Continuing problems reconciling Schwab cash balances

Jack Scripps

The funds held at the Charles Schwab Bank are in addition to funds described as cash in my account at Schwab. When downloaded into quicken, however, only the "cash" is downloaded. The funds held in the account at the Charles Schwab Bank (which are cash equivalents) are nowhere reflected in Quicken. Can this be fixed?

Tom Young

Maybe you could add some detail here? My Schwab Bank accounts - checking and savings - both hold "cash" and only cash, and as far as I know that's all they can hold.

What "funds", other than cash, are you referring to here?  While cash can be held inside a Charles Schwab brokerage account, I'm not aware of any "funds" (in the sense of money market funds, mutual funds, ETFs, etc.) can be held inside a bank account. 

If I'm remembering correctly, a few years ago Schwab changed its "sweep" feature in the brokerage accounts from a "fund" (Schwab Money Market Fund?) to a deposit into an account at its bank.  But I've never seen any transfer of cash between my brokerage accounts and my bank accounts.  

Jack Scripps

On the Schwab website, looking at one of my accounts held there, there are a number of investment holdings (ie. mutual funds, stocks), and there is also shown a balance in the Schwab Bank account. In addition to that balance at Schwab Bank, there is a pure "cash" balance in that same account. The market value of all of the holdings in that account includes mutual funds, stocks, cash, and the balance in the Schwab Bank account. When downloaded into Quicken, however, everything comes down just fine except for the balance in the Schwab Bank account. So, the total holdings shown in Quicken are short by that amount. If I want to transact business at Schwab, both the Schwab Bank holdings and the "cash" in the account are considered as available funds, but Quicken only reports the pure "cash". Somehow, Quicken needs to pick up the Schwab Bank balance as "cash", for reporting purposes.

Tom Young

I assume that it has something to do with Schwab's change in the sweep feature from a fund "inside" the Investment account to an amount that is being deposited in a Schwab Bank account.

"In addition to that balance at Schwab Bank, there is a pure "cash" balance in that same account."

I think you're referring here back to the investment account?  And I understand that within the "Cash & Money Market" section of the that account when you view it at Schwab you're seeing a line item with a title along the lines of "Schwab Bank Account" associated with some dollars, and also seeing a line item with a title along the lines of "Cash & Cash Investment" (or maybe just "Cash"), also associated with some dollar amount, and this latter amount represents cash that hasn't been "swept" yet?

Yet this structure of "some money at Schwab Bank and some actual cash within the investment account" isn't being represented in Quicken because the Schwab Bank balance is being omitted in the downloads?

I take it that the dollars associated with the Schwab Bank "sweeps" are NOT included in Quicken's dollar amount for the Quicken Schwab Bank Account.  (Assuming you do have a Schwab Bank account in Quicken.)

Did this feature used to work OK, i.e., the Schwab Bank transactions were included in the Quicken Investment Account when Schwab was using Direct Connect to download and only turn wonky when they switched to EWC+?

Lots of questions there but I'd guess that many Quicken users with Schwab Investment Accounts are using Schwab Bank as their sweep feature and your post is the first I'm aware of citing this problem.

Jack Scripps

Yes, within my account at Schwab, funds held in the money market fund are considered "cash" and reported as such on the Schwab website (also now in Quicken, after Quicken added the option to consider funds held in this account as cash). The Schwab "sweep" funds held at Schwab Bank are also considered as "cash equivalents" on the Schwab website but are not downloaded into Quicken at all. They are just ignored by Quicken. I don't know if the download was correct before the recent changes made to the Quicken/Schwab interface, but I know it is not working correctly now. It is also noteworthy that the funds held in the Schwab sweep account far exceed the funds held as "cash" in the money market fund (for me, anyway), so the result is a significant understatement of the total in the account as well as the cash equivalent balances in the account.

retird

hum, my cash and money market totals agree in Quicken with Schwab exactly... haven't had any transactions the past few days so don't know if something changed... BE SO GLAD when Schwab issues get fixed.... 3 months and counting...