Vanguard fund sale and purchase not downloading the settlement fund transaction

Scotsaver
Scotsaver Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭
edited January 14 in Registers & Transactions (Windows)

Last week I had 2 seperate transactions - one selling and one buying VUSXX. In both cases, the fund sales and purchases in VUSXX were added correctly as bought and sold respectively. But for both transaction there was no corresponding transaction for the settlement fund. So now I'm showing a large amount of cash. Any advice welcomed

Comments

  • Tom Young
    Tom Young Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭

    I have a few very low activity Vanguard Quicken Accounts, but I've never had anything called a "settlement fund." Is this some sort of "sweep" process you're referring to, where Vanguard converts the settlement fund to cash and and coverts cash to the settlement fund on an "as needed basis?"

    If it is, then what you're describing would suggest to me that the settlement fund used to be considered a "security" - you would see this as a line item in the Holdings - but now is considered as "cash" and is simply folded into any actual cash in the Account. But maybe that settlement fund is something different?

  • Scotsaver
    Scotsaver Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭
    edited January 14

    Its the core money market fund VFMXX which all cash is swept to after sales and for all purchases. This always worked for Quicken in the past

  • cyberphile
    cyberphile Member ✭✭✭✭

    What does Vanguard's website show for activity in your account? Does is show the funds being swept into VFMXX? If it does, there could be an issue with how the transactions are selected to be downloaded into Quicken. When this happens to me, I change the "start date of transactions to download" and do another update. Display the "Online Center" from Tools. Hold the control key and click on Contact Info. Select your Vanguard account name from the dropdown list. Click on the DTSTART button and select a date a couple of weeks in the past.

    image.png

    Click on OK and then on Refresh. Next click on Update/Send and follow the normal One Step Update process.

  • Tom Young
    Tom Young Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭

    "Its the core money market fund VFMXX which all cash is swept to after sales and for all purchases.

    You didn't tell me if all "cash" shown in the Holding was a combination of VFMXX and any actual cash, but it does appear the VFMXX was considered a "security" previously - I'd expect that there would be downloaded transactions for "buys" and "sells - and now it's not.

    Quicken really hasn't been too clear about this process of the option to treat a MMF fund as either a security or cash. Some Accounts, but not all Accounts, have the option to change that in the Online Services tab:

    image.png

    so you might look there first.

    It's been my experience that if you disconnect the Account (and maybe all Accounts at that FI that use the same User ID and Password), delete the Financial institution and Account Number information on the General tab, the work through the Add Account process, enter your User ID and Password, then carefully LINK each account found at the FI with the correct Quicken Account, the question about treatment - as a security or cash - comes up with each account that has an MMF in it's Holdings.

    For whatever reason Quicken seems to think that having an MMF treated as "cash" is recommended, but of course some MMFs are traded - you initiate buys and sells and there's a settlement period. In that case I have the MMF marked as a security. But in a true "sweep" situation the distinction between the MMF and actual cash disappears, so having the MMF treated as cash has no real downside.

  • Scotsaver
    Scotsaver Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭

    @Cyberphile your suggestion fixed it. Thanks for the tip of resetting the date. The missing transactions appeared again. I have used Quicken for decades and never discovered the Ctrl contact Info dialog box to reset download dates. Sanity restored.

    @Tom - thanks for suggestions. Vanguard uses a MMKT fund for cash

  • cyberphile
    cyberphile Member ✭✭✭✭

    @Scotsaver 👍️

  • Jim&Ginny
    Jim&Ginny Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭

    So glad to see this discussion. We likely have the same exact issue. Will follow suggestions above, hopefully with the same good result. The issue is another example that true "accounting" starts off simply but escalates to complex and confusing quickly. It took a while for me, in a complicated financial world, to get use to Vanguard's frequent use of the dramatically unsophisticated word "sweep"! I was used to "move" or "transferred". Perhaps FI's are expecting to find all the money on the floor! (Of the NYSE! 😉)

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