Quicken 2010 Stock sale Lot ID Problem

"Walt" wrote

"Walt" wrote

Thank you for your reply. I understand what you mean - I have one acct with a linked bank acct and a few without. This one is NOT linked to a bank acct. Any proceeds from stock sales, dividends, etc are supposed to be applied to this acct's cash balance. This occurs with each stock I have checked except for the one in question. I checked the "Edit Security Details" button and I could not find anything related to my problem there. If I enter the transaction normally and then go back and bring up as though I am going to edit it, the "Edit Sell - Shares Sold" screen comes up and it shows the "Record Proceeds?" box with its two choices grayed out. The proper box to apply proceeds to the acct's cash balance is checked but in grayed-out mode only AND the cash is NOT applied to the cash balance. With all other stocks this produces a NON-grayed-out box but otherwise the same AND the proceeds ARE applied to the cash balance. Somehow, it appears that a special instruction is automatically applied to this one particular stock and I can't figure out where or how. I hope it is not hiding in plain sight!!

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It sounds like you may have a placeholder in the account for - at least - that one security that you are trying to sell.

A "placeholder" is really a Quicken "Adjust Share Balance" transaction; it basically says that on the date of the placeholder, you owned the number of shares stated in the placeholder.

One property of a placeholder is that it will guarantee that you will own exactly the number of shares in the placeholder ... no matter what.

Another one of the properties of a placeholder is that it prevents transactions for the security whose balance it is adjusting, from affecting the cash balance of the account (those transactions dated on, or before, the date of the placeholder, are affected). This appears to be what you are reporting.

You can usually tell when a transaction is being affected by a placeholder because it will show "N/A" in the "Cash Amt" column, when you expected to see an actual amount there.

Placeholders (Adjust Share Balance transactions) have an "Action" value of "Entry" in the investment account "Transaction" list (the "register"). In an Investment Transaction report, they will show "*Placeholder" in the Action column.

[If you're not seeing the placeholder transactions in the account Transaction list, go to your Quicken "Preferences", select "Investment transactions", and put a check mark in "Show hidden transactions".]

Once a placeholder has affected other transactions, the only way to remove the effect and allow transactions for the security in the placeholder to alter the cash balance; is to delete the placeholder, delete the affected transactions (the ones with "N/A" in the Cash Amt), then re-enter the affected transactions.

Part of the process may also include making sure the share balance, for the security in the placeholder, is correct after removing the placeholder.