Internet Retrieve / Transactions

[Gary T.]

Mark,
I have a couple of issues with this function, and am curious if there is a way to accomplish what I would like to have happen.
1. Broker is TDAmeritrade - when I retrieve transactions the transaction TYPE for an Account Fee is Sell from the default cash account, and interest earned in the default cash account is reinvested as a dividend and not interest. I also run Quicken 2011 in which the account fee is imported as a Management Fee so I know that transaction type is somewhere in the download. Can FM correctly ID these transactions, or is there a way to change the type in the Preview Importing Transactions Dialog?
2. Second isssue is somewhat cosmetic. I would the ability the resize the Preview Importing Transactions Dialog so that I do not have to use the horizontal scroll bar the see all of the data.
Thanks,
Gary T.

[fiscalis]

I'd like to echo Gary's comments about being able to re-size the Import Transactions Dialogue window.

Thanks for all you do Mark.

[Mark]

Hi Gary T.,

1) If you look in your log file, how are these being coded? Take a look in the "xmldump.txt" log file after retrieving. If you'd like me to look at it, either post those transactions here, or you can email me the log files (xmldump.txt and ofxretr.txt).

2) Agreed, that would be nice... Thanks for the feedback.

[Gary T.]

Mark,
The Interest Income transaction is identified in the xmldump.txt file in the MEMO field as MONEY MARKET INTEREST. However the INCOMETYPE field is DIV. The Account fee is also Identified in the MEMO field as MANAGEMENT FEE, while the TRNTYPE id is DEBIT. The problem with the interest is it will post as a dividend affecting tax reconcillation (1099DIV vs 1099INT). The Account Fee is posted as a redemption and not a negative reinvestment to the cash account. Anyway around this?
Thanks,
Gary T.

[Mark]

Hi Gary T.,

As you probably suspect, Fund Manager does not utilize the MEMO field for determining how to record a transaction. It does record this memo in the memo field, but that is all it is used for. It is just a free form text field that can vary wildly by broker, so it isn't something reliable to use for determining transaction type. It would of course be possible to parse the memo, but the best solution is for the broker to report these accurately using the available OFX definitions. I'm not sure I have a good work-around for you here, other than to manually edit these transactions after retrieving them. The Div -> Int is an easy edit, but the cash Sell to Account Fee would need to be a deletion and re-add as an account fee.

Maybe in the future we could allow you to make these changes directly in the Preview Transactions dialog, but for now, you'd have to make them after the retrieve is done.

[Gary T.]

Thanks - Good idea!

[jbaron]

Hi Mark,

I have a somewhat related question. I download transactions from Fidelity.

On May 1st, I downloaded 3 muni bond interest transactions. All were added to the default cash account, but only 1 of the 3 was actually associated with the muni bond that paid the interest. The other 2 were not. As a result, when I run a performance report on the positions, only 1 of the 3 bonds shows the distribution.

First, can you help me to understand what I might change in Fund Manager to get the association correct when the transaction is downlaoded? It seems weird that 1 of the 3 worked, while the others did not. Do I need to match the name, or something like that?

And second, is there any way, once a "bad" transaction comes in, to associate it with the correct security rather than whatever it is associated with at that point? I could not figure out how to do this, so my workaround was to delete and then re-enter the interest transaction. Fortunately, this did NOT cause Fund Manager to re-download the transaction from Fidelity.

Thanks,

Jeff

[Mark]

Hi Jeff,

When retrieving from a broker's OFX server transactions are matched up with existing investments based on the CUSIP investment property.

Where were the 2 transactions recorded? If the money was added to the default cash account, the 2 interest payments must have been recorded in some investment?

When you retrieve transactions, the "Preview" dialog shows what sub-portfolio and what investment the transactions are going into. You can also right mouse click on any transaction, and select "Transaction Details", to see all the information available on that transaction, including the CUSIP.

If the 2 transactions somehow went into a wrong investment, edit the CUSIP property of the investments, so they are set the same as how the CUSIP is reported by the broker's download.

Another point to consider is that if you have multiple investments with the same CUSIP, then you can't determine for sure which investment the transaction will go into. It is best to not have multiple investments in a given account with the same CUSIP.

[jbaron]

Thanks Mark. I'll check this out the next time an interest transaction comes through.

Jeff

[jbaron]

As an afterthought, when I checked the cusips in Fund Manager versus the cuips online, the ones in Fund Manager had a trailing blank. I suspect that that me be the issue.

Jeff

[Mark]

Hi Jeff,

Yes, a trailing space would cause a non-match. Normally you don't really ever have to edit the CUSIP directly, as the first time you retrieve for that transaction, Fund Manager will set up the CUSIP as reported by your broker. If you somehow manually started these investments, that may be a source of the problem. Also, when you retrieve next, watch the "New Investment" column in the "Preview" dialog. If it says "Yes" in that column, then no match on an existing investment was found, and it will be creating a new investment.

[jbaron]

Most of my investments were "created" via an import from Quicken, and I remember correctly, I had to manually enter some of the cusips. That's probably where my problem came from.

Jeff