Retrieving transaction

[DGreenfield]

I first set up the master portfolio one year ago. Now I want to retrieve transactions going back several years, but the retrieval function will not go past the one year ago date. What am I doing wrong?

[Mark]

Hi DGreenfield,

In Fund Manager you can set the transaction retrieve dates to anything you want, including "All Dates". However, most brokers do not keep transactions permanently on their OFX server, which is what is being used here. Many of them keep it for a fixed time, like a year or 2, or sometimes only months. You can retrieve back as far as available, but if you'd like history prior to this you'd need to either try and download it from your broker's web server, and then import it, or enter it manually.

[monotonicus]

I am only getting 90 days of transactions from Fidelity, and they say that if I can view it online it is available for electronic access...and suggested it is a limitation of the accessing software.

I have selected to retrieve "all dates" in the Date Range to Retrieve dialog.

Would this be a limitation of the Unlicensed Evaluation version? Or is there something else?

Thanks
Mike

[Mark]

Hi Mike,

It is a limitation of Fidelity's OFX server. Fund Manager imposes no limitations on the dates that you can retrieve transactions. If you'd like to confirm, you can look in the log files from the transaction retrieve. You can verify the request date, and also look at the returned transaction information. For help on finding the log files, please read the bottom of this page:

http://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/tintrtv.html

The easiest to read format is shown in the xmldump.txt file. The raw request made by Fund Manager is in the ofxpost.txt file, and the raw reply from the OFX server is in the ofxretr.txt file. The xmldump.txt file is just a more human readable version of the ofxretr.txt file. All of these log files are plain text files, which you can view in any text editor, like Notepad.

[monotonicus]

Thanks Mark. They corroborated your statement.

I may be a little naive about this subject, but it is incredible to me that Fidelity only carries 90 days on that server. So, I need to find a way to convert their CSV files to OFX or QFX, find another investment company, or find some software that can handle CSV files. (Or do 2010 manually and start with 2011...perhaps that is my punishment for creating so many transactions without FM.)

I have been searching for a csv to ofx converter and found some, but they either do not work as advertised, require some programming (open source) or are specific to certain banks and not Fidelity.

Surely, I am not the only FM user with this problem...

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Mike

[Mark]

Hi Mike,

It is unfortunate that transactions are only available for a limited time. If you have your transactions in a CSV file, you can import this using "File / Import / Transactions / Generic..." in Fund Manager. Press the "Help..." button in this dialog for instructions and examples. You will need to read the instructions to use this feature. You will probably need to slightly modify your CSV file to use Fund Manager's transaction codes, but you can usually do this quite easily in Excel or any spreadsheet program.

[monotonicus]

Thanks Mark!

That greatly improves my disposition and general outlook.

Mike