tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:/discussions/switching-from-another-personal-finance-program/16925-short-sales-in-imported-qif-files-have-the-wrong-signInfinite Kind: Discussion 2022-03-31T04:17:25Ztag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/484199432020-06-23T00:50:38Z2022-03-31T04:17:25ZShort sales in imported QIF files have the wrong sign<div><p>I'm new to MD and trying it out to move away from Quicken by importing a Quicken QIF into MD 2019.3. Infinite Kind support has helped with several credit card online challenges. Now I'm looking at my investment accounts. I noticed gigantic negative balances in the Register and read that one solution is just to insert an offsetting initial balance and not worry about how the register looks prior to today. Not ideal, but I'll consider it if that's the <em>only</em> practical approach.</p>
<p>But I see an issue that contributes to this problem, namely that short sales in investment accounts have reversed dollar values, IOW -$xx instead of +$xx. So if I sell ABC short, the balance in MD's register decreases by $xx whereas I believe it should increase by $xx (and indeed in the original Quicken account it does increase by $xx). Is there a way to re-reverse all these signs without combing through all the transactions one-by-one?</p>
<p>Thanks for any pointers.</p></div>reddishegrettag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/484199432020-06-23T01:12:35Z2020-06-23T01:21:47ZShort sales in imported QIF files have the wrong sign<div><p>just a user here - Investment accounts are problematic in that the "final values" imported usually end up being correct as to cash assets and stock positions, but that the "cash change" imported is often incorrect, for many different types of transactions. I could list several, or you could search for a thread with the word "vicissitudes" in the title. to find many examples (I don't happen to do short sales, but you've now provided another example of the cash balance issue.)</p>
<p>So, I guess the hardest work was to make sure the values as of "today" are correct, but no one has worried very hard to make the past cash balance history or net worth correct.</p>
<p>So, yes, putting in an adjusting balance at the beginning of time, and then totally ignoring any cash balance from then till now, is practical, and somewhat easy.</p>
<p>That said, it didn't satisfy me either, as I didn't want my 35 years worth of data to have wonky balances - I probably won't even be around in 35 more years.</p>
<p>So - if you are willing to expend the energy - it took me weeks to massage my data to MD liking (not full time weeks, but I'm sure you get it) and yes, you can do it by groupings, and some things are fixable beforehand - so I'll let someone else answer your particular question.</p>
<p>But unless we can get MD to expand the time and energy to make a QIF import that is aware of Quicken peculiarties, it's either adjust those balances and live with it, or take a lot of time if you value past cash balance values.</p>
<p>Hope that helps a bit.</p></div>dtdtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/484199432020-06-23T06:19:30Z2022-03-31T04:17:25ZShort sales in imported QIF files have the wrong sign<div><p>Thanks for the helpful perspective, @dantdavis.</p>
<p>I'm probably not up to expending vast amounts of time to eradicate the "wonky balances." And for this short sale anomaly, the register entry loses the name of the security as well, which increases the amount of work to fully repair each transaction.</p>
<p>I can live with the initial balance adjustment trick for the time being, and move on to see if I encounter other troubling "vicissitudes." The fewer the better, because I dearly want to unshackle from Quicken.</p>
<p>Thanks again for your input.</p></div>reddishegret