. The financial institution's information has a cash balance and a share balance for every security. I don't see any possibility of "doubling of shares" from this information. That leaves a couple of possibilities. The placeholders were created in the past (and shouldn't have) and have been ignored any future processing (so bug at the beginning). Or like in Quicken Windows it is planned to create them when the account is created, but the removing of them when the new information comes in is missing (bug at this point in the processing)

The job of Simple mode is very simple. It is supposed to make the cash balance and share balances in Quicken be exactly the same as what was downloaded in this information. It clearly isn't doing that.

I'm not sure why Quicken support couldn't at least see that this is a bug and report it. It should be clear in their logs of what was sent by the financial institution. And the fact that Quicken Mac doesn't "make it right" implies that it isn't doing what it is supposed to do.

Clearly it is hard to say when the Placeholders got put in place, but they should have been fixed automatically in my opinion when it got the information from the financial institution. But as you said, at a bare minimum they should provide a way for the user to remove/resolve them.

One more note, Placeholders only exist in Quicken. There isn't any such concept in the downloaded information, as such the financial institution can't "send placeholders". Placeholders to security shares are like a balance adjustment is to a bank account. The whole point of them is to "reconcile/balance" the security share count with what the financial institution has when something is missing. As in the proper transactions. But Simple mode's goal is to always track what they financial institution has sent. It should never have a problem with "reconciling".

@Quicken Laura (or any other Moderator) can you please see if this can be reported as a bug?

Quicken Laura

Hi @mpara28,

I apologize for the delayed response, and thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.

I’ve sent you a direct message with some additional information. Please check your messages in the upper-right corner when you have a chance.

Let me know how it goes or if you have any questions. I’d also like to thank @Chris_QPW for helping clarify and identify the issue.