Placeholder Transaction

To make a long story short, i have deleted all downloaded transactions in this investment account and have decided to start entering from first of year because i could not resolve this issue, thinking something incorrect got downloaded or something.

Enter first transaction fine, second also.

How the problem transaction.

I enter the buy, but this buy took place in 2 separate transactions, only being charged once for a tranaction fee. Enter first buy fine. Enter second buy with all transaction data but still quicken marks it as a PLACEHOLDER TRANSACTION.

I dont understand why?? Help

Reply to
bill
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"bill" wrote

I think you may be misunderstanding the difference between a placeholder, and a transaction that is linked to a placeholder.

Placeholder transactions are "Adjust Share Balance" transactions; they have an "Action" value of "Entry". No other transaction is, or is converted to, or is marked as, a "placeholder".

If you have a placeholder in your account; and you enter a transaction for the security in the placeholder, with a date on or before the date of the placeholder ... that transaction will be linked to the placeholder. It will never alter the cash balance of the account (it shows "N/A" for the "Cash Amt"), nor will it alter the number of shares owned as of the date of the placeholder. If you do not have a placeholder in your account, you should never see this behavior.

[Even if you delete a placeholder, any transactions you entered while it was present that were linked to it, will retain a pseudo link to the placeholder: they will continue to have no affect on the cash balance. You must also delete all those "linked" transactions and re-enter them.]

To the best of my knowledge, placeholders don't get downloaded; they are either manually entered by the user, or they are entered by Quicken in response to a Compare to Register (which can be, and usually is, initiated by the user; or it can be initiated by a download). Usually the user gets the option to refuse to accept a placeholder resulting from a download, but there may be occasions when one is created by Quicken automatically.

What version (year) of Quicken do you use? What specific type of investment account are you working on?

If you have a version of Quicken earlier than Q2006, you may not be able to see your placeholders if they have had their historical transactions entered; that is, if you have entered enough Buy/Reinvest transactions to acquire the number of shares specified in the placeholder ... the placeholder will become hidden. The only way I know to see a placeholder in pre-Q2006 versions of Quicken, is to delete (or modify) one of the

430 No such article 222 11152 body "bill" wrote

I think you may be misunderstanding the difference between a placeholder, and a transaction that is linked to a placeholder.

Placeholder transactions are "Adjust Share Balance" transactions; they have an "Action" value of "Entry". No other transaction is, or is converted to, or is marked as, a "placeholder".

If you have a placeholder in your account; and you enter a transaction for the security in the placeholder, with a date on or before the date of the placeholder ... that transaction will be linked to the placeholder. It will never alter the cash balance of the account (it shows "N/A" for the "Cash Amt"), nor will it alter the number of shares owned as of the date of the placeholder. If you do not have a placeholder in your account, you should never see this behavior.

[Even if you delete a placeholder, any transactions you entered while it was present that were linked to it, will retain a pseudo link to the placeholder: they will continue to have no affect on the cash balance. You must also delete all those "linked" transactions and re-enter them.]

To the best of my knowledge, placeholders don't get downloaded; they are either manually entered by the user, or they are entered by Quicken in response to a Compare to Register (which can be, and usually is, initiated by the user; or it can be initiated by a download). Usually the user gets the option to refuse to accept a placeholder resulting from a download, but there may be occasions when one is created by Quicken automatically.

What version (year) of Quicken do you use? What specific type of investment account are you working on?

If you have a version of Quicken earlier than Q2006, you may not be able to see your placeholders if they have had their historical transactions entered; that is, if you have entered enough Buy/Reinvest transactions to acquire the number of shares specified in the placeholder ... the placeholder will become hidden. The only way I know to see a placeholder in pre-Q2006 versions of Quicken, is to delete (or modify) one of the historical transactions for that placeholder (a Buy/Reinvest dated on or before the placeholder).

[Actually there might be one other way to "see" a hidden placeholder in pre-Q2006 files: export the account transactions to a QIF file, then open the qif file in a word processor and look for the "Entry" "Action" value.]

Quicken 401k accounts seem to have some variations on the "normal" expectations of placeholders. And possibly other tax deferred accounts may have some peculiarities that I have not figured out.

What happens if you create a New Quicken file; setup this one investment account; and enter the same transactions you were referring to at the beginning of your post?

Reply to
John Pollard

Thanks for your reply. I cannot answer your question fully until late today, after i get home from work, but will try to answer them to the best of my knowledge now.

I have Quicken 2006, it's an IRA account. Cant say i want to create a new quicken file because this one is relatively new. I came over from Ms Money at the first of the year.

Unlike some of my other accounts, this account was first created by me, (no transactions, gave it name only) but than got its transactions entered via download from TDAmeritrade.

"Usually the user gets the option to refuse to accept a placeholder resulting from a download"

I think in my error, i was given a choice and clicked yes an accepted it.

I cant really put together why this is happening, buying and sell are pretty straight forward type events, at least in my mind. This particular transaction actually only occurred in mid july06. I was thinking maybe because the name was getting confused with another or something, but that's not the case and i have never owned this stock prior to this transaction in this or any other account.

Thanks Again

John Pollard wrote:

222 11154 body Thanks for your reply. I cannot answer your question fully until late today, after i get home from work, but will try to answer them to the best of my knowledge now.

I have Quicken 2006, it's an IRA account. Cant say i want to create a new quicken file because this one is relatively new. I came over from Ms Money at the first of the year.

Unlike some of my other accounts, this account was first created by me, (no transactions, gave it name only) but than got its transactions entered via download from TDAmeritrade.

"Usually the user gets the option to refuse to accept a placeholder resulting from a download"

I think in my error, i was given a choice and clicked yes an accepted it.

I cant really put together why this is happening, buying and sell are pretty straight forward type events, at least in my mind. This particular transaction actually only occurred in mid july06. I was thinking maybe because the name was getting confused with another or something, but that's not the case and i have never owned this stock prior to this transaction in this or any other account.

Thanks Again

John Pollard wrote:

Reply to
bill

"bill" wrote

I think you misunderstood. The purpose of the New file is merely to indicate whether the problem has to do with your existing file ... or is some problem with Quicken or your financial institution. A new file will not have any corruption, nor have had any downloads from your fi. The new file is only for testing. You only need to create the one account you are having problems with and enter the same transactions that caused you problems in your existing file, then note the results, to complete the test.

I take it you mean this account was not converted from Money, but created as a new account in Q2006? That's a good piece of information, because sometimes the conversion from Money can cause some strange behavior.

If so, the solution to your problem may be as (relatively) simple as finding that placeholder and any historical transaction linked to it, and deleting them ... then re-entering the historical transactions. Since you have Q2006, you can elect to "Show hidden transactions" for your investment accounts ... that will cause all placeholders to display.

Reply to
John Pollard

Thanks.

Okay, will give that a shot when i get home, and thanks for tips on showing hidden transactions

John Pollard wrote:

Reply to
bill

Update.

Well it has to be something with that one account. I started a new account with nothing in it, added transactions without a problem. Try it again in the other account and get the same thing.

UPDATE 2, call me something, idiot comes to mind, deleted transactions again and re-enter and now its working.

Thanks for you help

bill wrote:

Reply to
bill

Sorry I forgot to suggest that. You would be surprised how many times deleting an investment account transaction and re-entering it will "solve" a problem.

Reply to
John Pollard

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