how can I get Fidelity Investments to download reinvestment transactions

robertnicoud

When I download from Fidelity Investments (several accounts) all transactions involving a money market download as Div instead of Reinvest. There is one account where it does download correctly so I see this as a Quicken issue. How can I get all downloads to show as Reinvest?

Boatnmaniac

Is the MMF this is happening with the one that is the designated Core Fund (also called Settlement Fund)? Fidelity's default Core Fund is SPAXX but there are a few others that investors can optionally select to be used.

Or is this happening with all other MMFs that you might also be investing with that are not designated as the Core Fund?

jhood0612

You won't get any answers here, just more questions. Another example of why I hate Quicken. Wish Microsoft would bring back Money.

NotACPA

More questions are asked when there's a need to clarify the issue. Simple logic.

@robertnicoud How are you carrying the MMF in the account? As a security, or as Cash?

And how are you connecting to Fido? If Direct Connect, then they determine the action Div vs Reinv.

robertnicoud

It is the core fund. It does not happen on other MMF's with Fidelity. Also, on one account it does download as a Reinvest. That is what tells me it is a Quicken issue.

Boatnmaniac

@robertnicoud - It is not a Quicken issue. Fidelity has been downloading Core Fund MMF values as Cash since at least the early 2000s. There are other brokerages that do the same thing. They do this because they are treating the Core Fund MMF like a bank Sweep Account (which is Cash). By doing it this way they are able to buy and sell shares of that MMF to fund Buys/Sells of other securities or to transfer cash to another account without you needing to perform a Sell transaction of the Core Fund MMF. Instead, they will do that on your behalf with no action required on your part. And if you look at their redesigned website on the Portfolio tab they now have hidden the name "Core Fund" and the ticker beneath "Cash".

They do not do this with other non-Core Fund MMFs which are treated like any other security.

The reason why you are getting ReinvDiv transactions for the Core Fund MMF in one of your accounts is because you have dividends for that account set up to be reinvested instead of to be deposited to the account's cash balance. But in this account in Quicken I'm pretty sure you will find that the account total value does not match the total value that Fidelity shows for it on their website. That is because they are downloading the ReinvDiv shares but they are also downloading the cash value of those shares to the Cash Balance in Quicken.

The bottom line is you do not want the Core Fund MMF shares to be reported in Quicken because it will cause the total account value to be incorrect.

You might want to read through the following discussion thread. It explains this issue in more detail and also provides a couple of step-by-step processes for how to get your accounts back into balance and what to do to keep them in balance. Be sure to read through the entire thread or you might miss some important steps.: Downloads from Fidelity do not included activity into the settlement fund.

Let me know if you have any questions.

NotACPA

In my taxable accounts, I have "Show cash in a checking account" set up … so the issue doesn't apply.

In my non-taxable accounts, I just show cash as Cash, not as a fund, and Divs are downloaded correctly.

Boatnmaniac

@NotACPA -

In my taxable accounts, I have "Show cash in a checking account" set up … so the issue doesn't apply.

I'm not sure I follow how showing cash in a checking account has any bearing on this issue. In both this situation and when the the cash is shown in the main account it is just a difference of where the cash is shown. It doesn't tell Fidelity anything about where they are to download to. It is solely Quicken that splits off the cash. So if Fidelity is downloading the Core Account MMF shares held value as Cash, that would be done in both situations, right?

The account total value issue occurs when the Core Account MMF shares held value is downloaded AND Fidelity also downloads the actual shares and shares transactions. It should be one or the other but never both.

The fact that your taxable accounts total values are correct means that your accounts at Fidelity are set up properly to have the Core Fund MMF dividend receipts deposited to the accounts' cash balance and not to be reinvested.

In my non-taxable accounts, I just show cash as Cash, not as a fund, and Divs are downloaded correctly.

It's the same with me in both my taxable and tax-deferred/tax-exempt accounts. But the reason for that is that it is on record at Fidelity that dividends from the Core Fund MMF are deposited to the cash balance of the account and not reinvested.

Having the dividends paid into the cash balance of the account at Fidelity instead of being reinvested doesn't really change anything about how Quicken will manage it internally since all cash is held in shares of the Core Fund MMF. But it does affect how Fidelity downloads those dividends….they will be downloaded as cash deposited to the account and not as ReinvDiv transactions.

NotACPA

In the taxable investment accounts, the MMF dividends show as DivX (to the pseudo checking accounts).

In the retirement accounts, they show as DIV.

At Fidelity, all MMFs are set to Reinvest … but, obviously, that's not what's actually showing up.

Boatnmaniac

In the taxable investment accounts, the MMF dividends show as DivX (to the pseudo checking accounts).

In the retirement accounts, they show as DIV.

OK. That's all as it should be because the dividends download into Quicken as DIV transactions. It is then Quicken that moves the DIV download in the taxable accounts into the checking account as a transfer (the DivX) transaction.

At Fidelity, all MMFs are set to Reinvest … but, obviously, that's not what's actually showing up.

All of my MMFs at Fidelity that are not Core Funds are also set to Reinvest and that is how those MMF dividends are downloaded into Quicken….as ReinvDiv transactions. No issue with these at all.

But I used to have my Core Fund MMFs also set at Fidelity to Reinvest and then Fidelity would download them as ReinvDiv transactions instead of as DIV transactions. This duplicated the value of the dividends in my accounts in Quicken because Fidelity downloaded the ReinvDiv shares transactions and also downloaded the value of those shares as Cash.

I ended up talking to someone at Fidelity who told me to go to my online account and change my instructions for how Fidelity is to manage dividends (only for the Core Fund MMFs) from "Reinvest in Security" to "Deposit to Core Account".

Once I did that the duplication of new dividends values in 10 accounts in Quicken ended because those dividends downloaded only as DIV transactions…no more ReinvDiv transactions were downloaded.

Then I had to clean up the historical Core Fund MMF account records by changing all previously downloaded ReinvDiv transactions to DIV transactions, delete all of the BUY and SELL transactions and remove some ADD shares transactions. Then, after years of fighting this issue in Quicken, all of my accounts' values were 100% in agreement with what Fidelity's website showed. And it has been this way for perhaps 9-10 years, now.

So, it does surprise me some that your Core Fund MMFs are set to Reinvest in Security because from what Fidelity told me and from my own experience that causes account value accuracy issues in Quicken. But I'm really glad that is working well for you.