Hi, GW.
This kind of problem crops up often in Quicken. It may not have been
related to your HD failure.
Quicken is subject to the same rounding errors as all computer programs -
and Intuit's programmers have done an inadequate job of compensating for
them. It's not a new problem; we've complained about it for years.
If you buy 1 1/3 shares of a security, Q might calculate it internally as
1.3333333, but show it to you as 1.333. If you then sell all your shares,
you should have zero left, obviously. But, if you tell Q that you sold
1.333 shares, Q would record the sale of 1.333 shares and leave you with
zero in its reports, but with .0003333 left in its "permanent record" behind
the scenes. On the other hand, if you buy 1.6666667 shares, then sell the
1.667 shares that Q shows in its reports, Q would complain that you are
trying to sell more shares than you have. (If you use Lot Identification
for the sale, Q usually comes up with the right answer, but perhaps not if
you have been inconsistent in using this in the past.)
One way to reduce the problem is to always record purchases of shares as
exact 3-place decimals. In other words, if you buy 3 shares for $100, enter
it that way in Q. DO NOT enter the purchase as $100 worth at $33.33 per
share and let Q calculate the number of shares; it will record something
like 3.0003 shares. Instead, enter the $100.00 cash - to the penny - and 3
(or 3.000) shares, and let Q calculate the per-share price.
Q's rounding can be especially troublesome with mutual funds, which are
always declaring dividend and reinvesting them in some odd decimal number of
shares. Just remember to keep the accounting in pennies and .001 shares and
let the per-share price fall where it may. You may need to go back and
check all your prior entries, especially dividend reinvestments, to be sure
all the transactions are in even thousandths of a share.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
(Retired - no longer licensed to practice)
San Marcos, TX
rc@corridor.net
"gw1500se" <awingnut@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:nnjomvcrmsf8rbdko2eas76c84it8fp16r@4ax.com... I had a catostrophic HD failure. When I recovered Quicken form my backup a number of records were corrupt. I fixed most of them manually but have a problem with one security. It is a mutual fund that shows an incorrect number of shares (it should be 0). However, when I try to remove the shares (ShrsOut) it tells me it is a short transcation and will not remove them. Can anyone suggest how I can correct the shares balance? TIA.