Placeholder entries

Posted by John Oliver on May 5, 2009, 11:43 pm

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Yes, I have Googled, and i know there are a lot of headaches associated
with placeholders. But I didn't find apost that addresses my problem,
so...

At the very end of last year, I started a new job. I created an account
in Quicken ( 2008 Deluxe R9 ) for it, and the only way data has been
entered into that account is via downloads from the FIs web site. Up
until 4/1, all was well. I updated tonight, and I have a placeholder
for each of the five funds I'm in, each for some minute fraction of a
share, complaining that the amount of shares Quicken thinks I have and
the number of shares the FI says I have are in slight disagreement. I
do not see how this could even be possible, since there has never been
any kind of manual entry... every item in this account in Quicken came
from the FI.

1) How do I fix? There's a link to "Enter cost" which opens up a window
listing transactions. WTF? Which one do I change? To what? How am I
supposed to disagree with what I got from my FI?

2) What needs to be done to stop this from happening? At first glance,
it would appear that the FI is contradicting itself, but I think it's
far more likely that Quicken is screwing this up by rounding things it's
own special way, sort of like how Quicken is incapable of calculating
the interest on a simple fixed-rate mortgage correctly and must be
manually fixed each month.

--
* John Oliver http://www.john-oliver.net/ *

Posted by John Pollard on May 6, 2009, 9:34 am

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John Oliver wrote:

> Yes, I have Googled, and i know there are a lot of headaches

> associated with placeholders. But I didn't find apost that

> addresses my problem, so...

> At the very end of last year, I started a new job. I created an

> account in Quicken ( 2008 Deluxe R9 ) for it, and the only way data

> has been entered into that account is via downloads from the FIs web

> site.

Are we talking about a 401k account here?

> Up until 4/1, all was well. I updated tonight, and I have a

> placeholder for each of the five funds I'm in, each for some minute

> fraction of a share, complaining that the amount of shares Quicken

> thinks I have and the number of shares the FI says I have are in

> slight disagreement.

> I do not see how this could even be possible,

> since there has never been any kind of manual entry... every item in

> this account in Quicken came from the FI.

I can't tell you the reasons for your specific situation, but I can tell
you for certain that it is possible to have a financial institution
download transactions whose share totals do not equal the share totals in
the holdings that the same financial institution downloads.

In my experience, financial institutions have been known to round off
share balances in holdings even when they don't round them in
transactions, especially for fractional shares of stocks (acquired by
"reinvesting") and "units" held in 401k accounts. They also may round off
both share quantities and holdings when reporting/downloading, while
carrying them with more decimal points in their internal systems.

> 1) How do I fix? There's a link to "Enter cost" which opens up a

> window listing transactions. WTF? Which one do I change? To what?

> How am I supposed to disagree with what I got from my FI?

Putting it one way: you don't have any choice. Ultimately, you'll have to
decide which share balance you want to go with.

Since this is a new account, you can probably fairly easily double check
the Quicken transaction share totals against the holdings reported by your
fi (at their web site, in their statements, and in the downloads you are
receiving).

You should also verify that your Quicken transaction share quantities
agree with share quantities your fi reports.

If they don't, double check whether the downloaded transactions contain
the number of shares and total cost, rather than a price/share and a total
cost (the fi should supply the number of shares).

If you find differences, ask your fi why the transactions don't add up to
the holdings. Based on their answer and your preferences, choose the
share total you like.

There is one other possibility: if this is a 401k account, your financial
institution may be selling shares to pay for their fee without reporting
those sales (John Hancock, for one, does this). In this case, you can
just enter an adjustment transaction (I use Shares Removed) to account for
the difference.

> 2) What needs to be done to stop this from happening?

You probably can't prevent it.

> At first

> glance, it would appear that the FI is contradicting itself, but I

> think it's far more likely that Quicken is screwing this up by

> rounding things it's own special way, ....

As said above, I'm disinclined to believe this.

Which ever approach you take, I would not Accept the offer of
placeholders.

[To verify what is downloaded, you can look in either the OFXlog (if it is
a "Direct" download); or you can save the QFX file to disk and view that
(if it is a "Web Connect" download).]

--

John Pollard