Setting a value to true from the View - MVC

I have a grid that I am populating with transaction records. Each record has a check box that indicates whether the transaction has been acknowledged or not. The challenge I have is that the value that I am retrieving from the database that stores the acknowledged data is not a boolean. It returns a "Y" or a "N". Therefore, even when the record has been acknowledged, the check box does not get checked. What I want to do is to tell the page that when the AcknowledgedChar (value from db) is a "Y", set Acknowledged = true. I tried doing it from the View Model but then it confuses the application during POST. I'm sorry if this is a "stupid" question.

Here is my approach so far:

   @for (int i = 0; i < Model.TransactionList.Count; i++)
        {
            if (Model.TransactionList[i].AcknowledgedChar == "Y")
            { 
                Model.TransactionList[i].Acknowledged = true;
            }
            if (Model.TransactionList[i].AcknowledgedChar == "N")
            {
                Model.TransactionList[i].Acknowledged = false;
            }


            <tr>
                <td class="hidden"> @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].ProviderTransactionId)</td>
                <td class="text-center">
                    @Html.CheckBoxFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].Acknowledged)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m=>m.TransactionList[i].AcknowledgedChar)
                </td>
                <td>
                    @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].FromUicTxt)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].FromUicTxt)
                </td>
                <td>
                    @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].ToUicTxt)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].ToUicTxt)
                </td>
                <td>
                    @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].PrimaryUicTxt)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].PrimaryUicTxt)
                </td>
                <td>
                    @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].Action)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].Action)
                </td>
                <td>
                    @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].InitiatedDateString)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].InitiatedDateString)
                </td>
                <td>
                    @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].ProviderFirst) @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].ProviderLast)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].ProviderFirst) @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].ProviderLast)
                </td>
                <td>
                    @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].SSN)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].SSN)
                </td>
                <td>
                    @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].SendersFirst) @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].SendersLast)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].SendersFirst)@Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].SendersLast)
                </td>
                <td>
                    @Html.DisplayFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].SendersPhone)
                    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.TransactionList[i].SendersPhone)
                </td>
            </tr>

        }