Merrill Lynch not able to retrieve transactions

[JeanneMarie]

In particular, dividend reinvestments are not handled,

Right. This is one thing that I noticed right away. And I see that Mark has already posted different strategies. For sure you can edit the file you are going to import but it's possible that the path of least resistance will include a bit of manual tweaking inside Fund Manager after you've finished importing what can cleanly be imported. At times, it can be more comfortable than a long and wide spreadsheet--assuming there are not too many transactions to be entered individually. Your mileage may vary of course, but that's how I see it right now.

[surendar jeyadev]

In particular, dividend reinvestments are not handled,

Right. This is one thing that I noticed right away. And I see that Mark has already posted different strategies. For sure you can edit the file you are going to import but it's possible that the path of least resistance will include a bit of manual tweaking inside Fund Manager after you've finished importing what can cleanly be imported. At times, it can be more comfortable than a long and wide spreadsheet--assuming there are not too many transactions to be entered individually. Your mileage may vary of course, but that's how I see it right now.

I concur. After hearing the alternatives from Mark, I saw the light. It is best to import the cash dividends as true distributions and then edit just those transactions in FM, by checking the "Reinvested" box. All the needed data is in the downloaded CSV. A much more simple and transparent process.

Thank you for your comments and discussions. They were educational and very helpful.

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

I would rather keep this matter in the current thread rather than begin a new one.

TROUBLE!!!!

I downloaded the month end transactions as per your procedure and had no trouble
getting the transactions into FM. (Thankfully, the investments the I transferred into
Merrill from another subportfolio did not figure -- I simply moved the investments
into the Merrill folder in the Portfolio Manager. No mess there.)

But trouble began when I downloaded the holdings file (the CSV looks good to me)
and then tried to import it into FM. When I import the holdings file using the
Reconciliation wizard, I see a list of the unbalanced transactions which are not
correct. In the list are two stock positions that have not changed between the
last reconciliation (on 31 Oct 2025) and today and so they should not be there
(many other positions that have not changed are not there, but two definitely
are). Both errors seem to occur with naming/CUSIP (mis)matching. One row has
the name of the stock and the other the CUSIP number. In one row all the
position is in FundManager column and none in the Statement column and vice
versa in the other row.

The ML Direct Deposit Progrm also occurs twice on the list: one as
ML DIRECT DEPOSIT PROGRM () and also as ML DIRECT DEPOSIT PROGRM (990156937).
Again, in one row all the position is in FM and nothing in the statement and in the
other row it is vice versa. Some problems in matching names?

Another headache, in almost the same vein, are the 3 positions I transferred into
Merrill. Each has a pair of rows in the wizard, with the same issue as above. In this
sense they are doing the same as the two weird positions the did NOT change.

Lastly, the and "Finish" button in the wizard is grey and is locked out.

It appears that I may have edit what is shown in the reconciliation wizard
-- i.e. delete some of the rows tomake progress, but here I am treading on
very treacherous waters! I do not know what the repercussions are.

Please advice how best to progress.

Thanks.

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

One thought. Are you using CUSIP as the identifier? I found some curious
discrepancies.

Lam Research (LRCX):

My FM Properties tab has a CUSIP of 512807108. The Holdings download CSV from
Merrill has a CUSIP of 512807306.

My Eatorn Corp tab has a CUSIP of 278058102. The Holdings download CSV from
Merrill has a CUSIP of G29183103.

There has been no change in these positions over the last month. It appears that
they are not being recognized as "the same thing".

As long as QFX was in operation, these differences did not seem to matter. But,
should they? I do not know enough of FM to make a call.

The three positions transferred into FM also have no CUSIP in the Properties
tab. They did not cause any problems when I downloaded data from TR Price.
But, now, that may be an issue.

I do not want to monkey around any more till I hear from you.

Thanks for all the help.

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

Some relief and understanding, but would still like to clear up the issue raised in
my previous post.

First of all, here is my reconciliation process, which I have followed for about 20
years now. I do this once I have a new statement.

1. Update prices on the statement end date using Yahoo
2. Import the transactions corresponding to the the period of the statement
3. Check the imported transactions in the wizard against the statement
4. Hit "Finish" in the wizard if all is fine. (Rarely, one has to fine tune.)
5. Make a Portfolio Value Report corresponding to the end date and compare
with the statement.
6. Track any big discrepancy (usually, it is with the Yahoo prices being rounded
to two decimal places). If the two numbers are only a few cents of apart, that
is okay with me.
7. In the Reconcile Wizard, just choose "Manually Reconcile" <======

This may explain why I have so far not seen any CUSIP/Symbol issues while
reconciling. I do not know where the Eaton Corp and Lam Research CUSIPs
came from, but I would assume that they were from the transaction import
when the positions were acquired. Why they are wrong, I do not know.

The good news is that manual method worked! I checked the amount and
value of each position in FM against the statement and they are dead on
but the the price rounding errors (just one cent off in two cases).

However, I see the value of reconciling against the downloaded data as it
is more accurate and detailed than going with just the total portfolio value.

Would the solution be just fixing the CUSIP values in FM to match that of
the downloaded Holdings CSV?

Thanks for all your help.

[Mark]

Hi surendar jeyadev,

When reconciling using "Generic Position File" as the statement source, you must specify an input format string. It can have either SYMB or CUSIP, and whatever you specify is what is used for matching positions with existing investments in FM. You can read more about this by pressing the "Help" button while in the reconciliation wizard.

For Merrill, the input format is:

"MM/DD/YY","XX","XX","CUSIP","XX","XX","XX","ACCT","BNUM",XX

So, this means FM will look at the CUSIP value in the 4th column and use that when matching with your existing investments. So, make sure your existing investments have the same CUSIP value as is shown in the downloaded CSV holdings file.

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

So, this means FM will look at the CUSIP value in the 4th column and use that when matching with your existing investments. So, make sure your existing investments have the same CUSIP value as is shown in the downloaded CSV holdings file.

Thanks. Just what I thought, but I wanted to confirm. I will edit the Properties of the
investments in FM to match what is coming in from the CSV and give it a try.

But, I am happy that at least all positions were correctly updated and doing the
reinvestments within FM was a snap.

Thanks again for all the help.

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

Almost all the mismatches got fixed when I changed/entered the CUSIPs.

Two, however, remain.

The first is to do with a Blackrock MMF. Strangely, the value in the CSV is different
from the value in the PDF statement though both are dated 28 Nov 2025. A little
sleuthing showed that the one in the CSV includes a dividend paid on 1 Dec 2025!
The "Difference" is exactly equal to the amount.

The second involves the ML Direct Deposit Program. The difference is a pesky 18
cents. This is the kind of stuff I have, in the past, ignored while manually reconciling.

The Help says "If everything matches, click the Finish button to update your last
reconciled date for this sub-portfolio." But, here, there are these two differences.
How does one "ignore" such errors?

I am quite happy to go the Manual route, but I cannot find anything in Help on how
to handle these mismatches. Perhaps, there is none. But, if there is a way, I would
like to know as I do prefer to reconcile from the Holdings CSV.

One other awful thing with Merrill is that I find one cannot, unlike the transaction
download, specify a date! The only options I find today are "Close of business day"
(which happens to be the previous day) and "Intraday". So, if one misses to day
corresponding to the end of the statement period, the only option is to go the
manual route. Am I correct on this?

Sorry for being a pest, but this has become way more complex than I imagined.
Time to make more noise about letting QFX downloads??!!

Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi surendar jeyadev,

The only way to "ignore" differences is to choose the option to manually reconcile. You can only reconcile to the statement date in the statement source (the Merrill CSV file in this case). If there are errors in the share balances, you can correct them by entering whatever transactions are missing. We do have a tutorial on reconciling here.

[surendar jeyadev]

Mark,

Thanks again. You have clarified everything.

I guess I am more comfortable reconciling with the "real" (back in the day,
the paper statement that they mailed you via USPS) statement as that
data is an official record. The electronic version is often posted well after
the end of the month and so I will stick with the manual reconciliation.

I hope it is smooth, if slower, sailing from now.

[JeanneMarie]

Now that I have successfully imported transactions and reconciled the accounts, there remains one last issue, I think: The Merrill position file contains prices, but our process doesn't include capturing that info and updating prices in Fund Manager.

I've looked at the generic price import help page. But since that only uses ticker symbols, I guess one cannot update (most) bond prices this way?

I've found the process of retrieving prices from the internet to be pretty poor for bonds. An awful lot are simply unavailable--unless there's a much better server than I'm trying to use (FINRA).

But I've never needed to update prices frequently. Updating prices along with transaction retrieval worked fine for me, and that is doubly true for bonds. So I've got this data in a file right here. How can I get it into FM?

Thanks for any guidance.

[Mark]

Hi JeanneMarie,

We have instructions for importing prices from a Merrill position file here:

https://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/faq_merrill.php

See the bottom section on that page.

[JeanneMarie]

We have instructions for importing prices from a Merrill position file here:
https://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/faq_merrill.php
See the bottom section on that page.

Oh, I do apologize. It feels like I printed that page about a decade ago. But I had it right here. I do expect no problem.
Thanks again.

[JeanneMarie]

We have instructions for importing prices from a Merrill position file here: https://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/faq_merrill.php
See the bottom section on that page.

Oh, I do apologize. It feels like I printed that page about a decade ago. But I had it right here. I do expect no problem.
Thanks again.

Thanks again, Mark. But it's not quite clear. First, we are ignoring account. I've got three accounts in this file (specified in Column H). So if it should be in the format string (as "ACCT"?), it should be the fifth of the group of six adjacent "XX" substrings? If it's not in the format string, then I need three files?

Then NAV is column J but there are K-P columns. Does the format string's final XX without double quotes mean ignore all the rest of the line?

Thanks for any clarification.

[Mark]

Hi JeanneMarie,

When importing prices, the only data needed is date/symbol/price. Account # isn't used for pricing imports. The fields in the format string need to match up with the importing file. You can read more details by pressing the "Help..." button in the "File / Import / Prices / Generic..." dialog box.