Misleading transaction info from Vanguard

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If you have a Vanguard brokerage account …

Periodically, we transfer money from our Vanguard brokerage account to our joint bank account for living expenses. The transaction data sent by Vanguard to Tiller is misleading unless I’m misunderstanding something. If anyone else has the issue described below, how do you handle it?

Transferring money from Vanguard to our bank involves selling shares in our Money Market. The proceeds are automatically transferred by Vanguard to a Vanguard Cash Management Account where it sits briefly until the proceeds are sent to our bank.

Tiller receives three transactions when we do this.

  1. Vanguard: a positive amount when we sell shares in the Money Market. I don’t know why this is classified as a positive amount when the description clearly shows it as a “sell”.

  2. Vanguard: a negative amount from Vanguard. The description is “Cash-withdrawal” Money is sent from the Vanguard Cash Account to our bank. This appears as a negative amount from the Vanguard Account.

  3. Bank: The money appears in our bank. This appears as a positive amount.

The net affect is misleading. The positive and negative transactions from Vanguard offset each other making it appear that there was no change in the Vanguard balance.

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to:

  • The Vanguard Money Market sell should be a negative transaction (not a positive as it current is.)
  • The Vanguard receipt into the Vanguard Cash Management should be a positive. Currently, this transaction is not sent by Vanguard to Tiller.
  • The Vanguard Cash Out from the Cash Management should be a negative – as it currently is.
  • The bank receipt of the cash should be a positive – as it currently is.

Am I missing something? If you have a Vanguard brokerage and make similar transactions, do you receive the same transactions from Vanguard?

Thank in advance.

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Do you have all of your vanguard accounts added on Tiller. It looks like your missing a transaction

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Not a Vanguard investor, but here’s how I’d make sense of this (Fidelity transactions are similar):

Transaction #1 is an administrative transaction. It’s a transfer. I’d likely just delete it or classify it as a transfer.

Transaction #2 is a transfer out, and Transaction #3 is a transfer in. They offset each other.

These transactions don’t alter your net worth at all. They’re just moving worth from one place to another. That’s reflected in offsetting transfers.

Does that help?

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While you are selling shares in the Money Market, this transaction INCREASES your Cash balance. And that’s why it is a positive amount.

And then that Cash is withdrawn (the negative transaction amount) to go to your bank.

I categorize that first transaction as Investment Sold. And the other two as Investment Transfers.

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I get that part, jono. The positive transaction from Vanguard is recording the receipt of the proceeds from the sale of the MM into the “Settlement Account” but there isn’t a corresponding negative transaction when the proceeds are sent from Vanguard / Settlement Account to my bank.

We have one account with Vanguard. For some reason, it’s divided into two sections. The Settlement Account Area and the Equities Area. The Equities area includes our stocks, MM, funds, etc. The Settlement Account is just a Cash Management Account. It has only one “holding” – a Federal MM.

Vanguard apparently sends Tiller the transactions in and out of the Equities Area and transactions INTO the Settlement Account but not OUT of the Settlement Account. That’s the way it appears. I’m going to call Vanguard to see if they can explain this to me.

It’s not a big deal but it just “bugs me.”

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I can see why it “bugs” you.

But regarding your comment that “there isn’t a corresponding negative transaction when the proceeds are sent from Vanguard / Settlement Account to my bank”:

The corresponding negative transaction is the 2nd transaction you see listed with the description “Cash-withdrawal” and the negative value.

I treat the 1st transaction as Category: Investment Sold with a Type: Investment. (I know that’s non-standard for Tiller and I might have had to make some formula adjustments to get it all to work.)

The 2nd transaction is Category: Investment Transfer with a Type: Transfer.

The 3rd tranaction (from the Bank account) is Category: Investment Transfer and Type: Transfer.

The last 2 transfer balance each other out.
And the first transaction generates a positive Investment Sold, but doesn’t hit the Net Worth OR Income/Budget reports.

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I just flag stuff like that as Transfer and ignore it. The balances are correct.

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:wave:, @scottc

Did any of these suggestions help? If so, please mark one as the solution.

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