nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Account Balances Report Wrong for One Account

isonclubikin

The Account Balances report under Report > Net Worth & Balances is giving me wrong security balances in just 1 of my 4 investment accounts. On the actual report page, the Date Range is set to Last Month and the Interval to Month. Under Customize, I've checked the Cents and the Account Detail boxes and am looking only at my 4 investment accounts and all non-hidden securities. 3 of the 4 investment accounts show correct numbers (i.e., they match what's showing on the Investing tab and the values differ from the end of the previous month and the end of last month). But, in that final investment account, most of the securities show no change in value over the month and the value at the end of last month is wrong (i.e., it doesn't match that date's value on the Investing tab). Oddly, I've got one security that's in that "bad" account and another "good" account. The report show the correct values in the "good" account and an incorrect value in the "bad" account. Even odder, if I change the Date Range to Include All Dates or Last 12 Months, the report is correct. Switching back to Last Month and it's wrong again.

I've just finished a Reconcile to the statement for last month and everything's correct. There are no Placeholders, no odd transactions, no Unidentified Securities and I've gone through all but the final File Validations (no problems found).

Find more posts tagged with

Windows

Investment Reports

Accepted answers

All comments

Jim_Harman

[adding] That does seem odd. I tried this with a test file and the Account Balances report with different starting dates is different from a Portfolio view with the same end date but only by a penny or 2.

If your securities show no change in value as you vary the date, go to the Security Detail view for an affected security and check the Price History by clicking on More then Edit price history. If there are gaps in the dates, that would explain why the value does not change.

[end add]

Have you backed up your data, then done a File > Validate and repair? Sometimes that fixes this sort of issue.

If that does not fix the problem, compare the Account Balances report to the Holdings view for the problem account. These are computed differently.

Set the ending date for the report and the As of date for the Holdings view back in time until the error goes away. Click on the gear at the top right of the problem report and select Account detail. This will show the value of each investment in the account. Compare this to the holdings shown by clicking on the Holdings button for the account with the As of date set to the report ending date.

Zero in on the date when the discrepancy first occurs and look for a transaction on that date that might explain the issue.

Sometimes deleting and re-entering the suspicious transaction will fix a problem like this.

If a balance is left (sometimes just a few pennies) after the final sale for a security, make sure the Sell all shares in this account box is checked in the Sold transaction.

Be sure to back up your data file before altering historical data, just in case ...

Please post back and let us know what you find.

isonclubikin

I brought up transaction reports for each of the securities in the problematic account back to the beginning of time. There's nothing odd about the transactions. Just an occasional buy, sell, transfer and div/int payment.

I then modified the Account Balances report to just look at the troubled account and gave it a custom date range. The problem is only with the last full month (August 2026). Starting with 08/01/2026 and checking every day in August, the report is fine UNTIL the end date is the 08/31/2026. At that point, the ending balance showing for almost all the securities in that account reverts back to the starting balance.

So, I looked at the transctions in that account for either the 30th or 31st of August. There are a grand total of three: a small interest payment in the money market, the buy for the sweep and a dividend in a mutual fund. One by one, I deleted and re-created those transactions. No difference. Even if I change the starting date of the report, if the ending date is 08/31/2026, both the starting and ending balances of the report for most of the securities is the same (i.e., wrong).

EDIT: And, another interesting quirk: if I change the custom dates to have the starting and ending dates both be 09/01/2026, I get the report for 08/31/2026 through 09/01/2026 (which, I think is by design). But, the starting and ending balances are the same. The 1st wasn't a holiday and there are prices in price history for that day. But, for that account, something between 08/31/2026 and 09/01/2026 isn't registering them in that particular report. Changing the ending date to today (09/02/2026) and the report is fine.

EDIT 2: I've done a Validate for everything except Correcting and Rebuilding the Price History and found no problems. I really don't want to do that last one and lose decades worth of price history.

Jim_Harman

This is certainly odd. If you look at the Price History for the affected securities as I describe above, is the closing price for 8/31 the same as for 7/31?

Are these publicly traded securities with valid tickers, or are they special 401(k) securities?

Does the 8/31 price have High and Low values? If the High and low are zero, the incorrect share prices may have been downloaded by your broker.

Did you enter these prices manually or import them? If so maybe you got the month wrong.

isonclubikin

Plain old ordinary securities: AEM, GOOGL, EOG, JNJ, JPM, MPFXX, VYM. All in a regular investment account. Price History for all of them looks completely normal: no gaps, no zeroes, nothing odd. Prices have been added automatically by Quicken. Under Validate, I Repaired them (no issues), then re-downloaded all prices for all available time periods.

I've reported this formally in Quicken.

Jim_Harman

If the market value has stayed the same but the share price has varied, the number of shares must have changed. But you say there are no purchases, sales, Added or Removed transactions and no Placeholders.

Are you sure the Placeholders are not hidden?

Go to Edit > Preferences > Investments and make sure the Show hidden transactions box is checked.

isonclubikin

Edit > Preferences > Investments > Show Hidden Transactions is checked.

Hopefully, the Quicken people can figure out what's going on via the problem report I submitted.

EDIT: Thankfully, this seems to be a problem with this report only for that particular time frame (and, hopefully, it'll continue to be just a one-time problem). My work-around is to use a Custom Date Range of two months instead of just setting it to Last Month. With that, all the Balances on the report are fine (including those present in the Last Month version). I just can't see how it could be a data problem and not a report problem if that works, but changing just the Date Range to Last Month promptly gives bad values again.

EDIT 2: Well, another interesting data point: in the problematic account, I added a fake BUY transaction on 09/01/2026 (the day after the end of the Last Month) for one of the securities (bought 1 share at $1). The Last Month report promptly became correct. If I delete that fake transaction, the report immediately goes wrong again. I'll have to play around some more, but maybe the report wants some kind of transaction on the day following the end of the date range (which sounds silly).

EDIT 3: Yep. That's what it is. I added a simple Reminder "transaction" in that account for 09/01/2026 and the report goes good. All my other Investment accounts have transactions on the 1st, so that's, apparently, why their portions of the report have been correct.

Jim_Harman

That is very weird. I set up an Account Balances report as you describe and I have several accounts that have no transactions last month or this month but the report works correctly for all my accounts. Because the problem is not easily reproducible, it is probably related to your installation or your data file rather than the Quicken software.

Are you using a saved report, or did you create a new report by customizing the standard report at Reports > Net Worth & Balances > Account Balances? Sometimes creating a new report will fix problems seen in saved reports.

Unfortunately your problem report is unlikely to get any action unless a Moderator happens to weigh in on this discussion or you contact Quicken Support and show them the issue.

isonclubikin

I've got a saved report and I've re-created the report, too. Happens regardless.

Quicken Laura

Hi @isonclubikin,

Thanks for the detailed troubleshooting and for identifying the connection with a September 1 transaction. That is a very useful clue.

To help us narrow this down further, could you provide a few additional details?

Is the affected investment account connected for transaction downloads, or is it an offline/manual account?
When did you first notice this behavior?
Does the problem occur only for August 2026, or do you see the same issue when running the Account Balances report for earlier months?
In particular, does the report calculate correctly when the ending date is 07/31/2026?
Does the issue affect all securities in the affected account, or only securities with no activity during the reporting period?
Does the problem occur with other report intervals (for example, if you change Interval from Month to another option), or only with the monthly Account Balances report?

I look forward to your response.

isonclubikin

The account is a Connected account to Morgan Stanley.
I first noticed the problem on 09/02/2026 — But, I only run that report once a month.
The problem show only for August 2026. From earlier spreadsheets which include data from earlier reports, the problem hasn't happened before.
Yes. A Custom Date Range of 07/01/2026 to 07/31/2026 is fine.
The issue does "sort of" affects all the securities in the account. The only ones it doesn't affect are a money market mutual fund that had no change to the number of shares or price (automatic price downloads are all $1 - so even though the report shows no change in Balance, that's correct), another money market mutual fund where the number of shares changed but not the price (manual values of $1 - but the Balance actually changed in the report), and Cash (the amount changed and the Balance reflected that).
The problem seems to happen with any Date Range/Interval which specifically show 08/31/2026 as the header for a Balance column. For instance, with a Custom Range of anything to 08/31/2026, setting the Intervals from Week through Year results in each Balance column being the same as the initial Balance column.

Quicken Laura

Hi @isonclubikin,

Thank you for sharing the additional information. That’s very helpful.

Would you please test the account’s behavior in a copy of your Quicken file? This will help us determine whether the issue is specific to your current file (please back up your file first).

Please follow these steps:

Go to File > Copy or Backup File.
In the Backup or Copy File window, under Advanced Options, select Create a copy or template and click Next.

Under Where would you like to put the new file?, choose a name and location for the copied file. Use Browse if needed.
Do not include the .QDF extension in the name; Quicken will add it automatically.
Avoid using these characters in the file name: * ? < > | " : \ /
Click Save Copy.
When prompted which file you would like to open, select New copy.

Once the copy is open, please run the same Account Balances report and see whether the 08/31/2026 balances are still incorrect.

Please let me know what you find. In particular, it would be helpful to know whether the issue remains in the copied file and whether adding a 09/01/2026 transaction or reminder still causes the report to calculate correctly.

Thank you again for all the detailed testing you've done so far.

isonclubikin

I made the copy and opened it. The Account Balances report behaves the same: without a 09/01/2026 transaction and that account, the 07/31/2026 and the 08/31/2026 Balances columns for that account are the same (i.e., wrong). With even a simple Reminder transction added to that account for 09/01/2026, the report becomes correct.

EDIT: After the above, I also did the final Validate on that copy of the file (Correct Investing Price History — Delete and Rebuild). No problems found and no difference made.