How to prevent fidelity from double counting cash

DPW-CT

Fidelity is double counting cash is counting both the cash in the money market fund and then adding another line with the same amount for cash that’s the market value is overstated

Is there a way to fix this or is this a bug that Quicken is going to fix?

Boatnmaniac

It is not a Quicken bug. It is the way that Fidelity downloads the Core Account. Fidelity downloads the value of the Core Account as Cash. It should not be downloading the shares of the Core Account MMF. Fidelity has been doing it this way since at least the early 2000s.

There are several rather lengthy threads on this subject in this Community. One of them is Downloads from Fidelity do not included activity into the settlement fund. That is a QWin thread but a couple of QMac users posted in it (including the last post in the thread) that the steps to correct this issue that are spelled out in that thread worked well for them (with a couple of caveats) in correcting the account balance issue caused by this practice.

ostergk

I just found this link on the Fidelity website. It sounds like it will fix the problem, I'm trying it now. https://www.fidelity.com/customer-service/faqs-exporting-account-information

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20478307#Comment_20478307

It looks like this Fidelity article applies to FDIC insured Sweep Accounts for the Core Account which are essentially 3rd party bank accounts.

Most people do not use FDIC insured Sweep Accounts for their Core Account anymore. Instead, they use select Money Market Funds.

The Fidelity article shares some things in common with what is mentioned in the post thread I referenced above.

Let us know if the Fidelity article resolves all of the issues with the Core Account and, also, which type of security you are using for the Core Account.

One thing I did not see mentioned in the Fidelity article regarding the Sweep Account Core Account is to make sure that the Core Account Dividends and Interest receipts are set up in Fidelity to be deposited to the account's cash balance and not reinvested. When this is not done, I've found that the Reinvested Dividends will download as shares transactions and that is not what you want to be done. When it is done, the transactions download just the cash to the cash balance, not the shares.

Gretchen P

I just started having this issue today; when I downloaded my transactions as usual, I got a notice from Quicken that there was a problem connecting to Fidelity; I reconnected to my Fidelity account (I have four separate accounts there - SEP, regular investment account and 2 Money Market accounts), and the 2 MM accounts doubled. The SEP and the investment account are updating as usual.

I logged into Fidelity and changed one of the MM accounts from "Reinvest in Security" to "Deposit to Core Account". This did not solve the issue, and that account is still showing a balance that's double my actual balance. In "Portfolio" view, half is showing in SPAXX and half in cash.

Have I missed a step? And as a sidebar, I'm just now seeing that this has been an issue for a long time with Fidelity, but this literally just changed for me today. My 2 MM accounts had been behaving normally since 2020 when I opened them.

This has got me tearing my hair out this morning. Grateful in advance for any guidance!

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20479120#Comment_20479120

I am assuming SPAXX is your designated MMF for the Core Account. If my assumption is correct, then changing your online account setting to have SPAXX dividends deposited to the Core Account was the right thing to do because that will stop Fidelity from downloading Reinvest Div transactions into Quicken in the future. But that will not resolve any issues that already existed in the account in Quicken. To resolve the preexisting issues in the account in Quicken…backup your data file before proceeding:

• All SPAXX Reinvested Div transactions in the account: Edit them so the dividend cash is instead deposited to the account's cash balance.
• All SPAXX Buy transactions: Delete them. This will return the cash used for these transactions to the account's cash balance.
• All SPAXX Sell transactions: Delete them. This will remove the cash used for these transactions from the account's cash balance.

Once done, you should have no shares of SPAXX remaining in the account, the cash balance in Quicken should match what Fidelity reported to Quicken and the total account.

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NotACPA

In my 6 accounts at Fidelity, both taxable and IRA, the cash is shown on their website as a MMF, but in Q I carry it as cash. The exception is for my taxable account and my wife's where we use the "Show cash in a checking account" feature of Q.

Boatnmaniac

In my 6 accounts at Fidelity, both taxable and IRA, the cash is shown on their website as a MMF, but in Q I carry it as cash.

It is true that the positions tab of Fidelity will show the Core Account MMF shares. But check out the Balances tab where, for me, it shows the value of the Core Account MMF shares is "Cash".