nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Incredibly confused with "Treat MM as Cash" in Brokerage Account

Bob.

This is the first time I have an opportunity to see this new feature. It is not working as either expected or desired and it could be as easily as Quicken's default settings or for me to make a "non-intuitive" change.

RECAP:
I have both SPAXX core cash fund AND a Premium FCZXX Government money market account. Before this change to Quicken, on the first of the month interest or DIVIDEND would come in and SPAXX interest properly placed but the FZCXX would have a Dividend and a BUY which would cause SPAXX to be inflated by the amount of the FZCXX dividend and FZCXX to be short that amount. I would have to delete the BUY and change the DIVIDEND to REINV and all would be proper and expected.

Quicken has changed the feature and I was hoping this would now work as expected with no manual manipulation. Not so.

Quicken has chosen to treat BOTH MM accounts as cash. Dividends arrived this morning.

TODAY:

First, there is no buy transaction. SPAXX is still proper and as expected, but FZCXX comes in as a dividend and once again, so SPAXX is overinflated and FZCXX understated by the amount of that dividend.

I went to account settings, downloads and the non obvious scroll down to the options for treat as cash and unselected the FZCXX as SPAXX is working as expected. Intuitively, having FZCXX as "treat as cash" is what I thought I would want but it is not working "properly", So I unselected it and came to here:

You may note above that IF I make this change, it changes FCZXX to a NEGATIVE balance as well as SPAXX as a negative number with some options. The keep current balance is already wrong by the amount of the current FZCXX dividend, so a wrong choice. I can change the balance manually and I have neither tried that nor would I know if next month it will finally work as I expect.

OR, I can simply change DIVIDEND to REINV Dividend and it would be correct. I have not tried that but feel confident that would create the proper balances. I would prefer no tto have to do that every month.

So, What AM I missing? Can this be set to work as I had hoped? Have I provided a decent enough explanation for you to understand?

Thanks!

Find more posts tagged with

Accepted answers

All comments

Jon

"Treat as Cash" means the dividends for that fund will be added to your cash balance. Since you don't want FZCXX to do that you should deselect Treat as Cash for that fund. Doing that will add a transaction moving your FZCXX holdings from cash to FZCXX; if you don't need that transaction then just delete it - it's a one time thing you won't need to repeat.

Reinvest Dividend transactions downloaded this morning for all my Fidelity funds that have Treat as Cash deselected so it's working just fine for me.

Bob.

Thanks @Jon , but first, my FZCXX is currently not in CASH (or SPAXX). So the only thing that needs to move is today's dividend of $1245 from SPAXX to FZCXX, But you can see that crazy negative balances that would appear to create if I did that. So your explanation has missing pieces for me.

IF I unselect FZCXX as treat as cash, how do I get both MM fund balances correct?

Jon

If your balances are already correct then just delete the transactions that Quicken adds when you deselect Treat as Cash.

Bob.

No, they are correct as in Aug 30th balances in both were perfect. Today the are incorrect as to where the $1245 is going. But did you see if I uncheck I am required to do something (look above) and that seems to make things worse. So no, not delete a transaction as it needs to be accepted. but in the right place without turning correct balances negative.

I do not think you are taking this into account:

Bob.

ooops. 1025.45

Jon

You need to fix the August dividend yourself, the same as you've been doing in the past. Once you have that done, it looks like you would select the "Keep current cash balance" option to stop Quicken from changing the cash balance.

Bob.

That might be it. Would be great to have another opinion, perhaps from someone who has done this already. And if it goes wonky, would restore from backup restore this to its current state or do some of the changes survive a restore?

Just want to feel confident. And that I really DO need to change to REINV before doing this.

Bob.

Well, you are exactly right @Jon . Making those changes has both balances "just right" and I did have to change Dividend to Reinv Dividend. Now hopefully it will do it properly automatically next month.

Bob.

So in hindsight, Quicken's choice of defaulting to ALL MM accounts as Treat as Cash was incorrect. Only one can be. If I had understood that, this month might have even come in correctly.

Jon

It's all down to personal preference. Some folks want all their MMFs lumped together as cash, some don't want any at all, and some want a mix like you do. For me it depends on the account - some I want MMFs as cash & some I don't.

MauryJ

Too late now, but was just going to add that when you're exploring new territory like this and decide to take a stab at something, backup the file first, but what I usually do is just "Edit»Undo" and that almost always is sufficient to get back to your starting point. Restores are often too much effort when an undo will suffice