F2O: Bringing in the Fidelity Core Dividends as Interest on Cash

[Cal Learner]

At Fidelity, cash is automatically swept into a "Core position". That is often SPAXX.

With Microsoft Money, it is often desirable for most of us to consider the money held in the core as cash, and thus not enter the Buys and Sells for the core.

The Portfolio shows the money held in the Cash/Contribution sub-account for each account. At the end of each month with a dividend paid. F2O currently puts a Dividend into the Investment Transactions. If you don't track the Buys and Sells, this unfortunately gives an unusually high total return on the investment, because it gets dividends with zero holding.

So F2O will introduce an optional method of entering this as Interest rather than as a Dividend for the core (SPAXX for example). Yet to be decided is what to make the default -- I am leaning toward making the new  Cash/Contribution transaction the default, but it would still be easily configured to the traditional Investment Dividend method with a F2O_CFG.py entry.

The paid distribution treated as interest will come into the Cash/Contributions account. It will have a Payee. So my main point of discussion is what to call the Payee. Here are some candidates:

• Core Interest SPAXX
• Core Dividend as Interest
• Interest on Cash

These are just ideas, not a fixed ballot list. If you would use that feature, what would be ideal Payee name for you?

Then when the transaction first comes in, the user would  modify the entry in the Money cash account to indicate that it is Interest or create a new category such as Interest:Core. Then I expect Money to recognize the payee for subsequent months, and pre-populate the category that was previously chosen. 

[danba...@gmail.com]

I really look forward to this functionality in F2O, thanks for doing it. Currently, I have been voiding all of the “Buy” transactions that F2O generates, since that (essentially) has the same effect as what it sounds like you’re going to bake into the tool. (By voiding the Buy transactions, they are matched on subsequent downloads.)

From your candidate Payee’s, I’d use “Core Dividend as Interest” since it is technically a Dividend, and as you noted, we all generally treat it as interest.

 

I do have two questions:

1. I have several accounts, and use different core positions in some of them. Will F2O “know” about multiple core funds, or at least, one per account?
2. What will be the right way to retroactively update the existing transactions created by F2O once this new functionality exists?

 

Cheers,

Dan

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[Dan Adkins]

I too like 

• Core Dividend as Interest

but I intend to remain with the Dividend option, which I hope remains as the default.  I will add a section to my article when you are ready Cal, as to configuring F2O to choose the option of treating core dividends as interest.  It will probably be paired with...

DO_NOT_SUPPRESS_CORE_BUYS_AND_SELLS=0   by default.  0 = will remove the core buys and sells; 1 = will not remove the core buys and sells

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[danba...@gmail.com]

Very cool.

 

What I actually meant for #1 was that in one account my core position is in SPAXX. In the other account, my core is “FDIC-INSURED DEPOSIT SWEEP” and yet another is “FIDELITY GOVERNMENT CASH RESERVES (FDRXX)”

 

Probably I should consolidate them all to SPAXX, but apparently I’ve not done that to date.

 

Cheers,

Dan

 

 

From: Cal Learner <msm.cal...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2026 12:17 PM
To: danba...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: F2O: Bringing in the Fidelity Core Dividends as Interest on Cash

 

1. Yes! In other words, if SPAXX was core in account 1, and you bought SPAXX in account 2 when FCASH was its core, would it should show the buys and sells and dividends for SPAXX in account 2.

 

2. My method is to leave the old transactions in place. If I needed to convert shares into cash in Money, I would enter a Sell of any shares.

 

I did not  change my IGNORE_BEFORE_YYYYMMDD  to avoid overlap. I think what it did is to match the new way to the old transaction that was recent. I forget the details.

 

I did  Portfolio->WorkWithInvestments->UpdateYourShares to set residual shares to zero in one account. Once that was accomplished, the core did not show in Portfolio as long as I  have not enabled Portfolio->ChangePortfolioView->ShowClosedPositions. It is  grayed-out when I do enable that  ShowClosedPositions.

 

Thanks for the input. 

[Cal Learner]

I put up F2O_alpha20260524.zip. Its F2O.py  uses "Core Dividend as Interest SPAXX " (for example) of the name. That uses 31 of the available 32 characters of a NAME/PAYEE. 

Probably I should consolidate them all to SPAXX, but apparently I’ve not done that to date.

FDIC insured pays less, but it is FDIC insured. 

You could consider keeping the amount  in sweep low, and investing in non-core FZDXX in the IRAs ($10k min initial buy-in in IRA, or $100k in taxable). For the taxable, your state income tax rate plays a part int what you select. The Fidelity MMFs will auto-liquidate to pay for bill pay or buying investments, or anything else.

[danba...@gmail.com]

Yeah, I should consider that. In the meantime, will F2O detect different core positions? (one per account)? Or does it only detect SPAXX (or a single core across all accounts)?

 

-dan

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[Cal Learner]

F2O detect the core for each account independently.

[Cal Learner]

I just put up F2O_alpha20260530.zip

Where this differs from the earlier is if the core is the FDIC choice, it enters the interest transaction while ignoring the symbol. The FDIC insured has symbols that can change readily, and there is no need for the user to pay attention. However I do default to adding that symbol to the memo.

Most people do not choose the FDIC-insured choice for the core holding, but some do.

This is the version that I am running for myself, and I expect to mainstream it soon.

On Sun, May 24, 2026 at 12:19 PM Cal Learner <msm.cal...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[danba...@gmail.com]

I just installed the F2O update and pulled new data from Fidelity. However, I’m not seeing any new behavior around my core positions. (Buy transactions are still being generated.) I must be missing something in how to make this work. Do I need to edit F2O_DB.csv in some way?

 

Thanks!

 

From: microso...@googlegroups.com <microso...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Cal Learner
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2026 10:42 AM
To: Microsoft Money <microso...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: F2O: Bringing in the Fidelity Core Dividends as Interest on Cash

 

I just put up F2O_alpha20260530.zip

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[Cal Learner]

I just installed the F2O update and pulled new data from Fidelity. However, I’m not seeing any new behavior around my core positions. (Buy transactions are still being generated.) I must be missing something in how to make this work. Do I need to edit F2O_DB.csv in some way?

No. I am surprised and disturbed by this.  The first line of F2O.py will include the date.

I just ran F2O.py in a command window. I got this to the screen:

F2O Fidelity-specific CSV 2 OFX converter; interest for core rather than dividend  Dated 2026/5/30
Fidelity csv 2 Ofx converter
('Core balance for X000000', ' is 56.44')
('Core balance for 1111111', ' is 99.77')
('Core balance for 2222222', ' is 61.54')
('Core balance for Z4444444', ' is 3.25')
Done running. There were 5 OFX files written:
FidX00000020260529.ofx
Fid1111111320260529.ofx
Fid2222222220260529.ofx
Fid3333333320260529.ofx
FidZ444444420260529.ofx

Numbers are substituted. Do you get the same kind of thing including the date on the first line?

[Ameridan (microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com)]

I recently updated my cfg file overrides per Cal's instructions to include:

DO_NOT_SUPPRESS_CORE_BUYS_AND_SELLS=1    suppressed by default, so add this line if you do not want to remove the core buys and sells

but perhaps you went with the old version of this statement?