Fidelity CMA Download

stlguy57

Over the weekend I downloaded a trial of Quicken Deluxe for Mac. I imported my transactions thinking I would move from Banktivity to Quicken. My account and transactions from my existing CMA account do not update when I connect to Fidelity to download/update.
The download window does see my CMA account but it shows as a Brokerage account, not a checking so it won't update my existing CMA account from Banktivity. My investment accounts seem to be fine and update.
How do I get my CMA to update? I have transactions from 2015 which I went through and cleaned up and reconciled. I DO NOT want to start over if I can't move those transactions or have to copy to a new account.

Kevin Russell

Quicken/Fidelity will automatically log your CMA account as a brokerage account since Fidelity technically sets it up this way on their end. In Quicken, you will need to go to your Account Details screen and select the "Show cash in a checking account" toggle as Yes. This will create a new, linked account set up as a Checking account as opposed to your original account which was set up as a Brokerage account. Your original Brokerage account will still be there but probably now at a $0 balance.

Most likely it will not reconcile appropriately and your new Checking account's balance will be off by a ton. I've tried to do this several times over the years and it never worked. Pure coincidence...I just tried it one more time about an hour ago just to see if it will work. It did not and my new Checking account balance was a few hundred thousand dollars in the red (I've used Quicken for over a decade so it has a lot of history).

However, if you are ok with your historical register being way out of balance you can basically enter a manual balance adjustment for October and start clean with November. I have not noticed any down-line issues elsewhere in Quicken just yet but that doesn't mean I won't. For example, my 2020 budget still seems to be correct and accurate as far as recorded transactions flowing through. It seems as if most of the txns missed in my new checking account were from prior to 2020. If so, I can live with that - water under the bridge.

I'm going to test drive this for a few days to see if downloaded txns flow through correctly in my "new" linked checking account.

EDIT: Did not see this was MAC. I'm using WIN, so settings could be different?

Kevin Russell

Quicken/Fidelity will automatically log your CMA account as a brokerage account since Fidelity technically sets it up this way on their end. In Quicken, you will need to go to your Account Details screen and select the "Show cash in a checking account" toggle as Yes. This will create a new, linked account set up as a Checking account as opposed to your original account which was set up as a Brokerage account. Your original Brokerage account will still be there but probably now at a $0 balance.

Most likely it will not reconcile appropriately and your new Checking account's balance will be off by a ton. I've tried to do this several times over the years and it never worked. Pure coincidence...I just tried it one more time about an hour ago just to see if it will work. It did not and my new Checking account balance was a few hundred thousand dollars in the red (I've used Quicken for over a decade so it has a lot of history).

However, if you are ok with your historical register being way out of balance you can basically enter a manual balance adjustment for October and start clean with November. I have not noticed any down-line issues elsewhere in Quicken just yet but that doesn't mean I won't. For example, my 2020 budget still seems to be correct and accurate as far as recorded transactions flowing through. It seems as if most of the txns missed in my new checking account were from prior to 2020. If so, I can live with that - water under the bridge.

I'm going to test drive this for a few days to see if downloaded txns flow through correctly in my "new" linked checking account.

EDIT: Did not see this was MAC. I'm using WIN, so settings could be different?

Kevin Russell

Back up your file before you do this!

stlguy57

Thanks for the input Kevin. I will try and see what I can do. The import file from Banktivity already had the account type as Checking, not Investment.