|
Posted by John Pollard on April 12, 2006, 9:14 am
Please log in for more thread options Jeff wrote:
> John Pollard wrote:
>> Jeff wrote:
>>> 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!
>
> 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.
>
> Sorry if I am still not clear or confused.
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.
--
John Pollard
First initial underscore Last name at mchsi dot com
Please reply to newsgroup
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap