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Phantom transactions from E*TRADE

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David

Nov 09, 2018 @ 10:47 PM

Uninvested cash in my E*TRADE investment accounts receives monthly dividends from a JP Morgan MM fund (HTSXX). Each month there is a phantom transaction included in MoneyDance in each investment account. For example: DIV - $10.00, followed immediately by a XFR transaction for $10.00 to a E*TRADE savings account. I have to manually enter another XFR to reverse the first one in order to bring the accounts into balance with reality. The only transaction showing up online at E*TRADE is the DIV. Per E*TRADE account manager, there are no transactions other than the DIV that they can see.

That makes me conclude that MD is somehow generating this phantom XFR transaction. I'm running WIN10 and MD verson 2017.10 (1706). This was also happening on 2017.09.

1. 1 Posted by Tom Freeman on Nov 15, 2018 @ 01:40 AM

   

   This sounds like a sweep account:

   https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sweepaccount.asp

   My assumption is that you E-trade cash balance is held in this sweep account. Your monthly dividend is credited to your account then transferred back to the sweep account. The sweep account is technically owned by another financial institution which is why it is treated as a xfer. When downloading the xfer transaction, MD does not recognize the institution so it assigns the catagory to the saving account as it remembers previous xfers from that account..

   When MD does direct connect it downloads all transactions E-trade has on your account. The xfer is a behind the scene transaction between E*trade and the JPMorgan MM that does not make it to your statement but it is in the E*trade system.

   My assumption is that your E-trade cash balance is equal to this sweep account and the div you reference is added to your cash balance. If this is so, you only have to delete the extraneous xfer transaction from the investment register. The div transaction should retail the addition to your cash balance.

   If i have completely misunderstood your issue please let us know and we will do our best to resolve this issue.

   Tom Freeman
   Infinite Kind Support

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2. 2 Posted by David Krebbs on Nov 15, 2018 @ 02:21 AM

   
   Thanks for the reply, Tom. I think you understand the issue, and your response is reasonable. 

   
   

   But I don't think I can simply delete the xfer, because it just reappears on subsequent downloads. That's why I have to manually create the offsetting xfer. It would be nice if MD would just ignore the xfers between institutions that it doesn't recognize, but guess that may lead to other issues. 
   

   
   

   On Nov 14, 2018 8:40 PM, Tom Freeman <[email blocked]> wrote:
   

   // Please reply above this line ================================================== From: Tom Freeman (Support staff) This sounds like a sweep account: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sweepaccount.asp My assumption is that you E-trade cash balance is held in this sweep account. Your monthly dividend is credited to your account then transferred back to the sweep account. The sweep account is technically owned by another financial institution which is why it is treated as a xfer. When downloading the xfer transaction, MD does not recognize the institution so it assigns the catagory to the saving account as it remembers previous xfers from that account.. When MD does direct connect it downloads all transactions E-trade has on your account. The xfer is a behind the scene transaction between E*trade and the JPMorgan MM that does not make it to your statement but it is in the E*trade system. My assumption is that your E-trade cash balance is equal to this sweep account and the div you reference is added to your cash balance. If this is so, you only have to delete the extraneous xfer transaction from the investment register. The div transaction should retail the addition to your cash balance. If i have completely misunderstood your issue please let us know and we will do our best to resolve this issue. Tom Freeman Infinite Kind Support On Fri, Nov 09 at 02:47 PM PST, David wrote: Uninvested cash in my E*TRADE investment accounts receives monthly dividends from a JP Morgan MM fund (HTSXX). Each month there is a phantom transaction included in MoneyDance in each investment account. For example: DIV - $10.00, followed immediately by a XFR transaction for $10.00 to a E*TRADE savings account. I have to manually enter another XFR to reverse the first one in order to bring the accounts into balance with reality. The only transaction showing up online at E*TRADE is the DIV. Per E*TRADE account manager, there are no transactions other than the DIV that they can see. That makes me conclude that MD is somehow generating this phantom XFR transaction. I'm running WIN10 and MD verson 2017.10 (1706). This was also happening on 2017.09.

   Having trouble reading this? View this discussion online: Phantom transactions from E*TRADE. Reply with #ignore to stop receiving notifications for this discussion.

   
   
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3. 3 Posted by Tom Freeman on Nov 16, 2018 @ 04:29 PM

   

   The difficulty in dealing with sweep transactions is for MD to recognize the difference between a xfer that is from the sweep account to the investment account and a xfer which is an actual transafer of funds. The coding of the transactions are the same.

   If you are using direct connect for Etrade, then MD should only ask the server for the transactions since the last download, so it shouldn't download again. Or if it does, it should only overlap by at most a day. It may also be that we ask for the right dates, but they go ahead and send a bunch of old ones anyway.

   I have an E*trade account so I am going to test if the transactions I deleted today come back tomorrow.

   One thing you may want to do is to create a catagory called sweep transaction, edit the next download to this catagory and MD should remember on subsequent downloads. And edit the xfer to 0. This will keep the xfers from inadvertently messing up your savings account.

   Tom Freeman
   Infinite Kind Support

   • Edit

4. 4 Posted by David Krebbs on Nov 16, 2018 @ 05:01 PM

   
   Yeah, it would be great if I could just delete the xfer transaction, so please let me know how your testing goes. I know the first time this happened I deleted the xfer and it came back the next day. I didn't try any longer time period between downloads.

   
   

   Thanks for looking into this issue. 

   
   

   DK

   
   

   On Nov 16, 2018 11:29 AM, Tom Freeman <[email blocked]> wrote:
   

   // Please reply above this line ================================================== From: Tom Freeman (Support staff) The difficulty in dealing with sweep transactions is for MD to recognize the difference between a xfer that is from the sweep account to the investment account and a xfer which is an actual transafer of funds. The coding of the transactions are the same. If you are using direct connect for Etrade, then MD should only ask the server for the transactions since the last download, so it shouldn't download again. Or if it does, it should only overlap by at most a day. It may also be that we ask for the right dates, but they go ahead and send a bunch of old ones anyway. I have an E*trade account so I am going to test if the transactions I deleted today come back tomorrow. One thing you may want to do is to create a catagory called sweep transaction, edit the next download to this catagory and MD should remember on subsequent downloads. And edit the xfer to 0. This will keep the xfers from inadvertently messing up your savings account. Tom Freeman Infinite Kind Support On Wed, Nov 14 at 06:21 PM PST, David Krebbs wrote: Thanks for the reply, Tom. I think you understand the issue, and your response is reasonable.  But I don't think I can simply delete the xfer, because it just reappears on subsequent downloads. That's why I have to manually create the offsetting xfer. It would be nice if MD would just ignore the xfers between institutions that it doesn't recognize, but guess that may lead to other issues.  On Nov 14, 2018 8:40 PM, Tom Freeman <[email blocked]> wrote: // Please reply above this line ================================================== From: Tom Freeman (Support staff) This sounds like a sweep account: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sweepaccount.asp My assumption is that you E-trade cash balance is held in this sweep account. Your monthly dividend is credited to your account then transferred back to the sweep account. The sweep account is technically owned by another financial institution which is why it is treated as a xfer. When downloading the xfer transaction, MD does not recognize the institution so it assigns the catagory to the saving account as it remembers previous xfers from that account.. When MD does direct connect it downloads all transactions E-trade has on your account. The xfer is a behind the scene transaction between E*trade and the JPMorgan MM that does not make it to your statement but it is in the E*trade system. My assumption is that your E-trade cash balance is equal to this sweep account and the div you reference is added to your cash balance. If this is so, you only have to delete the extraneous xfer transaction from the investment register. The div transaction should retail the addition to your cash balance. If i have completely misunderstood your issue please let us know and we will do our best to resolve this issue. Tom Freeman Infinite Kind Support On Fri, Nov 09 at 02:47 PM PST, David wrote: Uninvested cash in my E*TRADE investment accounts receives monthly dividends from a JP Morgan MM fund (HTSXX). Each month there is a phantom transaction included in MoneyDance in each investment account. For example: DIV - $10.00, followed immediately by a XFR transaction for $10.00 to a E*TRADE savings account. I have to manually enter another XFR to reverse the first one in order to bring the accounts into balance with reality. The only transaction showing up online at E*TRADE is the DIV. Per E*TRADE account manager, there are no transactions other than the DIV that they can see. That makes me conclude that MD is somehow generating this phantom XFR transaction. I'm running WIN10 and MD verson 2017.10 (1706). This was also happening on 2017.09. Having trouble reading this? View this discussion online: Phantom transactions from E*TRADE. Reply with #ignore to stop receiving notifications for this discussion.

   Having trouble reading this? View this discussion online: Phantom transactions from E*TRADE. Reply with #ignore to stop receiving notifications for this discussion.

   
   
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5. 5 Posted by hleofxquotes on Nov 16, 2018 @ 09:08 PM

   

   Caveat: I don't use MD as my primary tool so I don't know if this will work. But in with other financial program that I've used, the following works

   • accept the extra entries
   • then void them

   Since the void entries are still there, they will just get matched up again (and not created again).

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6. 6 Posted by dwg on Nov 16, 2018 @ 10:24 PM

   

   Hi hleofxquotes.

   I'm afraid there is no void option in Moneydance.

   Des

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7. 7 Posted by David on Nov 26, 2018 @ 11:45 PM

   

   Tom - Have you had any success with your E*TRADE testing last week?

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8. 8 Posted by Tom Freeman on Nov 27, 2018 @ 01:08 AM

   

   I just tried and the deleted xfers still downloaded even after this much time.

   Which means that E-trade is either ignoring our date stamp request or just sending all transactions within their time period.

   I am so sorry for the inconvenience. The best I can really offer is to zero the xfer.

   Tom Freeman
   Infinite Kind Support

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9. System closed this discussion on Feb 26, 2019 @ 01:10 AM.