Community Discussion: net worth vs balance sheet report investment balance different

net worth vs balance sheet report investment balance different

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I followed-up on superuser q.lurker's approach to this problem and found at least one possible cause for a difference between the Net Worth report and the Balance Sheet report. Namely: the Balance Sheet report does not include the effect of adjustment transactions made by Quicken Placeholder (Adjust Share Balance) transactions.

What made the exercise doable is the fact that each of the two reports have a Customize option called Show "Account detail" (found on the Display tab of the Customize dialog). Selecting the show "Account detail" option causes Quicken to list the detail for each account; not the individual transactions, but for investment accounts, the balances for each security plus cash. Using that option and starting with a suitable "Interval" for the date range of data I had, allowed me to quickly narrow the difference down to a single item (cash), in a single investment account, for a single month.

For this exercise, I was using a test file that had all my regular accounts in it plus some test accounts. The only account with a difference between the two reports was one of the test accounts - all my regular accounts had equal balances in both reports ... in this case, because I do not allow Placeholders in my investment accounts, but I do allow them (I even intentionally create them) in some test accounts.

Expecting a fix for this problem before April 16 is probably pushing it. But that need not stop the original poster from producing a correct "Balance Sheet", which can be done in several ways.

1.) Add a temporary adjustment to the problem account which the Balance Sheet report will recognize. Once the report is printed and ready to send, remove the temporary adjustment 2.) Use the Net Worth report instead of the Balance Sheet report: modify the title to say "Balance Sheet" 3.) Export the Balance Sheet report to Excel, modify the appropriate account balance(s) to be correct, and print from Excel

Some comments from the original poster:

"I cannot get them to match ..."

Of course not. The suggested approach in the Community discussion was not designed to "get them to match"; it was designed to help pinpoint just when the difference was introduced.

" ... and in fact when I get before 2015 the BS [Balance Sheet] gives me a negative balance for this investment account so weird."

Not so weird once you determine the exact cause - which in my test, is that the Balance Sheet is missing the "Balance Adjustment" transaction(s) that prevent the cash balance from going negative.

" ... a drill down would be Awesome".

Yes, it would be helpful. But the option to show "Account detail" is also a big help ... and as of this writing, that choice was not offered to the original poster.