Moneydance+ Adding Spurious Securities
When using Moneydance+ to download transactions from Vanguard, I've seen two instances of Moneydance+ adding securities I've never heard of. The first one was some bank, today I had Ballys Corporation (BALY) added. I have never owned or even heard of BALY until today.
When prompted to link with a security, I selected "None of the above". Moneydance then created an orphaned security -- not linked to any investment account -- and associated it with no transactions.
I then had to go to Tools -> Securities and delete the useless security account.
I would attach a log file of Moneydance+ downloads if I knew where that was. Errlog.txt only contains summary information of the Plaid connection.
Since this has happened twice in the last week, I'm expecting more spurious securities to be downloaded in the near future.
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1 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 05 Feb, 2025 03:44 PM
you can go to help/console, click the (...) and enable MD+/Plain logging.. Then download and see what's in the console file.
2 Posted by dtd on 06 Feb, 2025 12:05 AM
It is indeed a pain, isn't it? Schwab does exactly what you describe to me 3-4 times a month (and yes, often again with a security I had deleted the week prior or so).
Unfortunately, there is nothing Moneydance can do about it, because if the bank reports it, Moneydance accepts it. Moneydance should not make a decision for you on whether or not to ignore what the bank sends (and it doesn't).
I have complained to Schwab about this (it never happened with Direct Connect OFX), but as you would expect, I'm answered with either a "huh? what? (oh we don't support Moneydance) or at best, we always provide the correct information.
3 Posted by kmenningen on 07 Feb, 2025 12:37 PM
This seems like a reasonable response until you consider that there is no transaction, no share amount that would affect the account balance. When that's the case, what would be the decision being made for the user? Asked another way, if MD decides there's no transaction to be entered in response to the downloaded information, why shouldn't MD ignore it? I'm suggesting a reasonable response for MD would be to log the spurious information and not add a new security with no associated transactions or investment account.
Support Staff 4 Posted by Maddy on 07 Feb, 2025 01:05 PM
@kmenningen
Would you be able to send us a copy of your Moneydance error logs, please?
This information would be useful to investigate the issue.
You could navigate to Help->Console Window and click the arrow (at the bottom left). Select Copy to Clipboard and attach or paste the full content in your next reply.
Alternatively, you should navigate to:
Local Disk(C:)>Users>Your Name>.moneydance>errlog.txt
Finally you can copy the full content into your next reply here.
Thank you
--
Maddy, Infinite Kind Support
5 Posted by kmenningen on 05 Mar, 2025 01:44 PM
I finally received a spurious security today with OFX and Plaid logging enabled. It was ROBINHOOD_PLAID_CASH_SECURITY added to my Vanguard Brokerage account in response to a $25k cash transfer from my USAA bank account. See attached graphics.
Attached is the log for this, I've added line numbers.
Line 3 is where the security is added. The CUSIP, ISIN and SEDOL are all null. Ticker is CUR:USD. "IsCashEquivalent -> true;" I think MD should ignore securities that are unidentified like this, or perhaps ignore cash equivalent items. Plaid should also work with Vanguard to get better ID info. I have no idea how the name Robinhood got involved, I don't think Vanguard and Robinhood work together, nor USAA Federal Savings Bank.
Line 4 is correctly mapping to the actual sweep fund, VMFXX or Vanguard Money Market Fund. Note that I disagree with "IsCashEquivalent -> false;" because it actually is a cash equivalent, and is the sweep fund for all cash transactions.
Line 5 was mapped to "MiscInc" associated with the Robinhood security.
Line 7 was mapped to "MiscExp" for VMFXX but is actually a Buy transaction. The Amount is correctly set to $25k and the Price to 1.0, but the Quantity is set to 0 for some reason -- it should really be 25000.
Please work with Plaid on straightening this stuff out. Note that I'm still waiting on Plaid to fix their connection to Fidelity and Optum Bank.
6 Posted by dtd on 05 Mar, 2025 11:30 PM
I find this very interesting. MD+/Plaid logging is quite new, so I had not seen this detail of what Plaid sends versus what MD does.
I've learned a bit about what info goes from the bank -> plaid -> Moneydance and some of my conclusions on what happens here are not completely correct.
Let me think about this some and I'll try to get back to this thread as soon as I assimilate this info.
Note: I am not IK staff, just another user.
7 Posted by rivernut on 06 Mar, 2025 12:30 PM
I too have had many transactions from Schwab appear with Robinhood as the security. So far I've just changed the security to the correct one (already entered in MD) but I do not know if these changes will stick, or if I'm going to have to do this each time a dividend posts. Any guidance here appreciated.
This has all been happening in the last 3 weeks.
8 Posted by he on 06 Mar, 2025 02:02 PM
I reported same issue in a previous thread. I hope this isn't considered hijacking this one.
https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/discussions/investments/8304-pha...
9 Posted by dtd on 06 Mar, 2025 06:05 PM
What I've done is map ROBINHOOD to something I name myself, which is much shorter. And since it is in my SEDOL/CUSIP/ISIN list, as Plaid:xxxxxx I never see the words robinhood anymore, just my assigned name.
For me this transaction usually occurs as a miscinc with the "cash" security as a zero security, and with a cash component unrelated to the security.
And yes, there are other spurious securities not even tied to a transaction, so I've just said "None of the above" when asked what to connect them to, and occasionally run around and delete them, of course only to have them show up again at a later date (at Schwab, "BusCar Co" is one of my spurious nemeses).
There are other issues, but they do seem rare (like monthly? :) ) and I've been fixing them by hand as well.
10 Posted by dtd on 06 Mar, 2025 06:12 PM
@he - ah, I remember that thread from January. Basically, this is a continuance, with basically the same statements - how to workaround it until Moneydance decides if they want to be more active in making these spurious item issues/fixes more automatic.... ...one good thing is almost all of them (I do know some exceptions) don't make the numbers wrong, you just end up with "messy" extra items floating about.
11 Posted by cjh on 16 Mar, 2025 08:03 PM
I'll add another report on bad imports from Schwab --> Moneydance. Essentially the same issues noted above - except instead of just being cash equivalent accounts, I saw a group of Vanguard mutual funds all come in as "Robinhood_Plaid_Cash_Security". The correct security name is shown in the "Description" field, but the Robinhood name is shown as the security. The dollar amounts all work out OK - as others note it's just an editorial mess that has to be cleaned up.