I’ve searched before posting so if I missed a previous answer to this I apologize.
I am on a trial, coming from Quicken.
My primary checking account is a Fidelity Cash Management Account. As you may know, this is really just a brokerage account with check writing, bill pay, and all the advantages of a traditional bank checking account but with significantly more earning power because the account pays high interest.
In a Fidelity CMA, you can hold investments. In my account, I have my excess funds held in a money market account currently drawing 5% interest. So, essentially, my checking account money earns 5% (the point of using an account like this). As my bill pay needs exceed the amount of cash held in the account, Fidelity automatically sells some of the money market holdings to cover your bills.
The problem is that Tiller’s online balance shows just the amount you are holding in cash, not the money market balance, and I can’t figure out how to keep track of my total account balance in Tiller.
Does anybody out there use an account like this? From Fidelity or a similar account elsewhere? How are you keeping track of your account balance in Tiller?
I have a Fidelity CMA that I use for check writing an ATM access. Right now there is a $0 in cash, and the rest is in SPAXX. The balance reported by Tiller is correct.
I’m not sure why your experience is different. (BTW, I’m using the new connection method that became available recently.)
I checked this morning and Tiller is indeed reporting the correct balance, which equals the total cash in the account plus the balance of my one holding, which also happens to be SPAXX.
What confused me is that I use an “account register” sheet in my workbook to track my balance as I would with a manual checkbook. When transactions come into Tiller as a result of redemptions from SPAXX or purchases of SPAXX, those transactions are throwing off my running balance. I’ll need to work on my account register sheet to handle those differently in the future.
I also have a Fidelity CMA. With the open banking change, I am seeing additional purchase/redemption transactions that did not download previously. I am just deleting those transactions and my balances are staying correct.
I decided not to delete the puchase/redemptions. I just set up an autocat to catetorize them; then, in my “account register” worksheet, I changed my running balance formula to ignore any transactions in that category. Just did that this morning but it seems to work well.
By doing it this way, I can still refer back to those dates in Fidelity if I ever feel the need.
We’re also seeing those purchase/redemption charges and working with our data provider to see if that’s something they can exclude since they don’t show on the Fidelity site. Not sure they’ll be able to fix that though.
@sblagoue you mentioned maybe the balance was incorrect. If you haven’t already I’d recommend reaching out to our support team via the chat window in the lower right corner of the Console at https://my.tillerhq.com/ to work on the balance issue.
Thanks, Heather. I’ve since learned that the Tiller balance is correct, but because the account buys and sells investments when cash is needed to pay bills, those transactions are throwing off my “check book balance”
I’ve now built a worksheet just to be an account register for the cash management account that filters out the redemption/purchase transactions. By doing so, I am able to see the true total account balance. So far, so good, but need to work with it a while to make a full assessment.
Thanks for the update @sblagoue. Would be curious about your “check book register” solution a lot of folks often ask for the running balance. Feel free to post in the Show & Tell section if you come up with something folks could pull into their sheet.
I have been unable to sync my Fidelity Checking Account (cash mgmt). The VISA card syncs great, but the checking sync’d about a week ago and hasn’t worked since. Do you go through Fidelity to sync or through another means?
Thank you sblagoue. Thanks for your response. Yesterday my Fidelity Checking account began syncing again. I hope it stays connected!
I am a bit worried because the Tiller support chat person told me that Checking accounts weren’t supported at Fidelity. However, you, me and others on this forum have had connection success. I hope it keeps up. I like the Tiller program.
a lot of folks often ask for the running balance. Feel free to post in the Show & Tell section if you come up with something folks could pull into their sheet.