Why doesn't Quicken download my Merrill Lynch cash held in Bank Of America at my brokerage?

Jay411

I have been able to successfully use Quicken to download balances and details of my Merrill Lynch brokerage account EXCEPT for by Bank of America CMA held at Merrill. Therefore I am not getting imports of the balance or any checks I write against the account like I do with a separate checking account I hold at another bank. Can someone help me here? Is it a setting I can adjust on either my Quicken account of my Merrill account? Like another user commented, when I called Merrill on this they didn't know what Quicken was!

John_in_NC

There isn't a setting you can change.

Before we go further, do you have your ML brokerage account setup in Quicken? And if so, is the total value shown include or exclude your cash balance?

Jay411

First off John _in_NC, thank you for responding!! I've spent hours and hours on this and am stumped! Yes, my ML brokerage account is set up in Quicken. But unlike my Banking and Credit Card balances and transactions that match precisely what I can view online when I "Update All Online Accounts", my Quicken "Investing" listed total balance and individual sub-accounts don't align with what I can view on my ML online account. I can get over some difference given the complexities. But when I drill down into the Quicken Portfolio and Transactions of each separate ML sub-account, what my online ML CMA account lists as ML BANK DEPOSIT PROGRAM which is cash seems to simply come over into Quicken as "Cash" but with a significantly lower balance then what I can view on my online ML account. (Not sure this is relevant but the same happens in the rest of the ML Investing sub-accounts where the available cash is held in what ML refers to as BANK OF AMERICA, NA RASP - symbol IIAXX.) My wife and I use our ML CMA as our primary checking account so tracking and catagorizing transactions in Quicken is essential if I am to track our Budget. To further complicate things, I have now found that our CMA transactions did indeed download into Quicken. But when I properly catagorized each of the transactions into my available Budget categories, they don't seem to register or roll-up into my Budget like my Banking or Credit Card transactions do when I categorize them! Sorry for all the detail and hope I explained it well. But I am hopeful this might help you sleuth my issue. THANK YOU!!

John_in_NC

Hi again, Jay:

I don't have a solution, but at least you know the direction to look in:

While most brokerages hold the cash in a money market fund. Some brokerages, instead of simply sending/showing a cash balance, show the actual buys and sells of the underlying fund holding your cash. This works, if they give you ALL of your transactions, which ML might not. You will have to investigate the discrepancy between the transactions they report to you, and what you really hold. 

You can set up an investment account to handle cash transactions such as check writing by choosing to display different columns to make it more like a check register. This works, but is certainly a lot easier for firms that show the actual cash balance, and not all the buys and sells of the MMF fund.

The current budget module in Quicken for Mac does not draw from transactions in Investment accounts and this is why those transactions don't show in the budget. The Project Manager has made it clear that adding this feature is on the roadmap.

Jay411

John_in_NC - Thank you for your thorough reply! I'm disappointed to learn that Quicken does not draw from transactions in investment accounts for budget reporting. But appreciate knowing that fact and that their Project Manager has it on the roadmap. I'll definitely circle back with ML to try and find out why all the transactions and balances don't jive. But suspect they won't be much help. In the meantime, to effectively use this Quicken tool I will likely pull some cash out of my Investment MMF and put it back in my bank and write checks from that account so my Quicken budget reporting will work. A little frustrating that I have to adapt to the software instead of the opposite. But I'm singing to the choir. Again, thanks for your assistance and advice.

John_in_NC

I don't deal with ML, but if I recall correctly, some users (and I think it was with ML) mentioned that they pushed out certain transactions (such as cash from writing a check?), but ignored others (dividends paid & reinvested?)

You might wish to look at the cash transactions they indeed download and see if there is a pattern. 

Jay411

Will do. That might help me solve my investment balance misalignment. But unless I am misunderstanding even if ML is pushing MMF check writing and autopay transactions it won't solve my Quicken budget roll-up issue, correct?

John_in_NC

You are correct.