Morgan Stanley CashPlus account handling

jbaker5400

I have one of these accounts… it is used more or less as a checking account, and I've connected it using the "Morgan Stanley - Cash Management" integration, as a checking account, and it works as expected.

However, in the same CashPlus account, MS has bought a couple of money market funds (who's amounts aren't normally used for daily spending.) These won't show up in the Cash Mgmt account (it's checking). So I tried connecting the CashPlus account as an investment account using "Morgan Stanley" and that worked… however it shows both the investments (mm funds) and the cash transactions (duplicating what's in the checking account instance.

The issue is that this inflates my overall worth (double counting the cash part.) I thought I could delete the checking instance and use the investment instance for both day-to-day $$ and investments, but though the day-to-day transactions show up, they are treated as investments… in other words, I can't specify the payee for them as it wants to treat it as a stock or other investment. For instance, if I spend $20 at a Chick-fil-A, it wants to use that name as a stock.

Are there any options here?

Coach Aldair

Hi @jbaker5400,

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I can see why this would be confusing, especially since the same Morgan Stanley CashPlus account contains both the cash used for everyday spending and the money market funds.

When the CashPlus account is connected through Morgan Stanley - Cash Management, the cash portion is handled as a checking account, which allows you to categorize transactions and enter payees normally. However, the money market funds aren't included through that connection.

When the same CashPlus account is connected through the Morgan Stanley investment connection, Simplifi treats the account as an investment account. That allows the money market holdings to come through, but the cash transactions are also treated as investment activity rather than regular checking transactions. This is why you're seeing the payee field behaving differently and why using that connection alone isn't a good workaround for your day-to-day spending.

For now, I would recommend keeping the Cash Management connection for the checking activity rather than replacing it with the investment connection, since doing so can result in the duplicate cash balance you're seeing. This is because each connection has it's own purpose from the financial institution.

If by any chance there's something else you'd like to point here, please provide me with a screenshot (remember to cover any personal info).

Thanks!!