- quote -

The brokerage house.

- quote -

No I don't. In an earlier post in this thread I made that abundantly clear
when I wrote: "I'm not absolutely convinced that this is a Money issue vs. a
brokerage
issue. I've sent several emails regarding this, but have yet to receive a
response that makes sense. "

- quote -

I have not as I don't save the downloaded files (using Open vs. Save). But
saving a test file is easy enough and I'll read the OFX documentation to see
what they're doing.

Aviator wrote:
- quote -

Whose software?

Do you believe that MS Money is responsible for the dating of
the transactions?

The OFX specs allow for both the trade date and the settlement
date to be provided by the financial institution. Have you
checked your downloaded data (as in: the OFX file/data) to see
what values are being provided by the fi for those two fields?

--

John Pollard
First initial underscore Last name at mchsi dot com
Please reply to newsgroup

- quote -

OK, got it. Sorry, I was reading way too much into that one sentence. You're
absolutely right in the example above.

I've listed this as the biggest issue with their software. IMHO, there
should be *no* post-dated transactions, period. If they can't (or won't)
allow the user to have a "to date" for downloads, then the date of the
download should be the default to-date behind the curtains. Any post-dated
transactions left behind should be for a future download.

And there should be no reason, technologically speaking, for the dates to be
off. I'm sure there are best practices or standards out there, but I don't
know why this continues to happen.

The good news is that I'm less concerned about duplicate transactions as I
was before this thread was started. Bad news is that I'll still have to
manually change the post-dated transaction dates in order for the accounts to
balance.

In microsoft.public.money, Aviator wrote:

- quote -

I was just trying to simply recap. So if you Buy XYZ on Monday the
first, you might download a Buy on Tuesday the 2nd that lists a date
of the 4th.

- quote -

For me, I use the 1099 DIV and INT form data. For example, even if
you had all of the numbers, Money is not going to know what is
qualified, and it is not going to know what is return of capital,
and it will not know what is section xxx gains. The 1099s (if you
wait for the corrected versions) have that broken out.

I don't use the 1099B info directly except to compare against. The
1099B does not include the acquisition dates or amounts.

So I have Money prepare a .txf file with just the long- and
short-term schedule D. It's really good.

- quote -

- quote -

I'm a little confused by this question, especially the part where you ask if
"the transaction appears before the settlement date but with the settlement
date in the Date field. "

The sell transaction downloaded into Money contains the Settlement date.
There is no way to tell what the Trade date is by just looking at the
downloaded transaction. But when I go online and view the transaction there,
I can drill into the transaction and see the Trade date which, of course, is
typically 3 days before the Settlement date.

- quote -

For this reason, I've never relied on Money for tax information. I can
balance the accounts to the penny, but the official tax information I get
from the brokerage is always off (sometime higher, sometime lower) than what
Money indicates. I use the tax feature in Money only for roughly estimating
the tax bill or refund.

The only other time it would matter is when calculating short term vs. long
term capital gains. It's quite possible that the date discrepancy would take
a short term cap gain and call it long term. But given the discrepancies
between Money's tax info and theirs, I rely on their information as that's
what goes to the IRS.

- quote -

Tax harvesting typically occurs right before Christmas and is settled 1 or 2
days after. I've never seen them span the year. Whether this is by
coincidence or by design, I don't know. But it appears that they are careful
about not bridging years.

- quote -

That's exactly what I've been doing to "force" the Money accounts to balance
to their online numbers. But I just change the date of the postdated
transactions to the date of the download -- too much trouble to research each
transaction for when it actually was traded.

- quote -

Good tip. Thanks.

- quote -

I'd prefer not to until I get a response from them regarding this issue.

- quote -

They do, and that was the catalyst for this thread.

In microsoft.public.money, Aviator wrote:

- quote -

And just to be clear, the transaction appears before the settlement
date but with the settlement date in the Date field.

Odd. I guess I would go with that from a simplicity point of view,
tho when you prepare your schedule D (Money can provide the data for
TaxCut or TurboTax) then the settlement date would appear instead of
the transaction date. That would be especially bad in the last few
days of the year where the settlement moves to the next year.

I would check the 1099B from 2007, if you have one, to see what date
is being reported on that. I expect it reports the transaction date.

To rigorously work around this, you could manually change the date
on the Buys and Sells. Note that the '-' key will move the date a
day sooner. Poke that typically 3 or 5 times as appropriate.

Care to name the broker?

- quote -

Now that part can work nicely. The nice part of that is that the
cash transactions register will normally contain $0. What is good
about that is that it is easy to spot something missing or
duplicated by the non-zero balance hanging around.

What can complicate things is if the broker sends "Bank Balance"
field that includes sweep MMF holdings, that will confuse things.
Just learn to ignore the "Bank Balance" number as far as expecting
it to match your cash transactions register.

- quote -

Two transactions:

1. The transaction with the Settlement date. In Money, I'd find a Sell
transaction of 100 XYZ shares [at] $10/share *on the date of settlement*. (For
the sake of clarity, I'm omitting commissions.)

2. A transaction to buy $1000 of a Money Market account.

In microsoft.public.money, Aviator wrote:

- quote -

OK. So in your case, what downloads into Money regarding the Sell of
XYZ itself?

- quote -

I think you are describing what you see in Money. That works fine
regarding the buy of the MMF. But what is the date that Money shows
for the Sell?

- quote -

Correct, these are US accounts and US rules.

- quote -

And here is where it gets interesting. I can view transaction data online
before downloading. Without exception, the transaction date is the settlement
date, *not* the trade date. If I click on a transaction to drill down into
its detail, I can see the trade date which is a few days earlier than the
settlement date.

What's interesting is that the brokerage has two groups of transactions:
Posted and Pending. Only the posted transactions are downloaded into Money.
The Pending transactions, I'm assuming, are awaiting settlement. But, once
again, the Posted transactions are downloaded with the settlement date, not
the trade date.

- quote -

Your example above makes sense if only the brokerage handled it that way.
Instead, the sell order sits as a Pending transaction until it settles (and
Pending transactions don't get downloaded into Money). Once it settles, the
transaction then becomes a Posted transaction and is eligible for download.
The way it works with this particular brokerage house is that the sell and
sweep into the Money Market account happen almost simultaneously, usually on
the same day and, if not on the same day, one business day later. So on the
day the transaction settles, I will see two transactions (based on your
example above): One for the actual sale of the security; the other for the
proceeds of said sale to buy into the Money Market account.

In microsoft.public.money, Aviator wrote:

<snip> Agreed. I'd already done that. I've been relying on the brokerage data to
- quote -

Assuming we are talking about current US rules, it is the trade date
for a Buy or Sell which is used for tax and therefore Money use.
While there is a "settlement" date three days later for a stock, for
most purposes that date can be ignored by the investor. That is more
for the internal use of the broker.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/t+1.asp

What I suspect you are describing is the broker actually sending
data for future dividends, maybe a week or more ahead, dated for the
pay date.

But maybe this is it, and it would be *a* normal way of doing
things:

Order to Sell 100 XYZ [at]$10 executes on Monday the first. In Money
the cash transactions register's balance increases by $1000 On
Thursday the 4th the broker takes the $1000 proceeds and invests it
into the sweep money market account. The cash transactions
register's balance decreases by $1000. So if you don't do any
transactions for four business days, the cash transactions register
normally shows a balance of $0.00. When there are trades that have
yet to settle, the balance in the cash transactions shows the amount
not yet settled.

Could that be what you are seeing? Just checking. I have had a
broker where it works that way, and it has some advantages.

- quote -

Cal, as usual thanks for the prompt and informative reply.

- quote -

Agreed. I'd already done that. I've been relying on the brokerage data to
record dividends. And you're right -- these transactions are more than just
dividends. Essentially, *any* transaction that has settled (defined as money
changing hands) and has a future date is included.

- quote -

I'm not absolutely convinced that this is a Money issue vs. a brokerage
issue. I've sent several emails regarding this, but have yet to receive a
response that makes sense. As they've just started offering Money and Quicken
downloads, it's quite possible that something is wrong on their end.

- quote -

Very good information, thanks. I've been manually tracking (read pencil and
paper) those accounts which have postdated transactions and which ones don't.
I then adjust the "As-of" date accordingly to avoid duplicate transactions.
This weekend I'll test one account to see if the duplicates download.

- quote -

Me neither.

Thanks again for your help.

In microsoft.public.money, Aviator wrote:

- quote -

In the register, post-dated transactions are separated in the
register by a slightly thicker line.

In the cash transactions register, maybe you could use the balance
from the right column just before that line as the balance to use.

- quote -

So these are Buys and Sells, and not just dividends. Even so, you
might want to avoid confusion by unticking
Portfolio-> OtherTasks-> ChangePortfolioSettings-> (GeneralTab)NotifyMeOfDividendsForMyHoldings
in which Money makes a guess about future dividends and usually gets
the date wrong.

Interesting unusual behavior. Let us know what you learn.

- quote -

OFX does track duplicates, as long as the institution maintains the
transaction ID, which it should. So it should know to avoid
duplication. That said, I don't have experience with a broker
sending future transactions in the download.

My investment bank has just started offering downloads of transactions into
Money (or Quicken).

Here's a problem I've encountered and any advice would be greatly appreciated:

1. Their download screen offers an "As of" date, but no "To date". For
example, I can tell them I want transactions as of a certain date, but I
cannot tell them the cutoff date. They assume I want ALL transactions from
the "As of" date forward.

2. The downloads include post-dated transactions. For example, if an
investment will pay a dividend payment 3 days from now, that transaction will
be included in the download as a post-dated transaction.

3. Money doesn't handle post-dated transaction well. While it accepts them
just fine, the account balances don't reflect the post-dated transactions.
This makes account balancing difficult because my Money balances differ from
they say I should have. (I'm aware of the Ending Balance switch, but it's
applied universally which won't work well for me.)

4. After each download, Money attempts to reconcile my holdings with that of
the brokerage. Since post-dated transactions aren't recognized, there is a
discrepancy and Money asks if I want to adjust Money's holdings to that of
the brokerage. (Obviously I don't because I know the cause of the
discrepancy.)

5. Does OFX know if duplicate transactions have been downloaded? I know QIF
will accept duplicates, but I'm not sure of OFX. For example, if I download
today (using OFX) which includes a postdated transaction for 7/12/2008, what
happens if I perform a download in the future and use an "As-of" date of
7/10/2008? Will I get the 7/12 transaction again or is OFX (or Money) smart
enough to recognize that that transaction has already been downloaded?

Thanks in advance for your help.