Why does Quicken still double count cash balances?

My Merrill Lynch brokerage account balances are wrong in Quicken, and they always have been. Quicken counts the cash balance twice, once as a cash sweep account, and once as cash. (I'm not sure to what degree this is a problem with other brokerage accounts.)
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  • maureenmoore1
    maureenmoore1 Member ✭✭
    I am having the exact same problem on all three of my Merrill Lynch brokerage accounts. I spent an hour on the phone with Quicken this morning and they were unable to fix it or even point me in the right direction other to say that I should call ML as the problem is theirs. I have opened a ticket with ML and will hopefully get to the bottom of this and fix it.
  • UKR
    UKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Are all of the Sweep transactions recorded properly in Quicken, Cash sweep from cash to money market fund as well as cash sweep from money market back to cash?
    My brokerage doesn't even bother to download cash sweep transactions, so I simply maintain my cash balance as the sum of cash plus money market fund balance. No muss, no fuss, ...
  • Richard Patterson
    Richard Patterson Member ✭✭✭
    I was having trouble reconciling my Quicken account with statements from Merrill Lynch and finally figured out that the problem is that Merrill Lynch does not download cash sweeps as a transaction for Quicken. I think they used to and stopped sometime during 2019. The only fix I can see is to manually enter the cash sweep each month. I have sent a request to my financial advisor at Merrill Lynch to let someone in their tech department know that it would be easier for Quicken users if sweeps were reported as transactions.
  • maureenmoore1
    maureenmoore1 Member ✭✭
    All of the transactions download accurately and both cash accounts have the correct balances. The two cash accounts are added together and listed in the "cash balance" line at the bottom of the portfolio view. Both the total of the cash accounts and the cash balance total are added into the Market Value figure at the top right of the portfolio view. Therefore, the cash accounts are being counted twice. The exact same thing is happening in all three of my ML accounts. (CMA plus 2 IRA's).
  • gonzojohnson
    gonzojohnson Member ✭✭
    Back in 2015, I raised an issue on a discussion thread about Quicken for Mac double counting cash for Merrill Lynch accounts. Since then, the issue was fixed. However, on or around January 1, 2020 it started doing it again. So for my Merrill Lynch account Quicken counts the cash twice and inflates the apparent value.

    Here's the old thread for reference: https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7205331/i-have-quicken-2015-for-mac-all-accounts-linked-fine-except-for-merrill-lynch-quicken-doubles
  • Quicken_Tyka
    Quicken_Tyka Alumni ✭✭✭✭

    Hello @robeal

    Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to post your issue, although I apologize that you haven't received a response. 

    We will need a bit more information to be able to assist. Please take a moment to review the information here and post back with the year and version of Quicken you are currently running.

    Also, please include the name of the financial institution this occurring with.

    The more information you can provide regarding this issue will help the Community to better understand and assist.

    Thank you,

    -Quicken Tyka


    ~~~***~~~
  • BobbyD
    BobbyD Member
    Same thing has happened to me. Hopefully this will be corrected soon.
  • goldman_2001
    goldman_2001 Member ✭✭
    I have the same problem. This just started a few days ago.
    What's with the QA at Intuit these days? Seriously people.
  • maureenmoore1
    maureenmoore1 Member ✭✭
    I have Quicken 2017 for Mac. Version 4.8.6. The error appeared when the 4.8.6 update was installed recently. Happens with all of my Merrill Lynch accounts. In all 3 of my ML accounts, the error in the total value always matches the amount in the Cash Balance/Available Cash line at the bottom.
  • simont
    simont Member ✭✭
    Same here. I spend HOURS with your online help folks who insist it is "not our fault", but Merril's. I spoke with Merril and they says it's a Quicken problem. Please address this ASAP for all our sakes. Thank you.
  • Richard Patterson
    Richard Patterson Member ✭✭✭
    I have managed to reconcile my Quicken account with my monthly statements from Merrill Lynch. I thought I would post my conclusions, which I have also passed along to my contact at Merrill Lynch.

    The main issue is that Merrill Lynch does not include cash sweeps in its data downloads to Quicken. I use Direct Connect between Quicken and Merrill Lynch and Quicken has no control over what data Merrill Lynch sends when I connect. Merrill Lynch downloads balance information for the money market fund used for the sweeps, but it does not download any transactions for the sweeps. Quicken credits dividends, sales, etc to the cash balance that it maintains on its own so that when a sweep moves money from cash to the money market account, Quicken shows an increase the money market balance but there is no corresponding debit to the cash balance for the account.

    Merrill Lynch shows the cash sweep transactions on its monthly statement, but In order to reconcile the Quicken account properly it is necessary to manually enter the sweep as a purchase of “shares” in the money market account. This means the account balances in Quicken will only be reliable once a month. Merrill Lynch could probably solve this problem by just including sweep transactions as purchase and sales of the money market holding at $1 a share.

    A second problem is that Merrill Lynch does not include money market account interest in its downloads to Quicken. It seems to assume that the interest is credited directly to the money market account. The only way Quicken can track interest payments for the money market account is to credit interest to cash and then “purchase" shares of the money market account. To cure this problem Merrill Lynch would have to download two transactions for the interest: the interest itself as interest income for the holding and the cash sweep transaction to credit it to the money market account.

    There is another minor issue which would probably require cooperation between Merrill Lynch and Quicken. Quicken seems to book sales and purchases on the transaction date rather than the settlement date. This is not really a problem except when unsettled transactions carry over from the end of one month to the beginning of another month. The balance for the assets in the account and the cash will be off in Quicken until after the settlement date. I thought there was a way to tell Quicken to wait until the settlement date to book the sales and purchases, but I can’t find it.
  • chirashi
    chirashi Member ✭✭
    I should note that Personal Capital downloads my Merrill Lynch accounts, and shows the correct account values. So someone else has figured out how to avoid double-counting the cash sweep balance. Why can't Quicken?
  • djmorris32
    djmorris32 Member ✭✭
    I am having the same problem. It just started the beginning of January 2020. It has been fine for the past few years so there must be a fix.
  • BobbyD
    BobbyD Member
    Really wish this would be fixed.
  • maureenmoore1
    maureenmoore1 Member ✭✭
    It doesn't look like anyone from Quicken is monitoring this thread. Obviously, there was a glitch introduced in the last update which renders Quicken useless if your investment accounts are at Merrill Lynch.
  • Quicken_Tyka
    Quicken_Tyka Alumni ✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2020
    Hello all,

    Thank you for your responses, although I apologize that this trouble with Merrill Lynch continues to persist.

    At this point, I would recommend contacting support directly for in-depth troubleshooting steps.

    https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support

    Thank you,

    -Quicken Tyka

    ~~~***~~~
  • BobbyD
    BobbyD Member
    How many quicken subscribers download form Merrill Lynch? Strange that it all worked fine until very late 2019 and early 2020.
  • maureenmoore1
    maureenmoore1 Member ✭✭
    I tried calling Quicken support before seeking help here. I was told that the problem was caused by Merrill Lynch, not Quicken. That there had been no recent update to Quicken/Mac 2017 (which we all know is not true). And that I should buy the new Quicken 2020 and hope that the problem is not on that version as well. Merrill Lynch researched this problem extensively for me and it is not caused by them. It was caused by the recent Quicken update.!
  • I just bought and installed Quicken Mac 2020 and the same problem exists there. I talked to Q support and did a screen share so they could see and confirm the problem exists on ML accounts. I.e. Adding the Cash line into the Total. Since that money is also counted elsewhere, it is counting the same money twice throwing the totals way off and then propagating incorrect totals to other reports. He is going to escalate the matter. Until they do an update to fix this bug, Merrill totals will be wrong if you have any cash/money markets in your brokerage accounts.
  • carlene
    carlene Member ✭✭
    Hello community & Qucken Support - I have just loaded up my Fidelity accounts and this same problem is occurring. i.e. it is showing cash balance separately but then also including this amount in 401k line. So it is occurring with more than ML accounts! I have Windows 2020, R24.14, Build 27.1.24.14.

    Does Quicken Support come back when they have a solution?
  • patsmac
    patsmac Member ✭✭
    I'm having this same problem since the update. My cash values are about Double. Are there a set of instructions to correct this? or is it in the update?
  • patsmac
    patsmac Member ✭✭
    Update: I have quicken 2020 for Mac, I have Quicken for about a year and have not seen the cash value issue until the past couple weeks, I was hoping it would start reading correctly. I have not made any changes to my accounts or set up
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