Downloads from Fidelity NetBenefits 401k use "Bought" not "BoughtX"

James White

All of my 401k investment fund buys from Fidelity are downloading as "Bought" and not "BoughtX". This changed in ~Jan-2022 after years and year of it always being "BoughtX". It's a real PITA to have to change every transaction to BoughtX manually, but at least that work-around exists.
As I understand it, this change was probably initiated by Fidelity. I am willing to contact Fidelity, but I fear I'll get a deer in the headlights look when I say "Hey dude, can you guys change bought to boughtX please?" Being a facetious of course, but does anyone know if there is a specific Fidelity customer support number that we should call for Quicken-related issues?

Thnx
James

Frankx

Good morning @James White

I know that Fidelity has certain folks that are knowledgeable about Quicken.  I called them several years ago about a Quicken issue and, after getting passed around to a few people I was able to connect to someone very familiar with how Quicken connects/works and that fixed my problem.  I don't have a direct number for that group, but I would suggest that you call (800) 835-5095 or 5097 tomorrow.

Let me know how that goes.

Frankx

mshiggins

BoughtX implies money is transferring from another account for the purchase. What is the account where the money is coming from? 

NotACPA

A 401k transaction implies money has been transferred from your paycheck to your 401k account.  Is this not the situation? And if it is, a BOUGHT is the correct transaction to use money already transferred into the account.

The alternative is that the 401K withholding in your paycheck is staying in your primary checking account ... which would increase the taxable amount of your gross paycheck by not including the 401k deduction.

James White

Yes, I concur that BoughtX implies money transferred from my paycheck. For the past ~20 years, Fidelity has used BoughtX; I suppose they just realized they were doing it wrong and have now switched to Bought.

I guess the issue is really on my end: I either need to manually change every transaction to BoughtX as I've been doing, or setup the transfer from my paycheck, and wrap my head around however I'm supposed to handle the 5% company match (which doesn't come from my paycheck of course). I accept this, but ugh, just ugh.

Chris_QPW

You didn't answer @mshiggins, and it is an important answer.

I suspect that you will find that the account used in the BoughtX is the 401K account that you are in.
There really isn't much chance of it being anything else since Fidelity/Quicken wouldn't know the "funding account".

There are two ways that 401K accounts are handled.  And the difference seems to be triggered by something the financial institution does, but as far as I know, no one knows what the trigger is.

The more common way of doing it, is what you are seeing now where the "cash" comes from your checking account.  The way you are supposed to handle this is with the paycheck reminder.  It has both a place for your contribution, and your employer's contribution.  The paycheck reminder plays some tricks in the background to handle both of these correctly.  What this results in is two transfers from the paycheck transaction to your 401K, covering the amount that is being invested.

Note even in this situation there is two possible things the financial institution can do.  They can either send a "deposit" transaction for these, and you have to match them, or they send nothing.  In the case of my wife's Merrill Lynch 401K account, they send nothing.  The only difference is that I have to mark the transfer transactions cleared during the reconcile.

The less common way this is done is Quicken uses a BoughtX with the account being the 401K account.  This is known as a balance adjustment/self-referencing transfer.  As in the cash for the buy just "appears" in the account (and the buy immediately uses it), and there isn't any transfer from the paycheck.

James White

@Chris_QPW thanks for this further insight Chris. Good/useful info. I will look into setting up my paycheck to include the transfer of 401k and company match into the Fidelity 401k account. I just hope that after I do this, Fidelity doesn't all of a sudden switch back to BoughtX.

@mshiggins yeah, it comes right from my paycheck to Fidelity. I don't ever see it in my checking account.

Thanks to all for the great feedback. I always think I'm pretty good with Quicken until I come here and get schooled by all of you, hahaha!

mshiggins

James White said:

@Chris_QPW thanks for this further insight Chris. Good/useful info. I will look into setting up my paycheck to include the transfer of 401k and company match into the Fidelity 401k account. I just hope that after I do this, Fidelity doesn't all of a sudden switch back to BoughtX.

@mshiggins yeah, it comes right from my paycheck to Fidelity. I don't ever see it in my checking account.

Thanks to all for the great feedback. I always think I'm pretty good with Quicken until I come here and get schooled by all of you, hahaha!

That was not my question. If you have BoughtX transactions, the BoughtX transaction must have the source account populated.  When you look at one of the BoughtX transactions what account is listed as the source account?

NotACPA

@James White

To re-phrase @mshiggins question:

In your 401k account, what CATEGORY is shown in those BOUGHTX transactions?  Is it the 401K account itself?  Or your checking account, where you receive your paycheck?

James White

@mshiggins Well, when it's downloaded as a "Bought" transaction it's "From this account's cash balance." When I change it to "BoughtX" and also when it used to be downloaded as "BoughtX" it was from the 401k account (the same 401k account).

@Chris_QPW sorry, I don't really see a category. Not sure what you mean by this, but I understood @mshiggins question, so maybe that answered yours also.

Chris_QPW

James White said:

@mshiggins Well, when it's downloaded as a "Bought" transaction it's "From this account's cash balance." When I change it to "BoughtX" and also when it used to be downloaded as "BoughtX" it was from the 401k account (the same 401k account).

@Chris_QPW sorry, I don't really see a category. Not sure what you mean by this, but I understood @mshiggins question, so maybe that answered yours also.

I think you were referring to @NotACPA's comment.    And as to what he meant.  In a lot of places the transfer account is in the category field.  In the case of a boughtx if you look at it in the register it shows up in the category field:


But if you look at it in the "Enter Transaction" dialog you see there is a selection for the transfer account.


So, yes you did answer the question for both.

BK

Re: "I will look into setting up my paycheck to include the transfer of 401k and company match into the Fidelity 401k account."

Perhaps this can help you setup your paycheck wizard.  My paycheck wizard deposit into my bank account also contains two lines with $X contribution and $Y matching, both point to my 401k account (and you can edit them on the fly if your values change per instance).  When Quicken downloads from my 401k custodian, it has five transactions.  Two matching lines of $X and $Y.  Those two are cash transferred in (Xln) into the 401k account and I accept the matches.  Then three Bought transactions follow where the sum of two cash deposits ($X+$Y) are used to buy three funds.  So in my case BoughtX is not applicable at all.

I understand that these two X&Y funds never hit my bank account and hence technically are not being transferred from my bank account.  However, there is a direct two-way link between each paycheck and money transferred via the "Go to transfer" feature.  Right or wrong I like that.  I am sure there are other ways of doing it as well.

James White

@Chris_QPW Yes, apols, I meant @NotACPA, but thanks for that explanation and screenshot. Yeah, that's the exact popup box that I was looking at.

@BK that's good to know. I don't think the downloaded transaction from my Fidelity 401k account includes either my 401k contribution or the company match. So, we'll have to see how that gets treated when I go to match/reconcile. I'll fumble thru it. Good info, thank you!

James White

All,

An update: my most recent 401k transactions were downloaded during this morning's Quicken update, and Fidelity changed all the fund purchases back to BoughtX from Bought. I have no idea why, as I never contacted them.

Anyway, this is what I wanted, even if it isn't the proper way to manage 401k fund purchases that are funded from paycheck plus company match. I'm happy at this stage, until Fidelity changes their mind again...

James