Downloaded stock transactions downloaded should have an option to be NOT re-ordered

veegee

I am an active trader and I have many stock transactions each day (many buy/sells). On Schwab.com, the transactions are shown IN TIME ORDER for each day. However, when the transactions are downloaded, they get re-sorted into a more or less useless sequence - with all buys at the top and all sells at the bottom but otherwise random order.

Please - either a) provide a user option to not reorder at all - OR - b) if you sort based on 'opening transactions followed by closing transactions' (this is what is done now), please do a SECONDARY sort based on 'the name of the stock/option'.

Also, please speed up the processing when adding the transaactions into the register - it is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow!

veegee

Perhaps needs to be split into two

UKR

Also, please speed up the processing when adding the transaactions into the register - it is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow!

If you're an active trader and/or your current investment account has many transactions pertaining to sold and no longer held securities you may want to consider this:

Archive Investment Transactions

For a couple of years now, a new function has been available in Quicken, Archive Transactions. It will split your investment account register into two parts, leaving only those securities' transactions where you currently hold >0 shares in the active register. The rest is moved to a new Archive register within the current data file.

Having less transactions in your active register might improve performance.

Please read before doing anything and carefully follow instructions here: https://www.quicken.com/support/how-archive-investment-transactions

Eventually, after a couple of years, you might consider splitting your data file in two, with all the archived investment transactions moving to an archive data file and none remaining in the active data file.

q_lurker

@veegee Are you having downloaded transactions automatically entered into the transaction list (a Preferences option) or are you individually accepting transactions? I individually accept and I believe Quicken is keeping them in that order when sorted by date. But I am not an active trader, so my basis for comparison is more limited.

Just because they are shown one way (by time) on Schwab's site does not mean Schwab sends them in the same sequence.

Chris_QPW

Also, please speed up the processing when adding the transaactions into the register - it is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow!

Quicken was never designed for active traders, and performance will certainly go down really quickly if you have a lot of securities/security lots/transactions. Note most of the performance hit will be in the "active account(s)", since Quicken will not read in register until it is opened by the user, the not opened ones shouldn't affect the performance. So, archiving them to a different register can help, but like I said you can quickly run down the performance as an active trader.

I doubt that Quicken will ever be really suitable for active traders performance wise, that would most likely take too much changes in how Quicken deals works with investment accounts.

Also @q_lurker is right that the transactions stay in the order entered, but automatic transaction entry mode you would be at the mercy of how your financial institution ordered them in the download (most likely wrong when the order really matters), but especially make sure this preference is off:

Edit → Preferences → Investments → Sort same-day transactions by security name

veegee

@UKR, I was not aware of 'Archiving Transactions' capability but I will look at this. Not sure I want them archived, but ** as long as I can unarchive them ** it might be fine.

@q_lurker, yes, I am accepting them one by one. Date order is fine, but WITHIN one day, the order is messed up. Within each day, Quicken show opening transactions (buy, sell short etc.) first, and then closing transactions (sell, cover short etc.) but other than that it is random order. I don't know what order Schwab sends them in - how can I look at the raw data downloaded so I can check the order within the data Schwab sends?

@Chris_QPW, I do not use automatic transaction entry - I manually enter the downloaded transactions into the register. You pointed to turning off the setting 'Edit → Preferences → Investments → Sort same-day transactions by security name'. This is off in my case. But turning it ON will help me to some degree - at least it will not be in total random order (Schwab may be sending this in random order, I don't know, as I mentioned above).

Thanks for all the replies.

UKR

@UKR, I was not aware of 'Archiving Transactions' capability but I will look at this. Not sure I want them archived, but ** as long as I can unarchive them ** it might be fine.

No need to "unarchive" these transactions. They exist in an easily accessible parallel account register with all the trading history intact. Just make sure this archive register is available or has been added to your Portfolio Views and all other reports and views.

If you decide to buy a security again whose original transactions were archived, just record new transactions in your current investment account.

If you want to try this feature … go ahead, make a copy of your data file under a separate file name and test the archive process. If you don't like the results, fall back to your original unchanged data file.

Chris_QPW

@veegee You can access the account "archiving" in the investment account from the gear icon.

Also, I just realized that I was thinking of the wrong use case when I made my statement about the order entered.

I don't have many transactions and as such "Downloaded transactions on a given date" or concern about that order has never been a use case I have looked much at.

What was remembering is manual entry. I had investment accounts that I had to manually enter some transactions once a month, so I had several transactions per account that were on the same date, and they kept the order that I entered them into the register.

veegee

@UKR, will try it as an experiment now, but do for real at the end of 2024.

@Chris_QPW, I sometimes have 30 + transactions in a given day.

q_lurker

I don't know what order Schwab sends them in - how can I look at the raw data downloaded so I can check the order within the data Schwab sends?

I do not have a FI (like Schwab) using EWC+ for an investment account. I have Chase using EWC+ for credit card accounts. I can find those transactions in the Cloud Sync Log files (Help / Contact Support / Log Files … Save a copy and use a text editor to scan the file and possibly make it more readable). Pay attention to the download date groupings. The most recent stuff will be at the bottom of the file.

veegee

Which log file should I look at for downloaded stock transactions?

Jim_Harman

See @q_lurker s post above.

It depends on the connection type. Schwab uses EWC+ so the transactions should be in the Cloud Sync Log. Please post back if you do not find them.

For Direct Connect, they are in the OFX log.

veegee

I looked at the OFX log and the Cloud Sync Log IMMEDIATELY AFTER DOWNLOADING transactions. (I did have new transactions today downloaded and displayed in Quicken).

OFX Log - no stock transactions.

Cloudsync log - I do see what looks like older stock transactions from last month (March) but none of the transactions from today are showing in this XML file. Note: These are being displayed in the 'downloaded transactions' area of the register, however.

Ideas?

q_lurker

I looked at … the Cloud Sync Log IMMEDIATELY AFTER DOWNLOADING transactions. (I did have new transactions today downloaded and displayed in Quicken).

I am not sure when that file gets 'written'. I have never tried any timing checks. I suppose you might need to exit that file and reopen it; that the version available to view and save might not contain the data from an update done in that same session. Might be worthwhile to check again. I don't know why you might see month-old transactions and not more current ones. Can't imagine that being in an unaccepted state would matter.

veegee

I downloaded today's transactions, accepted them, exited Quicken and re-opened it - just to be sure.

Found today's (April 5, that is ) transactions by searching for "txnOn":"2024-04-05", and moving to the first transaction from Schwab with that date. I do see the transaction date ('txnOn' field), but not the time - which may indicate that Quicken cannot do any additional ordering by time. What time order they are in I do not know yet - by I will look at it some more and post anything that I find.

veegee

Looks like Quicken uses a data aggregator (Intuit?) which seems to sync the transactions periodically (so one does not always get the data either, which is another annoying problem).

It is not clear what all data is transferred from Schwab to the data aggregator, and it is not clear whether the time information is preserved, or the time order is preserved. I do not have enough visibility into the internal workings of this whole download transactions process to add much here.

In any case, the broker (Schwab in this case) shows the transactions in time order on their website. It would be great if we can the same time order in Quicken as well, which is why I opened this enhancement request.