Merrill Lynch Investments CMA account

bob323

:s I have recently purchased/installed and setup (partially) Quickens Home, Business and Rentals (subscription) and am having no success in downloading/connecting to my M/L Investments CMA checking account (the M/L brokerage account loaded/connected without an issue). M/L Support says it's a Quicken issue, and Quicken Support says it's a M/L issue. Using a web browser, I can log into my M/L Edge account and all is well - the brokerage, CMA checking and VISA transactions/data are all complete and accurate as usual; however, when I attempt to add the M/L account via Quicken it only downloads/connects to the M/L brokerage account - there's no option displayed to download/connect to the M/L CMA checking or VISA accounts. Certainly there's a solution that I'm overlooking and would appreciate any/all help I can get. Thank you.

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @bob323,

Thank you for contacting the Quicken Community, though I do apologize that you are also experiencing this error. 

First, I suggest creating a test file and adding the Merrill Lynch Investment account(s) to see if it produces the same issue with transactions not downloading. It is recommended to save a backup before proceeding with troubleshooting steps in the event that you would like to return to your original starting position. Below are instructions on how to create a test file:

1. Choose File menu > New Quicken File.

1. Select New Quicken File.

1. Click OK.
2. In the File name field, enter the name of the new file, then click Save. Use a name like "Test File" to tell it apart from your main file. 

Don't use any of these characters: * ? < > | " : \ / (asterisk, question mark, left and right-angle bracket, pipe, straight quotation marks, colon, BACKSLASH, FORWARD SLASH). Also, don't add the .qdf extension; Quicken does that for you.

1. Sign in with your Quicken ID. If you are prompted to create a Quicken ID but already have one, click Sign In under the Create Account prompt. 

1. Select to not use Mobile.
2. Click Add Account to start adding accounts to the new file.

After adding accounts, see if you are experiencing the same problems in this test file. 

Please let me know how this goes, I look forward to hearing your response. 

Frankx

Hi @bob323

It is not uncommon for Q users to have difficulties downloading from brokerage accounts that have "checking" accounts (actually called a "cash management account or CMA) as an add-on.  Quicken, for some reason, doesn't automatically recognize the connected bank account.  However there is a work-around. 

1) You should first create a backup copy of your Quicken datafile. 
2) Next open up the account register for the M/L brokerage account > click on the little "Gear" icon in the upper right and select "Edit Account Details";
3) In the "General Tab" click on the YES button next to "Show cash in a checking account";
4) Then click on "OK"

Quicken will then go through a "Creating/updating links" process.  And, depending on the number and types of transactions, you may get a warning type pop-up that suggests that you revert to a backup.  Don't worry about that now (remember you just made a good backup file, so going back to that will certainly be possible later) so just go forward. 

Next look in the "Banking" section on your accounts list and find the new account (in the accounts bar and you'll see a new "bank" account titled something like "M/L brokerage account-Cash").  You should see a number of transactions passing through this account and depending on how long you've had the brokerage account since it was opened, there could be many, many transactions that have been recorded in this new account.  The most important issue is whether the account balance equals (or at least comes close to) the cash account balance in your CMA account.  You may need to do some cleanup of the new account to get it to agree with the cash balance on a recent brokerage statement.

If, for some reason you aren't able to get the account balance to agree (or if there are just too many transactions to review) you should revert to the backup datafile that you made prior to the above actions.

Let me know if you have any followup questions.

Frankx