QWIn 2015 Deluxe: Quicker way to enter manual transactions?

Unknown

I have as much of my quicken account as possible set up to download.  Recently, my wife's 401(k) provider switched and I can no longer download or export info directly to quicken.  This means I need to add transactions manually.  This begins to eat up time quickly - paid every two weeks, split into 4 investments, different share amounts, fees that get deducted from each investment monthly, reinvested dividends from each investment, etc.  It easily gets very long and tedious.  Is there a faster way to do this?

Right now I download from the 401(k) provider into excel and then begin plowing through it manually.  Its starting to tilt the benefit vs hassle of quicken into the hassle category.

Am I missing something?

I use Quicken Deluxe 2015 for windows.

Unknown

You could try this, which works for "simple" investment account actions, depending on how well the Excel data is formatted.
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/faq-is-there-a-way-that-will-allow-you-to-import-transactions-from-qif-csv-excel-ofx-files-into-quicken

Unknown

QPW said:

You could try this, which works for "simple" investment account actions, depending on how well the Excel data is formatted.
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/faq-is-there-a-way-that-will-allow-you-to-import-transactions-from-qif-csv-excel-ofx-files-into-quicken

Thanks.  I would ask if this method works, but since you created it, I assume I know the answer!

Is this the only method you are familiar with?

Unknown

QPW said:

You could try this, which works for "simple" investment account actions, depending on how well the Excel data is formatted.
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/faq-is-there-a-way-that-will-allow-you-to-import-transactions-from-qif-csv-excel-ofx-files-into-quicken

There are only two kinds of data files that Quicken Windows will import.  QFX and QIF.  For QFX is the preferred method if available from the financial institution.  With it you can just open the QFX file in your web browser or File Explorer and Quicken will do the import.  Or you can select:
File -> File Import -> Web Connect File...  (In Quicken 2017 it make it a bit clearer with calling it Web Connect(.QFX) File...

If neither of these formats are available, some kind of converter has to be used.
And in the case of QIF the account name and type has to be added to the top of the data file.

There are converters to QFX, but in my opinion the QIF format is more flexible and most of the time it the better choice when you are having to go through a converter in the first place.

That might sound like a contradiction, but the main reasons why QFX is the preferred method when available from the financial institution is because it is the main one Quicken Inc wants to support, and because each transaction has an unique Id that Quicken uses to block duplicate transactions.

The QIF format doesn't have the unique Id, but careful selection of the download date can mostly fix that.  And the QIF format allows for things that are not possible in a QFX file.  Like adding the category and the tag in the transaction.  This isn't something that a lot of people would do if they are just downloading transactions from their financial institution, but there are people that have their data in spreadsheets, where they have already given it categories and tags.  And they just want that to carry into Quicken untouched.