Scottrade Advisor Setup

[dmspiff]

I have been trying to set up my software for my Scottrade Advisor. I have followed the tutorial, but either I am a bit daft (good possibility!) or it seems to be missing something. Is there a tutorial specific for Scottrade Advisor or can someone walk me through the process of initially setting up my account? I do have data files from Scottrade already.

The times I have been able to set up the system it will only show one subaccount, when I have about 40!

Thanks!

Mark

[Mark]

Hi Mark,

Sure, I can help. I'll try to post some tips here, and if that isn't sufficient, please give us a call at 480-705-0129.

Scottrade provides both transaction and position files. You can get set up in 1 of 2 ways:

1) Import positions now, and then import transactions going forward. This is the easiest, but has the drawback that you don't have historical cost/performance data prior to when you import positions.

2) Get all of your historical transactions from Scottrade, and import all of them. You can make a special request for them to provide this. In this case you only import all your transactions, and not positions.

Importing positions is like putting a stake in the ground as of a certain date. You are just recording a purchase as of the import date for the number of shares currently owned. You would have to manually adjust the cost basis for those shares. You only ever want to import positions 1 time at the most. In the future you use position files to reconcile against, but you do not ever import them again.

[dmspiff]

Hi Mark,

It may be best if I just call you sometime next week. Thanks for the prompt reply!

I did successfully follow the steps to import the transactions, but I have a lot of subaccounts I manage and the system only imports ONE. Any quic and dirty tricks or something I may be missing?

I have several months of transaction and position files to import...

Thanks again,

Mark

[Mark]

Hi Mark,

When you did the import, did you choose "All Accounts", or did you choose "Only <Acct #>"?

[dmspiff]

Hi Mark,

It is now a couple of years later and I had previously decided to have my assistant use Portfolio Director online as I hoped it would be easier and maintenance free. They were brand new when we used them and the complexity of our transactions kept crashing their system (I'm sure that is going to get you excited to work with us)! So we stopped using them in August of 2009 and I had to focus my efforts on other matters. We had paid a company a lot of money to import all of the transactions from 2003 onward and historical price data into PD and we still have the back-up file for them.

So my questions are as follows:
1. Are you willing to give it a try (if we promise not to try to crash your system)?
2. Can we import the data from Portfolio Director Online from our back-up files?
3. We have been receiving data in CSF since then and can ask them for a custom import file up to a year back for everything else.
4. We have a couple of other accounts held outside of Scottrade I presume we could manually enter data
5. When we are done are we going to be able to confidently publish historical performance data? To do this will we have to (and can we) go in and enter historical price data? Will my extensive use of individual stocks, bonds, and preferred shares raise too much havoc?

My goal is to get all of our historic data into one source (preferably yours) to be able to publish it to drive in substantial new business. I am willing to pay a company or consultant (or your company) to import the data. I am still a very small firm but our returns and results have been "too good to be true" and I am anxious to get them into a system so we can confidently report numbers we can back up when the auditors looking for Bernie Madoff inevitably come knocking.

The compliance firm we hired (of which my firm is the first they are helping with publishing performance data because they reviewed it and they were surprised how compelling it is) suggested we categorize all of our client accounts into subcategories for reporting (like conservative, moderate, and aggressive) and they are willing to work with everyone to ensure everything is good to go for publication.

I understand my project is pretty extensive and complex and I wouldn't blame you at all for not wanting to take it on. If you don't can you offer any suggestions for alternatives? If you do then I will dedicate all resources I can to make it happen as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Thank you!

Mark

[Mark]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for looking at Fund Manager again. Let me try to answer each of your questions:

1) I'm glad to offer you support, but we do not do the data entry/import/verification, that is up to you.

2) Probably not directly... What file type is it? Do you have access to the system so you could export the data to some standardized file?

3) Do you mean CSV? You can import a CSV file using the generic transaction import, although you may need to massage your CSV file somewhat first, to make sure you're using Fund Manager transaction codes, etc. Also, if you have your Scottrade Advisor files (*.TR1, *.SE1, etc), you can import all of those. That would be easier than the CSV format.

4) Yes, you can.

5) If your data is all entered correctly, then you can have confidence FM will produce correct historical performance reports. You can enter historical pricing data, but it is usually easier to retrieve/import it. Only if there is no online source for your data, like maybe some special private investments, would you need to manually enter your pricing data.