11.21.2022

As you’ve likely heard, The Charles Schwab Corporation plans to transition RIAs’ and their clients’ TD Ameritrade accounts to Schwab during Labor Day weekend of 2023. Rest assured that Orion is working with Schwab to support a smooth and supportive transition experience for you and your clients.

Orion has dedicated significant resources to help ensure the smooth transition and has developed a plan for implementing necessary technology and process changes. You’ll find information in the Frequently Asked Questions.

You will receive regular updates on our progress with Schwab as we take steps in the plan to support the conversion. You’ll also receive communications from us on preparations you’ll need to make, timelines, and how we’re supporting you.

Look out for more information from us on this transition. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please submit a case via our Support App.

02.13.2023

As you may know, The Charles Schwab Corporation is planning to transition TD Ameritrade accounts of RIAs and their clients to Schwab during Labor Day weekend of 2023. One of the actions we’re taking to support our clients with migrating accounts may affect your integration with Orion.
Each existing TDA account number will be updated with the new Schwab account number prior to the transition – unique Orion account IDs and Household IDs will remain the same.
If you believe this change in account number might break any connections or syncing you have with Orion, please contact us as soon as possible, so we can work with you on a plan to resolve any issues prior to the transition.
Contact Dan Nauman at daniel.nauman@orion.com, and Lori Beaune at lori.beaune@orion.com, with your questions and concerns.

07.27.2023

Take Action by 8/7

Charles Schwab previously required your firm to upload two fee files for the month of September and October due to your firm having two Fee Billing Masters – one associated with your current Schwab accounts and the other one associated with your legacy TD Ameritrade accounts. Schwab has informed us that firms have the option to link their Fee Billing Master Accounts prior to migration over Labor Day Weekend to prevent the need to submit two fee files in Schwab Advisor Center!

Take Action

Please contact your Schwab relationship manager and ask that they combine your Fee Billing Master Accounts. You can find your service team on Schwab Advisor Center by clicking on Support->Find Your Team. As a last resort, you can call APS at 800-647-5465 and ask them for your relationship manager.

This needs to be done by 8/7/23.

It is crucial that you complete this step to ensure that your billing process goes smoothly for the month of September and October so you can run bills and only submit one fee file. If you don't get this submitted in time, we will be sending out steps at a later date on how to run bills in September and/or October.

07.28.2023

The TD Ameritrade migration to Schwab is occurring over the upcoming Labor Day weekend. On the first business day after the conversion, September 5, 2023, you will be able to review and audit your billing setup processes such as Asset Level Billing and Billing Exclusions.

Asset Level Billing and Billing Exclusions will not be applied to Schwab Cash Products and Assets. However, as a best practice, we suggest that you review all Asset Level Billing settings and Exclusions to ensure that everything is set up properly.

If you have questions, please initiate a case to billing via the Support App or call (888) 695-0422.

08.16.2023

Instructions for Fee Files

After TD Ameritrade accounts migrate to Charles Schwab over Labor Day Weekend, you will be able to process bills as usual in Orion. However, if you typically bill on the first business day of that week, we recommend generating bills on the second business day –Wednesday, September 6, 2023 – after all accounts have migrated. This will help reduce billing errors such as post payments issues, recalculations, etc.

Create and Upload Fee Files

For proper billing, you will need to create Fee Files by custodian. Get step-by-step instructions in the ‘Generate Specific Fee Files by Custodian’ section of this article in Support: Live Bill Walkthrough Guide and Demo.

Once your Fee Files have been created, upload them as usual to Schwab Advisor Center (SAC). If you were unable to link your Fee Billing Masters by August 7, 2023 – per our July 27 email – it will be necessary to upload each Fee File under the corresponding Fee Billing Master on SAC. For details on uploading, refer to this guide: Management Fee Guide.

Contact Schwab for Assistance

Please contact your Relationship Manager at Schwab if you need assistance with uploading Fee Files, correcting errors on SAC, and other issues that may arise during this process.

8.22.2023

Important Information

In preparation for the migration of TD Ameritrade accounts to Charles Schwab, you may see some changes in your database to your Custodians. Orion will be updating the existing TD Ameritrade Custodian in your database and will be renaming it to ‘Schwab (TDA)’. That Custodian will continue to be assigned to all of your migrated Schwab accounts (legacy TDAI), but Orion will update the Price Hierarchy to minimize the amount of historical price changes that will occur.

Price Hierarchy Updates

The Schwab (TDA) custodian will have a Price Hierarchy with TD Ameritrade pricing first — to preserve historical data — and then use the Schwab pricing secondarily to allow for use of Schwab pricing going forward, as TD Ameritrade discontinues providing prices. The Orion pricing source will be included as a third source in the hierarchy to help with cases where Schwab and TD Ameritrade do not provide prices.

While this process will minimize historical asset value changes that may occur with an updated Price Hierarchy, there is the possibility that some historical pricing will still change.

• To see specifics for your firm, please run Query ID 35796: TD to Schwab Migration: Expected Price Changes.

• Generally, fixed income securities make up over 90% of the differences. Foreign securities, ALTs and, in rare cases, mutual funds and equity price differences can also occur.

• Accounts that are not migrating to Schwab will be updated to a TD Ameritrade_HIST Custodian.

A change in historical price data will change historical asset values and performance. Please know that we have designed this process specifically with this in mind to minimize any impact to your firm. You may be asking why prices would be different from one brokerage firm to another. Pricing sources and methodologies can and do vary most often for fixed income, alternatives, and foreign securities. The cases where mutual funds and equities have different prices are rare.

As a best practice, if you have additional Custodians that have been relying on TD Ameritrade in the Price Hierarchy, we recommend evaluating the Price Source used and updating that Custodian’s Price Hierarchy accordingly. For more information on how to do this, please review the support article for How-To and Overview: Price Hierarchy.

For firms using API calls to support integrations or data exports, if you've coded anything off the Custodian name specifically, this code will need to be updated. The Custodian code will remain the same.

If you need assistance updating the Price Hierarchy or have questions, please contact our Products and Prices team at (855) 747-7641 or sme-productsprices_fixedincome@orion.com