Identifying Data Sources

[elliots]

Mark,

A minor mystery, leading to a general question.

I'm doing client reports now and decided to take another look at the Exec Summary. I really like it and will use it -- the issue bothering me earlier in the year (internal/external transactions) seems to have been cleaned up. I noted, however, a distributed distribution in the YTD column -- and there shouldn't have been one (stuff is in a brokerage account and all distributions go into the default cash account). I was able to track down a duplicate dividend -- 2 dividend entries in the investment, but only 1 entry in the cash account. The data register for the 2 dividends is identical. I seem to remember in the past there was some indication in the memo field when a transactions was imported -- these no longer seem to show.

I went to the downloaded transaction file for the date in question (Scottrade, the TR1 file). Looking at the file in Notepad, there appears to be only one data line entry for the security in question with the last field a whole bunch of 0s . 0s then -DIV. I've looked at other TR1 files and see the same pattern so I guess the amount is not in text or is somehow hidden? This leads me to also suspect that the FM Data Register has some hidden info that could identify the source of a transaction?

All that leads to my question -- how can I tell the source of a transaction in the data register? It would be nice if there were an audit trail -- file name of a file imported from? or ID of the user making a manual entry?

If there's nothing there now, could you add this to my wish list?

I'll hold off deleting the duplicate dividend transaction until I know if there's more to it than meets the eye. When I delete it, will it also delete the matching cash transaction (generated by 1 of the duplicate dividends)?

[Mark]

Hi elliots,

There is an audit trail available in the Advisor version. You do have to enable this feature. See "Options / General Preferences... / Data / Enable Audit Trail Logging". Press the "Help" button here for more info, including how to find your audit trail log file. (We probably should have a "View Log" button there for convenience...).

When importing transactions from Scottrade TR1 files, the memo field is filled in with comments provided by Scottrade in the TR1 file.

Besides the audit trail, there is no good way of knowing exactly where a transaction came from.

If you do delete one of the distributions, it will also delete the corresponding default cash account entry. You could either temporarily un-assign the default cash account, or just re-enter the purchase of cash after deleting the duplicate distribution.