Can you download transactions from Merrill Lynch brokerage?

dave344

Can anyone tell me if Merrill Lynch supports Quicken transaction downloads? I am trying to set up the account to download transactions thru online services but Quicken does not list Merrill Lynch as a financial institution. (There is a Merrill Lynch Mortgage and a Merrill Lynch Online Payments but not a broker) I have called Merrill Lynch twice and spoke with people who know absolutely nothing about Quicken and cannot help me. The account is actually a retirement account that was set up through Bank of America (BA) but it is not available as an online account in BA that I can link to in Quicken. I access the Merrill Lynch account on the web with a separate user name and login than BofA. The Merrill Lynch web site say it supports Quicken but then it gives out a phone number that is disconnected (800) 811-8766.) How can I get Quicken to connect to a Merrill Lynch brokerage?

Quicken Francisco

Hello @dave344

 

Thank you for reaching out on the community and telling us about your issue. When it comes to connecting to a Merrill Lynch you should be able to do so when adding an account. Go to Tools -> add account -> Brokerage. It should show up under Merrill Lynch Investments. Once you do this it will ask you to sign in and it might pull up an error message saying It's not you fault. At this point keep quicken open but go to Merrill Lynches website and sign in. The bank might have a message asking if you'd like quicken to be able to connect to your Merrill Lynch account. I don't recall if this is a popup that appears when you sign in or if it's a secure message in your inbox. 

Once you do that you should be able to try again to connect and see if it lets you connect. It'll be a bit different than before and hopefully should let you through to adding your accounts into quicken.

Please let us know if this helps resolve the issue for you.

 

Thanks,

 

Quicken Francisco

Boatnmaniac

There are several different Merrill Lynch FI listings in Quicken.  I just tried to set up an account for Merrill Lynch Investments and that was listed but being that yours is a retirement account you might need to do so with a different Merrill Lynch listing.  What is the URL for your online account with them?

Quicken Francisco

Hello @dave344

 

Thank you for reaching out on the community and telling us about your issue. When it comes to connecting to a Merrill Lynch you should be able to do so when adding an account. Go to Tools -> add account -> Brokerage. It should show up under Merrill Lynch Investments. Once you do this it will ask you to sign in and it might pull up an error message saying It's not you fault. At this point keep quicken open but go to Merrill Lynches website and sign in. The bank might have a message asking if you'd like quicken to be able to connect to your Merrill Lynch account. I don't recall if this is a popup that appears when you sign in or if it's a secure message in your inbox. 

Once you do that you should be able to try again to connect and see if it lets you connect. It'll be a bit different than before and hopefully should let you through to adding your accounts into quicken.

Please let us know if this helps resolve the issue for you.

 

Thanks,

 

Quicken Francisco

Chris_QPW

I know that my wife has a 401K that is handled by Merrill Lynch and all that is available for it is "Web Connect", as in download and import a QFX file from their website.

dave344

Thank you so much everyone for your insights. I have spent the better part of today trying to get help from Merrill and BofA without success ("What is Quicken?" they ask.) But I think Francisco hit on the nature of my problem: the account, a conservative retirement account invested in money market fund only, is set up as a checking account rather than a brokerage account. The financial institutions available for connection differ depending in the type of account (see attached screenshots.) So it appears I will not be able to connect to Merrill Lynch Brokerage with this account as currently configured. And there does not appear to be a way to "convert" from checking to brokerage account type. If I create a new account as type brokerage, is there a way to import the transactions from the old checking account and then delete the checking account and move forward as a brokerage? There are no investments involved, its only cash so I think that simplifies the issue somewhat. I remember a long time ago I went through a process where I exported a list of transactions from one account and then imported them into another. Is that still an option? Or is there a better solution to this problem?

Quicken Francisco

@dave344

Thanks for the response! I'm wondering actually if what Chris_QPW  might be the option we have to look at. If you go to their website you should be able to find an option to export the data of the account into a QFX format. I'm not entirely sure where exactly it's located but normally it's on the account details page. See if you can do that option and then if it is there go ahead and bring it in. 

If it is brought in can you right click on the account and select edit/delete account. Go to the account services tab at the top of the screen and there should a connection listed now. You could try clicking on the blue little box that says something along the lines of improve this connection method. I'm not sure if it will let you sign in or not but it's worth a shot there. If not we're still at least able to bring in the file from the website to get the transactions in there.

Let us know how it goes!

-Quicken Francisco

dave344

Thank you all for your help. I created the new brokerage account and then manually entered the transactions. I was fortunate in that it was a very simple account: just four deposits over four years with monthly interest earnings. I consolidated all of the monthly interest payments into four annual payments and I was able to recreate the entire account by entering less than a dozen transactions. I thought this approach might be safer than importing data from a file. But the QFX file suggested by Chris_OPW could have helped if I was dealing with a larger, more extensive account.

Once I was working with the proper type of account the connection to Merrill Lynch was no longer a problem.

Thanks again for all your help.

Quicken Francisco

@dave344

Awesome to hear that you were able to figure it out without needing to enter too much!

If in the future you decide you might want to download I would still recommend trying out the method that Chris_OPW uses in web connect.

Have a great rest of your day!

-Quicken Francisco