In my investment accounts I have money market funds (which appear in Quicken as shares). When cash appears in the broker account from dividends or equity sales, the cash is automatically swept into the money fund.
When I download my transactions, the money market fund number is always off in Quicken and Quicken places placeholders in the money market fund which it treats as "shares". I suspect Quicken is only following whatever way the financial institution codes these transactions, but maybe I just have not set the Quicken account correctly. These placeholders are very annoying as I have to follow up each one and try to figure it out and list the cost of each "share" as $1.
Is there a better way to set up Quicken to handle these "money market shares" that the broker accounts sweeps cash into?
Unless you have discovered a new "capability" in Quicken that I have never seen; Quicken never just "places placeholders" anywhere ... you must tell Quicken to enter those placeholders. And, in my experience: you can ALWAYS refuse those placeholders ... and probably always should.
I can't tell you what your specific fi is doing, but I can tell you that financial institutions do not always download correct transactions and/or correct holdings. If the transactions that your fi downloads, combined with the transactions that you may have manually entered in your investment account register, do not add up to the holdings that your financial institution downloads, there will be a discrepancy - and Quicken will ask if you want to allow Quicken to create an adjustment to correct that discrepancy. If you do not want to have the problems you are now reporting (those placeholders) ... SAY NO!
There is NO way to avoid getting asked to allow Quicken to compensate for differences between the balances represented by your transactions and the holdings downloaded by your fi. If your fi is not downloading correct transactions and/or your financial institution is downloading incorrect holdings: contact your fi. If you are manually entering transactions that contribute to the discrepancy between the transactions in your Quicken register and the holdings downloaded by your fi ... stop doing that.
I guess I mispoke. Quicken does notice the discrepancy in the downloaded money market balances and therefore asks if it can place a placeholder. I of course say yes so I can then check it out. (I do not enter anything manually in these accounts).
When I check out these money fund placeholders, I notice it is because when my broker accounts sweeps cash into the money market fund (which it does by "buying" shares in the money market fund), Quicken does not recognize this "share" purchase the way it recognizes other equity purchases (I think). I therefore have to make the correction manually.
Obviously my FI (Smith Barney) is not sending that particular transaction in a way that Quicken can recognize as a purchase from cash like it recognizes other equity purchases. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to deal with this recurrent nuisance.
Due to a merger, I am just now beginning to use Smith Barney; have not done so long enough to have a good handle on their specific approach to downloading mm fund transactions, including sweeps, and cash in general. But it does look to me like they are downloading the purchase of mm fund shares.
1.) You don't have to accept the placeholder to determine what discrepancy Quicken believes exists. The dialog that asks you about accepting the placeholder indicates the number of shares Quicken thinks you hold, the number of shares your fi says you hold, and the difference. Whenever - and as long as - such a discrepancy exists, you can reproduce that discrepancy information by going to the Online Center, selecting the fi, clicking the Holdings tab, then clicking the "Compare to Portfolio" tab.
2.) Accepting the placeholder invites problems; not the least of which is that any transaction you enter to "satisfy" the placeholder, will be permantly linked to that placeholder and will never correctly affect the cash balance in the account ... even if you delete the placeholder.
3.) I'm not sure what you mean that "Quicken does not recognize this 'share' purchase the way it recognizes other equity purchases". Are you getting a "Bought" transaction for the mm fund shares? Is it for the correct amount? Is it for the correct number of shares? If it is different from "other equity purchase" transactions, how is it different?
4.) If Smith Barney can not, or will not, download the mm purchase/sale transactions, I suggest you refuse Quicken's offer to adjust the share balance and just enter the mm purchase/sale transactions manually. I see no alternative, nor any drawback. If Smith Barney is downloading some sort of transaction for the purchase/sale of the mm fund, but it is not correct; you can either accept it, then correct it manually, or delete the downloaded transaction before accepting it, and manually enter a new correct transaction.
Didn't Q allow way back to declare an FI's MM as cash (one share=one $)? Then all movements concerning that MM would be subsumed into the cash in the account and no placeholders would be necessary.
I think you had to advise Q of the ticker symbol for that MM.
Yes, such an option exists (according to Quicken Help, anyway). But I believe that the financial institution must offer it, and I believe you select it when you setup the account for transaction download. I don't use the option, and I can't even remember that I was ever offerred it.
Still, if the if doesn't offer the option, or the user doesn't elect to use it; the fi should still download correct buy/sell/reinvest transactions for the money market fund.
(Fidelity is the opposite; they download the transactions, but not the holdings.)
I'll look into that. I think the problem may well be that I am not handling the question about handling the placeholder correctly and maybe that is what has continuously messed things up from early on. I'll see what I can do in next month's downloads. I always found the placeholders both useful and yet confusing.
Jay, it depends on how your broker handle the MMF. I have had them where they report shares (thus a symbol) and a price of $1.00 that only has to be entered once. I have also had them report it as cash. I would determine how your broker reports it to you and go with the way easiest to reconcile. Note you may have to change the transaction type that is downloaded to accomplish this.
Jay, it depends on how your broker handle the MMF. I have had them where they report shares (thus a symbol) and a price of $1.00 that only has to be entered once. I have also had them report it as cash. I would determine how your broker reports it to you and go with the way easiest to reconcile. Note you may have to change the transaction type that is downloaded to accomplish this.
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