Placeholders -- ?!?!?

- L
- L
  
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posted
16 years ago

Mon, Apr 30, 2007 2:01 PM

I've used Quicken for literally decades.

But, the new 'placeholder' transactions for my portfolio really have me stumped.

I have an Ameritrade account, that had some cash in it, as well as stocks. Ameritrade 'moved' the cash into a money market, paying interest (all good). But Quicken made 'placeholders' for the move into "MMDA1".

The help file tells me to edit each placeholder transaction with the cost, value per share, etc. and I have...

But the "placeholder" transactions are still there.

When I look at my holdings, MMDA is not even listed. The old 'Cash' value is listed, with a balance of a few cents (something got lost in the shuffle, for sure). Quicken tells me my downloaded cash value for Ameritrade doesn't match my register (ummm.. yeah... I know).

Upshoot of it all is that the register bears little or no relationship to the totals of my investments.

I don't even know where to start. I mean, I could delete the placeholders... but then the cash portion of the account simply disappears. I used to be able to balance my ameritrade account information to what was downloaded, but no longer, thanks to the 'improvements' in the way Quicken handles things.

Does anyone have a suggestion/resource I can use to sort this out?

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- az-willie
  
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posted
16 years ago

Mon, Apr 30, 2007 3:00 PM

===================Quit using Quicken to track investments. Quicken is brain dead for anything but a simple checking account.

I just deleted my brokerage account in Quicken, put in the cash held on Dec 31, 2006 and the investments held on that day and then imported the months of this year from my broker because Quicken had become totally hosed on the investment account over the years.

Thought I would try to straighten it out and start again.

Waste of time.

Quicken does not understand options -- at all.

After going through all that I wound up with the infamous placeholders AGAIN for no apparent reason. I delete them and they come right back.

Quicken sucks for investments ... not worth bothering with.

Fortunately I also use Tradelog and Gainskeeper ( they each have good features ) and I don't use Quicken for info for the schedule D ... just thought it would be a good idea to have a third record as an ultimate backup. I don't believe I will waste any more time with it.

Someone oughta sue Intuit.

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- John Pollard
  
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posted
16 years ago

Wed, May 2, 2007 5:54 PM

I don't know that I can help at all; but my first suggestion would be to look at exactly what happened in the real world, and for how you can cause Quicken to reflect, as closely as possible, that real-world activity.

Example: I don't think the fi "'moved' the cash into a money market" (even you quoted "moved"). Didn't they "buy" shares of a money market mutual fund with the cash?

If that's true, where is the buy transaction in your Quicken account? Did the fi download a buy transaction? While I think they should, I'm not sure all do. If no Buy transaction was downloaded, it could indicate that the fi does not intend to download any "sweep" transactions (the buys and sells that maintain the balance in the mm fund).

For that situation, I think you have at least two options: manually enter the buys and sells yourself; or (if the fi offers it), have Quicken treat the mm fund as if it were brokerage cash (so no buy or sell transactions are needed, but no mm fund is seen either: cash=mm-fund-value). I can't tell you whether the latter will cause you to get offers for placeholders or not.

(To find out if Quicken can treat the mm fund as cash, go to Investing > Investing Activities > Adjust Cash Balance ... while the account Transactions tab is open. See if there is a "Cash Representation" button at the bottom of the dialog, if so click it ... if not, your fi doesn't offer the option.)

If your fi doesn't offer the mm-as-cash option (or you don't want to use it), and doesn't download sweep transactions, I think you're stuck manually entering the buys and sells for the mm fund ... or using the placeholders to track the mm fund value.

If you decide not to use placeholders, you should delete the non-placeholder transactions in your account for the mm, dated on, or before, the placeholder, that were entered in Quicken after the placeholder was entered. Then delete the placeholder(s). Then manually enter the buy(s) (and sells, if called for) to keep your mm fund balance in sync with your fi.