Negative Cash Transaction Account Balance in 401k account

Money >> Negative Cash Transaction Account Balance in 401k account

Hi,

I have a 401k investment account from a former employer,setup in Money 2006
DLX as a retirement account, tracking cash transactions. Though I no longer
make contributions to it, I've left the Employee matching box checked. I
used the Add Shares tranactions to initailly create the account to add the
current investment balances for each individual fund position. I
periodically download the dividend or other transactions from my Fidelity
site to update the account. I haven't reconciled in a while but the account
was in balance last time I checked. I don't remember what I did to get it all
balanced, The transaction activity types in the investment accounts are a
mix of Buy, Sell, Reinvest Interest & Reivest Dividends.
The cash account shows Dividends and Exchange In/Out transactions. The Cash
account Balance was zero at this point. With my last download the
transactions came in as buy transactions increasing the investment account to
the correct balances (share units ageed to my statements) with a
corresponding negative buy(?) transaction in the cash account, leaving me
with negative balance for the sum of the last downloaded transactions. I
changed the trans. type of the newly downloaded items in the investment
account to Reinvest Dividends which automatically deleted the original
corresponding negative buy transactions in the cash account leaving the cash
account with a zero balance again as it should be, and all is well.

Is this the best way to track this account? I want to include it in
Planning and Tax functions.

Is there a better set up so I don't have to manually change the buys to
reinvest?

Information Technology361

Money >> Negative Cash Transaction Account Balance in 401k account Two answers below.

> Is this the best way to track this account? I want to include it in
> Planning and Tax functions.

Sounds good to me.

> Is there a better set up so I don't have to manually change the buys to
> reinvest?

Don't download. Enter the transactions your self your way and get the right
the first time. Beyond that, no. Downloaded transaction data will only get
you so far. That's true now. It's been true in the past. It will probably
remain true into the far distant future.

Money >> Negative Cash Transaction Account Balance in 401k account Dick, thanks for advice and prompt reply.

> Two answers below.
>

> > Is this the best way to track this account? I want to include it in
> > Planning and Tax functions.
>
> Sounds good to me.
>
> > Is there a better set up so I don't have to manually change the buys to
> > reinvest?
>
> Don't download. Enter the transactions your self your way and get the right
> the first time. Beyond that, no. Downloaded transaction data will only get
> you so far. That's true now. It's been true in the past. It will probably
> remain true into the far distant future.
>
>
>

Money >> Negative Cash Transaction Account Balance in 401k account Mike,

Fidelity's dividends for cash transactions appear as Dividends, as you've
noticed. You have one of two ways to deal with these:

1) Convert the Dividends into Reinvest Dividends with a $1.00 share price
2) Leave all cash transactions as cash transactions, and don't track the
Cash Reserves as a separate "stock".

#1 requires you to convert the transaction type after any downloads
#2 is simpler, but you have to remember to match your cash transactions
really means Fidelity Cash Reserves.

Either way works fine.
MrC