Auto-Reconciling Fidelity Brokerage Accounts not reconciling correctly (v6.3.1)

jimbean2

My cash is invested in a MMA (FDRXX) but the auto-recon categorizes the exact amount equal to my MMA balance as a reconciling difference. This should not be a reconciling difference.

Chris_QPW

Fidelity doesn't send Quicken the transactions that deal with buying and selling of the "cash"/money market fund.  Therefore if you try to put in transactions that do this then reconciling will fail.

For Fidelity what people do is take the transactions how they are sent and instead of using the money market fund they let it use the cash balance.  Since the money market funds are always $1 and pay very little interest this works out fine.

In the case of Vanguard it does send such transactions, so the best way for these accounts is to let it track the cash in the money market fund.

I might add that automatic reconcile isn't available on Quicken Windows, so this is the very first time it has been implemented, and frankly I doubt that all of the financial institutions are up to the task.  As in sending the right balance at all times.  One of the reasons people have problems with security placeholders is because at times the financial institutions don't have these balances exactly right.

Boatnmaniac

@jimbean2 - For the most part, what @Chris_QPW says about Fidelity and downloads of the Core Account (that FDRXX MMF or other designated MMF) is correct.  Fidelity will download the Core Account shares shown in the Positions tab of your online account when you first set up the account in Quicken.  Fidelity will also download the Core Account market value as Cash (as shown in the Balances tab of your online account) which automatically causes an issue with the account balance in Quicken because it double counts the shares value.  There are some other Core Account shares transactions Fidelity will also download which contributes to the issue, as well.

To resolve the issue I and others do the following:

1. First, backup your file before proceeding in case anything goes wrong.
2. Look for any Add Shares and Delete Shares transactions for FDRXX.  Delete them.:  The value of these shares was also downloaded into Quicken as Cash so deleting the Add/Delete Shares transactions will eliminate the value duplication in the account.
3. Look for any ReinvDiv transactions for FDRXX.  Change them to Div transactions.:  This will deposit the cash for these transactions into your Cash Balance in Quicken.
4. Look for any Buy and Sell transactions for FDRXX.  Delete them.:  This will put the value of these transactions back into the Cash balance.
5. Look for any Cash Balance Reconciliation transactions.  Delete them.:  Since the transactions that caused the Cash imbalance have been deleted, the need for these reconciliation transactions is also removed.
6. Check your Cash Balance in Quicken.  It should now match the cash value as shown in the Balances tab of your online Fidelity account as well as the FDRXX shares value in the Positions tab.  And the total account value in Quicken should now match the total account value shown in your online account (assuming, of course, that you have no other securities holdings in Quicken that are not in agreement with your online account at Fidelity).
   

Some important notes for going forward to prevent this issue from occurring, again:

1. Log in to your online account with Fidelity.  For this account, click on Account Features > Brokerage & Trading > Dividends & Capital Gains > make sure that FDRXX is set up for "Deposit to Core Account" for both Dividends and Capital Gains.:  If you do not do this, each month when dividends are paid out they will be downloaded into Quicken as both shares bought (ReinvDiv) and as Cash causing a duplication of value.  You do not want the shares downloaded so changing this to "Deposit to Core Account" will prevent that from happening.  (It does not change how Fidelity will manage it in their system because by default all cash in the account is held as FDRXX shares.  But it does change what Fidelity will download during OSU.)
   
2. There will still be some occasions where Fidelity will download shares transactions of FDRXX.  Mostly this will be when Fidelity sells FDRXX shares to buy some other security or when Fidelity sells FDRXX shares to make a cash distribution.  If/when Fidelity downloads any Buy or Sell transactions of FDRXX, they will need to be manually deleted.:  This will ensure that cash used for these transactions is added to or comes out of your Cash Balance in Quicken.
   
3. Always remember that Core Account shares value = Cash and Cash = Core Account shares value.  If you keep this in mind it makes it much easier to "deal with" Quicken not actually showing the FDRXX shares.
   

I hope this helps you.  Let me know if you have any questions.