MassMutual 401(k) -> Empower transition looks complete. QFX download is weird. What to do?

debbieacog

Delighted beyond delight to see Empower (as of 10/28/22) offers a QFX download, apparently having finished absorbing MassMutual accounts - or mine, at any rate. This is after years of manually entering MassMutual entries.

Empower has very little information on it, though, from their new-to-me website:

"If you would like to download your account activity to either Quicken or Microsoft Money, simply choose the "Transaction History" option under the "Account History" tile. On this screen, select either "Quicken QFX" or "Microsoft Money QIF." Then, select your date range and press the "Download" button."

When I downloaded, I downloaded into my existing Empower/MM 401(k) account. What the downloaded transactions then showed was me re-buying my holdings over again, all on October 28.

I called Empower and they don't know what to do with that data.

Quicken (or tax) experts - what do you think? Do I instead create a new account and treat all of those as a transfer? Verify the holdings match and delete the new entries? Other? Also, the investment fees download as fractional shares removed. I think instead I should change those to sell and then record the investment fee as an expense from the resulting cash.

Your thoughts and opinions are welcome! Told a friend this was so new it hadn't shown up yet on the Quicken community ... then realized I may as well be the first to post on it.

Frankx

Hi @debbieacog,

Let me take a first crack at this...

If you were maintaining your 401(k) account in Quicken manually, before Empower got their "downloading scheme/system" up and running, and assuming that you were also reconciling your Quicken account to either Mass Mutual or Empower statements all along, and specifically as of 10/28/22, I believe that the newly downloaded transactions are redundant (not to mention factually incorrect - i.e. you didn't actually make any of those 10/28/22 transactions) and suggest that you delete them.

On the investment fees part of your question, I may need more information.  But in general, I would be of the view that in an 401(k) account, such fees can be handled the way that Empower is treating them.  Effectively, the 401-k administrator has to sell some of your shares to get their fees.  And they have just used a shortcut.  Yes, you could record those as "investment fees" and that might actually be more correct, however because they are in a non-taxable account, you won't get a deduction for them unless you also record them as a distribution from the plan (i.e. as income).  In other words it is a wash.  The only potential advantage is that you might be able to see how much those fees are more easily by going the long route.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx