About placeholder entries

What is a placeholder entry?

Quicken enters a placeholder entry when you’re missing part of your investment transaction history. For any security, if the total number of shares bought or added in your transaction list doesn’t match the number of shares in your account, Quicken adds a placeholder entry to make up the difference.

Placeholder entries:

• Appear only in an investment transaction list.

• Show in the Placeholder Entries section under the investment register for the account.

• Identify the security name and the number of shares added to or subtracted from the account (for example, 50 shares of Intuit).

• Don’t include a purchase date or price.

Because placeholders don’t include a date or price, Quicken can’t use them for performance reporting or tax planning tools. You need to resolve placeholder entries if you want to use these tools, but not if you only want to track holdings in Quicken.

How does Quicken know I am missing transactions?

Each time you download transactions from your brokerage or financial institution, Quicken also downloads holdings information for your account. Quicken compares the shares in your transaction list to the shares reported in your holdings.

For example:

• Your transaction list shows 200 shares of Intuit.

• You download a buy transaction for 70 more shares, bringing your transaction list total to 270.

• Your broker’s holdings report says you hold 300 shares.

In this case, Quicken adds a placeholder entry for the missing 30 shares.

When should I add missing transactions?

Add missing transaction history for a security if you want performance monitoring, tax tracking, or a complete historical record. As you enter the missing transactions, Quicken subtracts shares from the placeholder entry until the shares are zero.

Avoid automatic balance adjustments

If you enter historical transactions while placeholder entries are still in the register, Quicken might automatically create balance adjustments for some transaction types to keep your share totals and cash balance in sync.

To avoid unexpected balance adjustments:

1. Delete the placeholder entries.

2. Enter the missing transactions again until the shares reconcile without adjustments.

401(k) note

The first time you download transactions into a 401(k) account, Quicken uses special 401(k) placeholder entries to help account for employer and employee contributions. You don’t need to edit these.

Why am I missing transactions?

Quicken can add a placeholder entry in these situations:

• When you add the account, you choose to enter only holdings information.

• You back-enter historical transactions for some (but not all) securities in an account.

• You back-enter historical transactions for only a limited time period (for example, just the past year).

• You start with a complete transaction history or cost basis, but too much time passes between downloads.

Financial institutions keep only a limited period of transaction history available for download. To reduce missing history, download regularly—at least once every three months.