How do I set a money market fund as my brokerage "cash" account?

John Burgess

I have multiple brokerage accounts at Fidelity.
In one, it uses "FIDELITY TREASURY MONEY MARKET FUND" (ftmmf - my abbreviation, not the ticker symbol) as the "cash" account.
When I get a dividend from ftmmf (or any mutual fund) it stays as "cash".

Another brokerage account uses "FIDELITY GOVERNMENT MONEY MARKET" (fgmm) as the cash account.  However, whenever I get any dividend, it "buys" fgmm to keep the "cash" at zero.  How can I get fgmm to be treated as cash, just like ftmmf is in my other account?  Is this a setting in Quicken? Or is it something I have to set on each Fidelity account at Fidelity?

I'm using Quicken Mac Delux 2018, v5.7.2 (the latest, I think).

I apologize if this has been asked and answered. I searched and couldn't find anything.

UKR

Unless your brokerage downloads transactions into Quicken that relate to "rollover events", idle cash being rolled over into or out of these money market funds ...
I wouldn't bother with recording manual Buy or Sell rollover transactions. I've stopped doing that years ago with my investment accounts.
For recording interest or cash dividend transactions I have created a Mutual Fund entry, but the cash I receive stays in the account's cash balance.
Bottom line: Any cash invested in these MMFs stays in my account's cash balance. When I reconcile my investment account against the monthly statement, I reconcile the cash balance against the sum of uninvested idle cash plus any MMF shares reported by the broker.

Unknown

UKR said:

Unless your brokerage downloads transactions into Quicken that relate to "rollover events", idle cash being rolled over into or out of these money market funds ...
I wouldn't bother with recording manual Buy or Sell rollover transactions. I've stopped doing that years ago with my investment accounts.
For recording interest or cash dividend transactions I have created a Mutual Fund entry, but the cash I receive stays in the account's cash balance.
Bottom line: Any cash invested in these MMFs stays in my account's cash balance. When I reconcile my investment account against the monthly statement, I reconcile the cash balance against the sum of uninvested idle cash plus any MMF shares reported by the broker.

I would like to point out that I think the answer really depends on what the financial institution sends to Quicken.

In the case of Fidelity they don't send any buys/sells for the "cash security".
As such I do exactly what UKR does and just leave it as the cash balance.

In the case of Vanguard they send buys and sells in and out of their "cash security".
So I accept them in and there isn't any cash balance in those accounts.

It is basically just picking the path of the least resistance.

If I was to force Fidelity's "cash" into securities I would have to put in buys/sells manually.

If I was to force Vanguard's "cash" to be stored in Quicken cash balance I would have to delete those buys/sells.

John Burgess

UKR said:

Unless your brokerage downloads transactions into Quicken that relate to "rollover events", idle cash being rolled over into or out of these money market funds ...
I wouldn't bother with recording manual Buy or Sell rollover transactions. I've stopped doing that years ago with my investment accounts.
For recording interest or cash dividend transactions I have created a Mutual Fund entry, but the cash I receive stays in the account's cash balance.
Bottom line: Any cash invested in these MMFs stays in my account's cash balance. When I reconcile my investment account against the monthly statement, I reconcile the cash balance against the sum of uninvested idle cash plus any MMF shares reported by the broker.

I think the answer to my question derives from what you said: “...depends on what the financial institution sends to Quicken.” Fidelity must be sending the buy fgmm transaction, so I need to tell fidelity to treat fgmm as cash, somehow. I’ll call fidelity....


Thanks for clarifying.

NotACPA

UKR said:

Unless your brokerage downloads transactions into Quicken that relate to "rollover events", idle cash being rolled over into or out of these money market funds ...
I wouldn't bother with recording manual Buy or Sell rollover transactions. I've stopped doing that years ago with my investment accounts.
For recording interest or cash dividend transactions I have created a Mutual Fund entry, but the cash I receive stays in the account's cash balance.
Bottom line: Any cash invested in these MMFs stays in my account's cash balance. When I reconcile my investment account against the monthly statement, I reconcile the cash balance against the sum of uninvested idle cash plus any MMF shares reported by the broker.

There's no need to call Fidelity.  Just sell all of your fgmm security and leave the funds in your account as cash.

Unknown

UKR said:

Unless your brokerage downloads transactions into Quicken that relate to "rollover events", idle cash being rolled over into or out of these money market funds ...
I wouldn't bother with recording manual Buy or Sell rollover transactions. I've stopped doing that years ago with my investment accounts.
For recording interest or cash dividend transactions I have created a Mutual Fund entry, but the cash I receive stays in the account's cash balance.
Bottom line: Any cash invested in these MMFs stays in my account's cash balance. When I reconcile my investment account against the monthly statement, I reconcile the cash balance against the sum of uninvested idle cash plus any MMF shares reported by the broker.

Not only is there "no need" to call Fidelity, it would do no good.  They aren't going to change the information they send to Quicken just because you want it.

That is why I said take the path of the least resistance.

If there are buys and sells leave them.  If there aren't don't add them.

If there is buys, but no sales or the other way around, well that is a reason to complain to Fidelity for doing it wrong.  I will say that isn't what I'm seeing in my Fidelity account.  They send neither buys or sells of the "cash security", so I just maintain it as a cash balance.

tommystox

I agree about leaving the "dollars" in the "cash security" and that is okay with one exception.  When I do Quicken "Reports" of the brokerage account, that cash balance appears twice.  (This is a Quicken bug, but a subject for another day).  Depending on which report, the report is false because my CORE money market (I use FZFXX, but that isn't affecting anything negatively) balance is double its actual value.  For me, the "Report" issue is validated monthly by the Account Statement (typically:  HOLDINGS/Core Account on page 3).  This method isn't perfect, but I think it is as good as it will be (near term at least).  However, if there are UNsettled trades at month-end, things get a tad rougher.  On the website, you then have to look at  BALANCES tab, select your account, and then expand all "Balances" view.  Next, find the TOTAL ACCOUNT VALUE (expand it), then under that section there should be an entry Credit (either Margin or Cash) which displays the amount of the UNsettled transactions awaiting transfer to the "cash" balance (i.e., Core Money Market).  This is the way I am able to validate the Brokerage Core (i.e., cash/money market) amount.  I've been with Fidelity doing for nearly 3 years (100+ trades per year), and the Core balance is correct to the penny (the hard part is knowing how to read the Fidelity statements and web tabs).  Good luck, I hope this helps someone!