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Why is are the dividends from a TIAA IRA a Buy type instead of dividend reinvest? (Q Mac)

Bosco

All of my dividend transactions from TIAA IRA account are listing as a Buy type transaction with the memo of "Dividends" in Quicken but the TIAA IRA account transactions on the TIAA website are clearly marked as "Dividends" in the Description field. These dividends don't show up on my dividend report. Quicken Deluxe 2020, ver 5.16.1 , macOS 10.15.4

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Accepted answers

Tom Young

Have you peeked inside the OFX file that TIAA is sending to you to see if the "dividend" transaction is there? I know nothing about TIAA but I suppose some FI might rationalize sending only a Buy for reinvested dividends inside an IRA since there's no income tax effect of the dividend.

NotACPA

@Tom Young , while it's true that there's no income tax effect inside the IRA, it's also true that the cash for that buy has to come from somewhere.

Looking into the OFX (which I don't know how to get to in QMac ... but probably starts with the HELP menu) should be informative.

I strongly suspect that TIAA (which I've battled with in the past) is only sending the BUY.

NotACPA

Please research the OFX file which shows what TIAA actually sent.

And Q doesn't/shouldn't muck around with the instructions sent by the FI ... which is why I'm convinced that this is a TIAA issue.

Tom Young

I don't know how I can see the data from a direct connect."

In the Windows version you click on "Help" and then "Log Files", then select the OFX log file. Perhaps the Mac version has something similar?

A screen shot of the actual transaction in the IRA Account would be interesting. As @NotACPA said you usually use cash in the Account to fund the Buy but you didn't mention any misstatement of cash in the Account. You can actually make a Buy entry in Windows Quicken without affecting cash through a bit of trickery so I assumed that, somehow, that's what's happening in your case.

All comments

UKR

Do you get two transactions downloaded, one for a Cash dividend, one for a Buy?

What report are you looking at and is the IRA account included in the report?

A couple of image snapshots of what you're seeing might be helpful.

Tom Young

NotACPA

@Tom Young , while it's true that there's no income tax effect inside the IRA, it's also true that the cash for that buy has to come from somewhere.

Looking into the OFX (which I don't know how to get to in QMac ... but probably starts with the HELP menu) should be informative.

I strongly suspect that TIAA (which I've battled with in the past) is only sending the BUY.

Bosco

I only get one Buy transaction in the automated download from TIAA to Quicken. The report is simple. I click on a dividend transaction in another account and run the report to get dividend income for all accounts for the past year. I tried including other categories but that isn't the problem. TIAA has a Buy not a dividend transaction.
I don't know how I can see the data from a direct connect. But the memo field in the Quicken transaction says "Dividends". The last screen shot is from the TIAA account website clearly showing "Dividends". Why is Quicken putting that description in the memo field and not as a transaction type?

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NotACPA

Please research the OFX file which shows what TIAA actually sent.

And Q doesn't/shouldn't muck around with the instructions sent by the FI ... which is why I'm convinced that this is a TIAA issue.

Tom Young

I don't know how I can see the data from a direct connect."

In the Windows version you click on "Help" and then "Log Files", then select the OFX log file. Perhaps the Mac version has something similar?

Bosco

I looked at the OFX file, thanks @Tom Young and @NotACPA . They are sending BUYOTHER with "Dividends" in the memo field. thanks everyone!

I<DTTRADE>20200529160000.000[-4:EDT]<DTSETTLE>20200529160000.000[-4:EDT]<MEMO>Dividends</INVTRAN><SECID><UNIQUEID>886315787<UNIQUEIDTYPE>CUSIP</SECID><UNITS>12.4483<UNITPRICE>8.99<TOTAL>-111.91<SUBACCTSEC>CASH<SUBACCTFUND>CASH</INVBUY></BUYOTHER></>

" A screen shot of the actual transaction in the IRA Account would be interesting."
Screen shot is in a previous post. Just the one line transaction from TIAA IRA account.
For some reason this account type (IRA traditional) does not track cash and when entering a Payment/Deposit transaction I get an error. But I can override it. Attached screen shot shows Q pop up message.

Screen Shot 2020-06-17 at 10.12.30 PM.png

Bosco

The last screenshot in my previous post is of the transaction on the TIAA website. It says "Dividends". @Tom Young Thanks, I found the OFXLog.txt and it looks like the transaction came in as a BUYOTHER with "Dividends" in the Memo tag.

Looks like a TIAA issue.
<BUYOTHER><INVBUY><INVTRAN><MEMO>Dividends</INVTRAN><SECID><UNIQUEID>886315787<UNIQUEIDTYPE>CUSIP</SECID><UNITS>12.4483<UNITPRICE>8.99<TOTAL>-111.91<SUBACCTSEC>CASH<SUBACCTFUND>CASH</INVBUY>

But for some reason the account doesn't have a Cash balance. And I get an error message saying the account type doesn't allow cash payments when I try to add a payment/deposit, but I can override it so the payment goes into the account. But then Q automatically creates the off set adjustment transaction so the account never has a cash balance. It's a Traditional IRA account type, but I think it was setup incorrectly as a different account type and a while back I changed it to the IRA. It might have kept the attributes for the previous account type causing it not to accept payment/deposit transactions. I might have to create a new account traditional IRA and delete this one.

UKR

I would follow the advice in this message

httpsusv-cdnnet6031128uploadseditor464iphbdbiipb9png

and allow Cash transactions to be recorded in this account.
This should resolve the issue.

Tom Young

Within Windows Quicken there's a box you can check when setting up an Investment Account that turns the Account into a "Single Mutual Fund" Account. This Account also does not carry a cash balance but any transaction that should result in cash in the Account - a dividend for example - will be transformed into a DivX action, with the cash actually showing up in a different Account. What you've shown here looks somewhat similar.

When you say "But then Q automatically creates the off set adjustment transaction..." are you saying the cash "magically" disappears within the Account itself, not that it shows up in a different Account?

Although if TIAA isn't sending a "dividend" transaction, the issue seems moot, though you can't accurately track all your dividends in Quicken (MAC).

Bosco

"When you say "But then Q automatically creates the off set adjustment transaction..." are you saying the cash "magically" disappears within the Account itself, not that it shows up in a different Account?"

The cash was never in the account or transferred to/from a different account. The dividend buy is recorded as if there were cash but there is no cash in the account.

When I manually entered a payment/deposit, the message appeared and I clicked Allow Transactions. Then magically new adjustments for old dividend transactions appeared for the amount of the dividend buy and that created a zero cash balance. So if I had 12 monthly dividend buys for $100 each I saw 12 new adjustment cash transactions magically appear to net the cash to zero. TIAA doesn't send a cash dividend transaction and then the security buy transaction to net the cash to zero.

I would like Q to provide filters using "OR" logic so I can use the tags to pull in transactions in this scenario. The filters for Accounts, Categories, Tags and Payees seem to be exclusive and cannot be OR'd.