Problem downloading from Fidelity NetBenefits

[Sterling25]

I have never had problems downloading from Fidelity NetBenefits before now. I downloaded new transactions in my 457B account but they came in with the same name but not the same cusip. The security investment property shows the cusip is the same as well as the investment name, but there is no symbol. Therefore a new file is created. I do not have this issue with my regular Fidelity accounts. What is your best suggestion of how to handle this issue? Thank you

[Mark]

Hi Sterling25,

If the CUSIP of your existing investment matches that of the incoming transaction, that should be all that is necessary. Are you sure you have this recorded the same as how they're coming down from the broker? If so, please email me some screenshots of the properties of your existing investments, along with the transaction details dialog of an incoming transaction that is going to create a new investment. You can see this transaction details dialog by right clicking on a transaction in the "Preview Importing Transactions" page of the retrieve wizard.

[Sterling25]

I have attached a document with the screenshots you suggested. The symbol line is the one that is blank. Let me know what you think.

[Mark]

Hi Sterling25,

It looks okay to me. The broker is providing the CUSIP, and it matches your existing investment, so that transaction is going into your existing investment. It isn't creating a new investment. I see the symbol is empty as provided by the broker, but you already have the symbol recorded in your existing investment, which will remain un-changed. I can see this being an issue when you trade in something new, as your new investments would have an empty symbol, but it isn't going to hurt anything on your existing investments. On new investments you'd have to manually enter the correct symbol if you plan to retrieve prices, or want it recorded. I'm not sure why Fidelity isn't providing it here.

If you want to double check that Fidelity isn't providing the symbol information, open up the log file after retrieving transactions for this account. See "Help / Logs / Transaction Retrieve (Parsed)..." and look for a section "- SECLIST", which will look like this:

Code: Select all

   - SECLISTMSGSRSV1
      - SECLIST
         - STOCKINFO
            - SECINFO
               - SECID
                  - UNIQUEID (00130H105)
                  - UNIQUEIDTYPE (CUSIP)
               - SECNAME (AES CORP)
               - TICKER (AES)
               - UNITPRICE (14.53)
               - MEMO (Price as of date based on closing price)
            - STOCKTYPE (COMMON)
            - YIELD (4.74)

Which shows what the "TICKER" is for the UNIQUEID (CUSIP). Maybe yours is blank?

[Sterling25]

I think the problem is that fidelity for some reason has started creating new data files when it downloads the transactions. I have included some screenshots to show what I mean. Should I delete the new data files and then will they go back to the correct one? I tried to change the name of the file in the Importing Transaction details sheet, but it doesn't allow that.

[Sterling25]

Also the new data files are not even in the correct folders. They are going to a folder on my desktop for emails???? How did that happen?

[Mark]

Hi Sterling25,

When you retrieve transactions and a transaction comes in that needs to create a new investment, you'll see this in the "New Investment" column of the Preview Importing Transactions dialog. You should only see this if you don't already have an existing investment in that account with that CUSIP. Where the investment file is created is controlled in the "New Investment Options..." button on the initial "Retrieve Transactions" dialog.

To clean this up, you might want to use "File / File Operations / Set Data Location..." and have FM put all your investment files in a folder of your choosing.

[Sterling25]

Thank you. I have cleaned up the destination of all of my data files. But when I try to do the download for this one account, because the downloaded transactions are not coming in with a symbol it creates a new data file that starts with autoname. Is there any way to put the symbol in or change the file name?

[Mark]

Hi Sterling25,

A missing symbol shouldn't cause a new investment file, as long as the CUSIP matches an existing investment. Can you send me a screenshot of when you're getting a new investment? It will say "Yes" in the rightmost column of the "Preview Importing Transactions" dialog, under the "New Investment" column.

[Sterling25]

Mark, I continue to have problems downloading from Fidelity Benefits. I have attached the screenshot to show you how almost all of my downloaded transactions come in as new investments. They have 4 integer cusips instead of 9. Can you help me with this?

[DukeWeston]

I checked the Quicken user forums and Quicken users have been seeing a similar problem.

You might want to monitor the Quicken forum (search for NetBenefits) to see if it gets resolved in a way that would be applicable to Fund Manager.

For example https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20383315

[Mark]

Hi Sterling25,

Fund Manager identifies incoming transactions by CUSIP to existing investments, so if the CUSIP has changed, this will happen. You can either modify the CUSIP in your existing investments, or as DukeWeston pointed out, it might be an issue they will resolve.

[Sterling25]

Thank you for your advice. I am afraid if I change the cusip, they might change it again. I could add the transactions myself, but then I can't ever reconcile the account. I will see if I can get Fidelity to change it at their end first.

[Vandring]

I have also had this problem, only to discover that Fidelity had changed the CUSIP on the investments.

I understand you would like to get Fidelity to update this on their end, but after over 20 years as a NetBenefits customer, I think you have a much better chance driving a Toyota Land Cruiser over the Atlantic Ocean than you do getting Fidelity to fix something.

So, I changed the CUSIP, and made a note to myself that the next time I experience similar problems, to check whether Fidelity changed it.

[Sterling25]

Thank you. I think you are right.