How do I resolve placeholder entries?

Quicken enters a Placeholder Entry if you're missing part of your transaction history. For any given security, if the total number of shares bought or added in your transaction list doesn't equal the number of shares in your account, then Quicken enters a placeholder entry to make up the difference. Placeholder entries are shown in the Placeholder Entries section under the investment register of the account.

Open the account you want to use.
In the Placeholder Entries window below the register, see if there are any placeholders. You can quickly identify this by the number of placeholder entries displayed in the window header.
If you just want to remove the placeholder entries, select Delete All, otherwise continue.
Note: You can also delete individual placeholder entries from your account register.
Select Enter Cost to edit the missing transaction. The Enter Missing Transactions screen will appear.
In the Enter Missing Transactions dialog, click the appropriate option. Review the options below to learn more.
- Enter Missing Transaction
  - In the investment transactions dialog, from the Enter transaction field, choose a transaction type, and then fill in the required information. In the Date field, be sure to enter a date prior to the placeholder's As of date (displayed on the Enter Missing Transactions dialog).
  - Click Enter/Done.
    - What happens next?
      Quicken displays the Enter Missing Transactions dialog again. The transaction you just entered should be added to the Transactions as of list. The number of shares listed in the Holdings as of area, in the Shares in Placeholder Entry line, should be reduced by the number of shares you entered in this transaction.
  - Click Enter Missing Transaction and repeat the above steps until you've entered all missing transactions.
    - What happens next?
      When you've entered all missing historical transactions prior to the As of date, then the Shares in Placeholder Entry line on the Enter Missing Transactions dialog will equal zero.
- Estimate Average Cost
  Enter the appropriate information, and click OK.
  - If your statement reports Average Cost: In the Cost field, enter the total cost for all shares you own of this security.
  - If you remember the price you paid or can look it up on your statement or financial institution website, enter the individual cost per share.
    - What happens next?
      Whichever value you enter, Quicken calculates the second value based on the total number of shares you own.
Repeat this process for all securities that have placeholder entries.

Choosing an option

Enter Missing Transactions to get complete performance reporting and tax planning assistance. You'll need to enter the missing historical transactions for all securities you own.

Use the Estimate Average Cost shortcut if you're willing to estimate historical data for this security. Quicken will report approximate values for some performance and tax calculations.

For more information, see About placeholder entries.

About the Estimated Average Cost dialog

In the As of field

Quicken displays the date of your placeholder entry for this security:

If you added this account by downloading transactions and holdings information from your financial institution, then this is the date of your first download.
If you added this account by manually entering holdings information from a brokerage statement, then this is the statement ending date.

In the Holdings area of the dialog

Quicken displays the following:

Total shares you own: This is the number of shares you own(ed) on the As of date.
- If you added this account by downloading holdings information from your financial institution, then this number is from your brokerage's online records.
- If you added this account by manually entering holdings information, then this is what you owned on the ending date of the statement you used to add the account.
Shares from transactions: These are the shares accounted for by any historical transactions you entered or downloaded prior to the As of date.
Shares in Placeholder Entry: This is the number of shares represented by a placeholder entry. Whenever the shares entered in historical transactions don't equal the total number of shares you own, Quicken either prompts you to enter a Placeholder, or enters it for you. These are the shares that don't have historical cost basis information.

Tips about what you see in the Enter Missing Transactions dialog

In the Transactions as of list

Quicken displays all the historical transactions you've entered or downloaded for this security:

Date of the transaction
Transaction type
Description of the number of shares and the cost per share for each transaction

In the Holdings as of area

Quicken displays the following:

Total shares you own: This is the number of shares you own(ed) on the As of date.
Shares from transactions: These are the shares accounted for by any historical transactions you entered or downloaded prior to the As of date. These are in the transaction list above. As you add historical transactions, the transaction list populates and this number grows.
Shares in Placeholder Entry: This is the number of shares represented by a placeholder entry. Whenever the shares entered in historical transactions don't equal the total number of shares you own, Quicken either prompts you to enter a Placeholder, or enters it for you. These are the shares that don't have historical cost basis information. As you add historical transactions, the transaction list populates, and this number shrinks. When it reaches zero, you've successfully entered all missing transactions as of the placeholder date.

Tips about tracking cost basis for mutual funds
By default, Quicken tracks the cost basis for stocks according to the lots you purchased. The IRS allows cost basis for some mutual funds to be tracked on an average cost basis. Use this only to track mutual funds. If you're uncertain as to whether a given security is eligible to be tracked using the average cost, contact your tax advisor.
If you change from lot ID to average cost, Quicken discards the lot information. Back up your Quicken data file before doing this.