What's up with the zero-dollar dividend transactions synced from Schwab?

mark320

I occasionally get zero-dollar dividend transactions downloaded from Schwab, via Express Web Connect. What's up with these? If I accept them, a record is added to the register, which is for a zero-dollar transaction, and I see no purpose in these.

Is there something I'm missing here? Should I be accepting these zero-dollar transactions into the register?

Tom Young

I've seen a few oddball, nonsense transactions downloaded from Schwab, typically for small amounts that I can associate with Schwab Bank interest transactions, and I've been having problems with Security Comparison Mismatches for some, but not all, of my Schwab Accounts with holdings of Schwab Value Advantage MM fund. So something kinky is going on with EWC+, a downloading process that's clearly not at solid as the old Direct Connect method.

The EWC/EWC+ process of collecting information from financial institutions and then massaging that information into Quicken-recognizable transactions isn't really clear - to me at least - so for the moment I'm laying the blame on the aggregator (Intuit), maybe incorrectly. The long and the short of it is that Schawb's decision to abandon Direct Connect has just made our life more difficult, so we live with it.

One very obvious problem with the transaction is that Schwab's money market funds can now be treated as "cash", which is fine for a true "sweep" situation, or as a "security" which requires Buys and Sells and makes Dividend distributions. Since you're showing a Div action I assume you have the Schwab Govt Money Fund set up as a security? And maybe the $0 "dividend" is an interest crediting action in a period in which you didn't have any interest earnings? Just a guess, or maybe it's really just some EWC+ error.

I probably wouldn't accept them as they have no effect.

mark320

Thanks, @Tom Young for your reply.

I have pondered whether I should treat the money market fund that generates these zero-amount transactions as cash instead of a security. You are correct; currently I've got that money market fund set as a security.

I have nothing but problems accounting for the exact number of units held in that money market fund. I'd just as soon deal with funds in Schwab's Government Money Fund as cash. Perhaps that change will make this question moot.

. . . now to figure out how I can convert all instances of holdings of this money market fund to "cash" and be done with this. . .

Tom Young

If the Schwab's Government Money Fund is a true sweep situation - cash showing up in the account is automatically converted to SWGXX, and SWGXX is automatically converted to cash as needed (e.g., a Buy) - then treating it as "cash" makes a lot of sense. Schwab's Value Advantage fund isn't automatically swept back and forth that way - you initiate Buys and Sells which take a day to settle - so treating that fund as a security makes more sense.

One way to switch the treatment of either of these funds is to disconnect all the Schwab Accounts that use the same User ID and Password from downloading, then re-authorizing them. That should be up the question as to how to treat the fund – as cash or a security.