Upgrading from Quicken 2007 to Quicken 2018

Scott Rose · January 2018

Hi there,

I'm currently using Quicken 2007 for Mac, and I use a ton of the features in it. Which features will I lose upon upgrading to Quicken 2018?

Most importantly, I'm worried about these 4 things:

1. My scheduled transactions not upgrading to Quicken 2018.
2. My memorized reports not upgrading to Quicken 2018.
3. Losing the ability to import QIF files into Quicken 2018.
4. I also use many of the investment/portfolio tools in Quicken 2007 -- which parts of my investments & portfolios will not carry over to Quicken 2018?

Also, is there anything else that I will lose upon upgrading to Quicken 2018 that I'm not even thinking about right now?

Thanks,
Scott

Unknown · January 2018

Scott, here's another thing to consider.

Since you use many features of Quicken 2007, you probably know that Quicken data files can become corrupt.

Hint: If Quicken 2007 crashes or produces bogus reports that don't add up, or reports behave erratically when you drill down into them, you probably have database corruption.

If your data file is large or more than a few years old, it probably has orphaned transactions and other kinds of corruption. Some (but not all) database corruption can be cleaned up by exporting your data file and re-importing it into a brand new Quicken 2007 file. But some corruption will persist, and that's something to think about.

Quicken 2018 behaves erratically when it tries to import a Quicken 2007 database containing corruption. The bad news:

Quicken 2018 gives weak feedback when it imports an imperfect database.
If you're a heavy user of Quicken 2007, your database is probably corrupt.

The bottom line is that you're going to lose some of your historical data. But you won't know what you'll lose until you try importing your data into Quicken 2018. A few transactions will disappear. Some will become unlinked. Some register totals will change dramatically. (After my most recent import from my "cleaned up" Quicken 2007 data file, Quicken 2018 still thinks that I have $13 million dollars in checking. Sadly, I don't.)

smayer97 · January 2018

Regarding data corruption...some are recoverable...see these FAQs:

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smayer97 · January 2018

As for the original questions:
1. memorize transactions will transfer over
2. saved reports will NOT transfer over
3. QIF is no longer supported except for the purpose of migrating from Banktivity/iBank and Moneydance (one time set-up only).
4. Investments is a mixed bag...for some, it works enough, for others, there are still gaps in functionality, so YMMV.

For a complete rundown, I suggest that you make sure that Quicken 2018 for Mac will meet your needs, since it is not an upgrade from QM2007 but rather from Quicken Essentials (which was re-written from the ground up, starting in 2010), so there are some features that are still not there e.g. full loan amortization*, 2-line display, QuickMath, or are not as fully developed yet, e.g. Customized Reports, performance reports and stats (therefore some data may not carry over). You can start here:
https://www.quicken.com/mac/upgrader-compare

*NOTE: Support for fixed rate loans has been released as of QM2017 v4.5.x but there is no announced timing for support for variable rate or simple daily interest loans.

Currently, the main advantages of QM2018 over QM2007 include the ability to sync cash, bank, and credit card accounts using Quicken Mobile for mobile devices (iOS and Android) and the ability to save receipts with transactions via computer or mobile device. There are a few other minor features that QM2007 does not have. Note that online access is supposed to continue as long as the FI/Bank supports it and their security updates don't prevent it.

Please note that QM2018 is now a subscription-based product currently available for 1 year directly from Quicken or 2 yrs from retailers (which are often cheaper than Quicken). (If you are able to find QM2017 which is a pre-subscription product, it is supported until April 2020).

You may want to review the List of Obstacles and Hindrances for Migrating from QM2007 or QWin to Quicken for Mac.
Add your vote to any features that are missing for you. Your VOTES matter!

For your specific concerns above, You can add your VOTE for the Ability to carry forward report formats from other versions (I personally have over 80 memorized reports, so I am concerned about this one.)...you may want to carefully review the Reports section too...I highly recommend you to add your VOTES to related IDEAS found on the:

List of Requests for Report Related Features,
with the essential ones described and listed here
List of Requests for Report Types

Click on each underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas. Your VOTES matter!

For background, you may want to read this post too. BTW, the columnar-type report is the basis for MANY other reports, as described in detail in this post a little lower; only the selection and formatting criteria are different.

First, click on each underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version.

Be aware of data that will and will not carry forward:
https://www.quicken.com/support/what-data-gets-carried-over
Then look at the updates since the original release here:
https://www.quicken.com/support/2018-release-quicken-mac-release-notes
You will also want to look at a more detailed comparison done by a SuperUser which also identifies nuances not mentioned elsewhere (and read on for comments from other users too on that same discussion thread):
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/can-anyone-who-has-switched-from-2007-to-2015-he...
Take a look at the following videos to give you a better idea:
https://www.youtube.com/user/QuickenMac

Note that there are many differences that are rather subtle, that are not necessarily identifiable via documentation, for example, the 12-month budget feature does not allow including transfers, including investment income, selecting specific accounts, etc.

If you find that QM2018 does not meet your needs, the alternative is to continue to run QM2007 Lion Compatible (LC), which will run on Mac OS X 10.6.8 to 10.13 High Sierra (so far*).

* See Is Quicken for Mac 2007 (QM2007) Compatible with High Sierra (macOS 10.13)?
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/is-quicken-for-mac-2007-qm2007-compatible-with-h...
(Reports suggest QM2007 works on High Sierra but automatic backups do not seem to work, at least when using the new APFS drive format... but is ok with the HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) format on the boot drive only, NOT on external drives)

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jacobs · January 2018

@Scott Rose: We all use Quicken features differently, so what's a show-stopper for one person is a minor annoyance or non-issue for someone else. Unless you know for certain from reading about the modern Quicken Mac that it won't yet serve your needs, often the best way to really determine if it's a fit for you or not is to buy it and try it, with a plan to get a full refund within 30 days if you find it's not a good fit for you.

And what's true today may not be the case 6 months from now. The developers push out updates every month or two, and some of the most-troublesome areas for many user, like the reports in Quicken 2018, have been acknowledged to be under development with changes forthcoming. So if you determine Quicken 2018 isn't a good fit for you today, do check back occasionally to see what's come out of the kitchen. Many of us longtime Quicken 2007 users are hoping that the next year (or two?) will finally bring us close to parity with the features we value in Quicken 2007 (and Quicken Windows). That's their stated goal, but only time will tell how successful they are and how long it will take.

Scott Rose · January 2018

Thank you so much for this INCREDIBLY INFORMATIVE POST. Thanks to your post, I can definitively say that Quicken 2018 is NOT for me... all the investing features that I use are missing from Quicken 2018. Plus, many of the other things that I depend on are missing as well, such as QIF importing. I'm just going to stick with Quicken 2007 forever... or until it stops working! If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Scott Rose · January 2018

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You're absolutely right -- it's such an individual, case-by-case scenario. I've determined that there is no way that I can personally upgrade to Quicken 2018, because I use too many of the features in Quicken 2007 that are not yet available in Quicken 2018. But I'll check back once a year and see if things have improved. But for now, I'm just going to stick with Quicken 2007... it works perfectly fine, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

smayer97 · January 2018

For what do you depend on QIF? Are there alternatives that would work for you? How about QIF to QFX converter?

What investment features are you missing? you may want to add your VOTE to related IDEAS found on the List of Requests Related to Investments. Click on the underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas. Your VOTES matter!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

Scott Rose · January 2018

I import QIF files from the PocketMoney app on my iPhone. I will check if that app offers export files in different formats that Quicken 2018 supports, but it doesn't really matter anymore, b/c I'm sticking with Quicken 2007 forever. Or until it stops working.

Lol, it would take me a long time to vote on all those ideas! I need all of them!

Unknown · January 2018

I import QIF files from vrbo.com and homeaway.com. These files contain split transactions.

QIF files handle split transactions just fine, so Quicken 2007 can easily import this data.

Alas, I haven't yet found a file format that can represent splits and can be imported into Quicken 2018. Do you know of one?

Scott Rose · January 2018

Does the QFX or OFX format handle split transactions?

smayer97 · January 2018

Cannot answer but maybe consider https://www.propersoft.net/qif2qfx/
(I have no experience with it).

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jacobs · January 2018

So if that's your plan -- and it seems fine to me -- make sure you take all available steps to insure you'll be okay with Quicken 2007 indefinitely. Plan to not upgrade your operating system when Apple releases new ones. If you get a new Mac somewhere along the way, and it can only run a newer OS, consider keeping your old Mac just in case you need it to run Quicken 2007.

(You can get virtual machine software to allow you to run an older version of macOS inside the current versions of macOS, but with the changes to the disk format now and other features Apple will change in the future, that would be gambling that the VM software makers will be able to successfully emulate every aspect of the old OS. I think it's safer to plan to keep a Mac running an OS like El Capitan or Sierra as long as you need Quicken 2007 than to take any chance on a VM environment.)

Back up your Mac and your Quicken fastidiously. If your Mac were to die for any reason, do you have a way to restore your current OS and apps and data? A whole-disk backup like SuperDuper (which I use) or Carbon Copy Cloner is a good idea, especially with multi-TB hard drives costing $100 or less.

Then make sure you have many generations of Quicken data file backup. Quicken 2007's database is known for becoming corrupted, especially as the files become larger and larger. Sometimes you notice corruption immediately -- a report opens with transactions duplicated or out of order -- and you can quickly fix it by rebuilding the indexes. But sometimes, you don't notice corruption until, well, you do. In my Quicken 2007 data file, I noticed that several years of transactions in my wife's cash account were missing, and didn't show up after reindexing. I went back in time through a bunch of Time Machine backups until I found the missing transactions, and set that older file aside. (I so far haven't taken the time to manually reenter all those transactions in my live Quicken file, but if I decide it's worth doing, I at least have a file that contains those transactions.)

So how do you insure you have older backups? If you use Time Machine on your Mac, it's great because it automatically does backups all the time. But realize that over time, it will delete the daily backups and only retain weekly backups, and if your disk fills up, it will pare the oldest weekly backups, too. So what I do with Quicken as an extra layer of protection is to periodically make a manual Finder copy of my data file, and edit the name to contain the date (e.g. "MyQuickenData 2018-01-20") and move it to a folder of manual backups. So even if my Time Machine drive goes south, or starts deleting old files, I have copies I've stashed away over the years.

Oh, and then it's a good idea to have some of your backups in the cloud or on a hard disk that lives somewhere other than your home. If you had a fire, or someone broke in and swiped your Mac (and backup drive), can you get your data back? I have two hard drives of whole disk backups that I rotate between home and work every month or so, so I always have a complete, relatively recent backup offsite. And because I once had a problem restoring my data from a whole disk backup -- which scared the heck out of my until my Time Machine backup bailed me out -- I'm planning to start using a cloud backup service like BackBlaze or iDrive for another level of protection.

It may sound like a lot of steps, and some expense, but just think about how important your data is to you. If I lost my Quicken data, that would be immensely painful; if I lost my tens of thousands of photos, that would be devastating. So it's worth some planning, some time, and some expense to have multiple redundant layers of backup to insure my digital life can't be wiped away by an accident, a glitch or a disaster.

Unknown · January 2018

QFX and OFX file formats cannot represent split transactions.

The OFX file format was created by financial institutions which had no need to represent split transactions. The OFX format is good for what it can do, but it can't do splits.

The QFX file format is just OFX with a few additions. Intuit tarted it up so they'd have their own proprietary data format that wouldn't work with other competitors. Sadly, Intuit did not add the ability to represent split transactions.

Yes, there are various inexpensive programs that will "convert" a QIF file into OFX or QFX. But if the QIF file contains split transactions, the end result will be problematic.

The conversion programs will explode each split transaction into multiple, disconnected transactions. When you import the OFX or QFX file, you'll see multiple individual transactions that have lost their identity and relationship to each other.

smayer97 · January 2018

@jacobs, BTW, a VM does not emulate software; it emulates hardware. And the main issue for QM2007 is running on an HFS+ partition, so could theoretically run the VM on an HFS+ formatted partition so there is no translation from HFS+ to APFS...the first tests will be possible once a new non-compatible macOS comes out.

As for your data lost, you can export them from one data file and import them into the other. I have done that in the past.

And to minimize the risk of corruption, not only can you re-index, you can use the Save a Copy which does even more thorough data reconstruction to remove anomalies.

None of these are foolproof, of course.

jacobs · January 2018

Sorry for the imprecision of my language. VM software does often need tweaks to be compatible with older operating systems on newer hardware, particularly low-level code that talks with the hardware.

Thanks for mentioning exporting some data from and older file and importing into another file. I've thought about that; just haven't taken the time to try it. (You'd think I'd do that head of experimenting with/testing the current QM software, but for some reason I haven't!)

Upgrading from Quicken 2007 to Quicken 2018

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