Accrued Interest in Brokerage Account Cash not reflecting in Quicken Balances

BJL

For sometime now each day I get a reconcile adjustment I need to make in near all of my TD Ameritrade Accounts tracked by Quicken.  (This did not happen year(s) or so back).  I am on a MAC.  This all relates to cash on hand in these accounts. The online TD Ameritrade balance always shows "accrued interest" which the TD balance doesn't show so each time I reconcile I need to do an adjustment.  There has to be a better way to handle this?  Thank you.

jacobs

It sounds like TD Bank is downloading a "pending balance" rather than the "posted balance" in your account. Accrued interest not yet posted to your account shouldn't be included in your account balance. Since there's not a pending transaction, just accrued interest, there's no transaction TD is downloading to account for the value in the balance they are providing. I would pursue this with TD tech support; the balance they send Quicken should be the posted balance only. 

That said, the workaround for reconciling is to not use the online balance, and instead enter a statement balance you obtain from a TD statement or looking on the website.

Tom Young

I'm a Windows person so I can't provide product-specific advice here. 

It sounds to me like TD Ameritrade is amortizing accrued interest associated with a bond purchase on a daily basis?  Is that the source of the problem?  If it is, then a person using Windows Quicken would have a similar problem because Quicken really can't handle this situation "programmatically" and I'd guess Quicken Mac has the same issue.    

I could be completely wrong here as I can't really understand the two sentences "This all relates to cash on hand in these accounts. The online TD Ameritrade balance always shows "accrued interest" which the TD balance doesn't..." 

While paying accrued interest is a cash event, the amortization wouldn't be a cash event, nor would the establishment and amortization of a premium or discount.  Perhaps you could provide more detail here?

BJL

Thanks for your reply.  To clarify I meant to say The online TD Ameritrade balance always shows "accrued interest" which the QUICKEN balance doesn't..." 

Also these are not bond purchases but just cash balances on hand

BJL

To Jacob's reply: Thank you for your reply as well. It sounds about right.  I can try to talk to TD tech support but I suspect not much they can do.  With the stock market volatility I do review it and download daily and not end of month.   They footnote the accrued interest with " 
"Interest is accrued daily and credited to your account on a monthly basis. This is accrued interest month-to-date that has not yet been paid; however, this money can be withdrawn or used to buy securities".