This converts the transaction history you can download while logged into your Schwab account from JSON to OFX.
The core functionality is written as a library in Lua. This also comes with an accompanying command line tool (that uses the library) to convert files, as well as a simple web browser client-only front-end tool (leveraging Fengari to use the Lua-based library).
- Install Lua if you don't already have it. Tested with Lua 5.3 & 5.4, but I think any 5.x should work.
lua convert_schwab_cli.lua input.json output.ofx- A live demo is hosted on a GitHub static page here.
- Click the Choose File button and select your .json file you downloaded from Schwab. The output file will be written to your browser's download directory.
I wrote this because I was happily using DirectConnect/OFX at TD Ameritrade with SEE Finance, and then Schwab took over and terminated support for both DirectConnect and OFX in 2024. I learned Schwab killed these features for their own customers about 4 years ago.
I was looking for some workaround. You can download Schwab transactions in CSV, JSON, or XML if you directly log into your account. I looked for other tools that could convert this to OFX, but the only one that came close was csv2ofx, but it doesn't support brokerage transactions, only banking. I didn't know OFX, but I decided I would try to learn it and convert from JSON to OFX.
I learned basic OFX and wrote the schwab2ofx library in 2 days, and spent another half-day learning Fengari and how to build a UI with it. So there is a lot of room for this program to be better.
I tested this exclusively with SEE Finance, but it will probably work with other personal financial software that support OFX, such as GnuCash and MoneyDance.
I tested with a lot of transaction types, including more exotic things such as options trades, short sales, and foreign taxes. But since I only have access to my own data sets and Schwab does not document their schema, there may be transaction types that are unimplemented.
- schwab2ofx.lua: The main library for converting to OFX
- convert_schwab_cli.lua: Command line tool
- index.html: Web Browser front end using Fengari
- helpers.lua: Misc helper functions
- MyCombinedStockList.lua: File containing map between ticker symbols and company names
- UNIT_EXPERIMENTS: Just a bunch of little test OFX files I wrote trying to figure out how to write working OFX