Share transfers from one account to another recorded in balance forward category?

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Nick0131
Nick0131 Member ✭✭
edited March 2023 in Investing (Windows)
Balance forward in reports should be the opening (beginning)balance of cash and securities. The 'transfer shares between accounts' transaction results in a shares added/removed transaction, which does get the job done. However, shares transferred and associated costs are not categorized as transfers. Instead, they fall into uncategorized and as a result end up in the balance forward (opening balance) totals on reports, which is incorrect and confusing, to say the least. Any thoughts on this? Thanks

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  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    I am trying to duplicate your issue. Is this the Account Balances report or some other report(s)?

    Were the shares added and removed prior to the reporting interval or during it?
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  • Nick0131
    Nick0131 Member ✭✭
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    Hi, Thanks for your comment. It affects the investment reports. I saw it in investment income report and ran an inventory transaction report, subtotaled by category and it showed the stocks transferred along with the opening balances in the balance forward account. Hopefully, you will see what I do.
  • Tom Young
    Tom Young SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2023
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    [deleted]
  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    Sorry, I don't see anything like what you describe. What version of Quicken for Windows are you running?

    The report at Reports > Investing > Investment Income only deals with cash in and out over the selected interval, not balances or securities transferred.

    There is no "inventory transaction" report among Quicken's standard reports. The Investment Transaction Report when subtotaled by Category does have a Balance Forward section. Is that what you are referring to?
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  • Tom Young
    Tom Young SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    Similar reporting in a test file using R45.12.  I don't remember seeing that before though this is a report I seldom use and in my live file I have very, very few transfers of shares between accounts.

  • q_lurker
    q_lurker SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    I am on R43.32 (FWIW), a Sept, 22 vintage subscription release.

    @Nick0131 I think you are onto to something but it may be more nebulous or broader than you suggest.  

    For a major set of Shares Transferred transactions I did in Jan, 21, in the Investment Income report for that year, I get a negative 'Balance Forward' entry for the sending account and a positive 'Balance Forward' for the receiving account.  Similar but not exact values; off by $1,300 which is not a big percentage of the total.  Seems like they should match.  Appears that I adjusted the cost basis on the shares added by the $1,300 correcting for prior differences.  Drill-down on the values does not produce any of the Remove Shares or Add Shares transactions.  The overall totals of the each account entry is in the ballpark of the cost basis transferred, but higher than that total.  If I limit the report to a single security, the Balance forward entries for the sending and receiving accounts are the cost basis of that security that was transferred.

    But in addition, I find several (4) other accounts reported in the Balance Forward category.
    • 1 account reports $0 Balance Forward; no drill down detail
    • 1 account reports negative $17,000 Balance Forward; no drill down detail
    • 1 account reports negative $19,000 Balance Forward, drill down ties to a $908 SoldX transaction transferring into an IRA account.  In the Transfers section, both sending account and receiving IRA account reflect the $908 value.
    • 1 account reports positive $42,000 Balance Forward, drill down ties to a $310 RtrnCapX transaction associated with a corporate spinoff that year.
    So my preliminary conclusions are that:
    • Balance Forward entries are appearing for Remove Shares and Add Shares associated with Shares Transferred, 
    • Those entries appear to use the cost basis of the shares, and 
    • That similar entries appear for cash transfers involving accounts including but not limited to RtrnCapX and SoldX transactions.  
    • Drilling down on the Balance Forward values does not produce accurate helpful detail.
    • There can be significant inclusions in the Balance Forward entries that I cannot explain.  
    I have no explanation for what these balance forward values are suppose to represent in an Investment Income report.
      




  • Nick0131
    Nick0131 Member ✭✭
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    I am on the current on-line version of Quicken. It took me a while to get a handle on this, but when the all data is categorized, the balance forward is beginning cash and inventory. Best way to see what the balance forward is actually made up of is to run the investment income report for an account and then select subtotal by security type. If all is well you will get a breakdown of 'no type' (Cash) and 'Stocks', the beginning balances of both. Drilling down will bring you to the entries that make up the balances.

    I can take a few pictures later as I am on my way out now.

    Thanks everyone..
  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Nick0131 just to get to terminology correct, it is Quicken Subscription, not "online".  Quicken Subscription is how you pay, not where your data is stored.  Quicken Subscription like all the versions before it has some features that are "online", but the "subscription" is about how you pay, not where your data is stored.
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  • Nick0131
    Nick0131 Member ✭✭
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    My point was I have the latest version of Quicken for Windows: R47.15, Build 27.1.47.15. Thanks
  • Tom Young
    Tom Young SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    I can't go back and try running that report on earlier versions of Quicken but maybe this presentation has always been this way?  It is a little bit odd but my use of that report over the decades of Quicken usage has pretty much been in the area of "couple of times a year."
  • q_lurker
    q_lurker SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    I was able to pull up an Investment Income report in QW2017 for a similar file and set of circumstances.  The Balances Forward section appeared to be have similar to my above description.  Given the very limited changes that have been done to Investments and to Reports over the years, that was what I expected.  

    Nick0131 said:
    I am on the current on-line version of Quicken. It took me a while to get a handle on this, but when the all data is categorized, the balance forward is beginning cash and inventory. Best way to see what the balance forward is actually made up of is to run the investment income report for an account and then select subtotal by security type. If all is well you will get a breakdown of 'no type' (Cash) and 'Stocks', the beginning balances of both. Drilling down will bring you to the entries that make up the balances.

    I can take a few pictures later as I am on my way out now.

    Thanks everyone..
    The primary reason I am confused in regard to the purpose of the information is that under some circumstance, you get no such section (a Current year report in my case).  When I have gotten that section, it has never included all accounts, only a limited number of investment accounts.  I have also not seen the consistency you are seeing.  Some accounts report $0, some a very nominal amount, and some as you cite report an excessive amount. 

    In my case following your guide to limit to one account and subtotal by type and further limiting the time from to only one month, I was able to track the value down to a gift of shares I made to a charitable organization.  That is, the gift had a fair market value of $X.  The basis of those shares was $Y.  That value that appeared in the Balance Forward line was X - Y, or the unrealized gains on the gifted shares.  Considering my approach on that type of transaction, I Remove the shares (the basis value) and then Add the shares (the fair market value) and then Sell the shares at fair market value (realized gain = $0 in the investment income section) and expense the cash as a charitable expense (in the Expense section for the report).  So I take it there again, the Balance Forward line is the Added value ($X) less the Removed
    value ($Y).  
    So I remain perplexed.  
  • Nick0131
    Nick0131 Member ✭✭
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    After reading Lurkers' comments I realized a need to determine if my previous 'definition' of the balance forward account was correct. As it happens my definition fit the circumstances of transactions in my files.

    Here is my latest attempt:

    (1) For date ranges that include an opening cash balance (if any): Opening Cash Balance +/- transactions not affecting cash
    (2) For all other scenarios: +/- transactions not affecting cash

    In Lurkers' scenario above balance forward is the net of the add ($FMV) and the remove ($Cost). The sale of the shares is a cash transaction and is characterized like any other sale would be.

    The use of the 'balance forward' title in the report is not correct. This could easily be fixed by grouping non-cash transactions separately.

    I mainly use Quicken to track investments and related transactions. I like to double-check the validity of information in my spreadsheets vs brokers vs quicken. I do not chase small differences. It is easy if reports provide accurate and easily discernable information. I do not consider this a 'would be nice' change, it is a change to correct an error.

    Look forward to further thoughts and comments!
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