I saw a new PortfolioCenter error message today. After 20 years of using PortfolioCenter, I did not think this was possible.
One of my managers called with the following problem. While working in the details of a Group, he received the warning message “Please enter a valid date.” He was on the Accounts tab, and he could not move past it. The warning message flashed anew with each mouse click.
After taking control of his screen, I noticed the Compute Performance Inception box was checked and the Performance Inception Date Field held the date ’01/02/1900.’ I have been using PortfolioCenter a long time, but not that long! Now we had a clue to the missing piece of the puzzle.
We began checking each account in the Group, looking for a transaction in the 1900s. Eventually, we found two transactions in one account with a blank Trade Date field. He swears he never touched the offending transactions. But since the Trade Date fields were populated in my copy of the data, I can only conclude it was the work of the mischievous data-gremlins who strike the minute tech support closes.
Once we re-entered the dates and recomputed the intervals, the problem resolved.
But what if you don’t have a backup copy from which to retrieve the data? Hopefully, you’ll learn your lesson and start making backups. In the meantime, you could use the date in “Interface File Date” field (which you’ll find in the details of each transaction) as a replacement for the missing trade date. This field holds the date of the interface file which contained the original transaction. This date is typically close, if not identical, to the trade date.
Have a data problem? Let me help.
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