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Character length limits for payee, memo, category, subcategory, and tag fields

I've been tracking my budget in Excel but am in the process of moving my data into Quicken 2019. I've seen various limits for field lengths in the questions on the forum, some with requests to have field limits expanded and am wondering what the current limits are for the latest version of Quicken for Windows. I'm concerned that my Payees, Memos, Categories, Subcategories, and/or Tags may be too long. Thanks!

Comments

  • Quicken SarahQuicken Sarah Administrator, Moderator mod
    edited January 2019
    Hello Don,

    Welcome to the Quicken Community! Thank you for taking the time to share your question with us, although I apologize that you have not yet received a response.

    When manually entering transactions in Quicken, the following is the current character limits for Payee, Memo, Categories (including sub-categories) and Tags:

    Payee = 64 Characters
    Memo = 64 Characters
    Category = 40 Characters
    Tags = 40 Characters

    When downloading transactions from your Financial Institution, there are different character limits due to the restrictions of the OFX process.  In order for Quicken to connect with the thousands of Financial Institutions that support downloads to Quicken, a standardized process called "OFX" was developed which created rules that all Financial Institution's follow in how the data is formatted, to allow Quicken to read the information correctly.

    In the OFX protocol, the Payee and Memo fields are limited to 32 characters. So if transactions are downloading and there are more than 32 characters in the Payee or Memo fields, Quicken will automatically truncate the data to fit within the allowable 32 character limit (https://www.quicken.com/support/payee-name-cut-or-has-generic-payee-name-check).

    I hope this information is helpful but please let us know if there are any further questions/concerns on this matter that we may assist with.

    Thank you,

    Sarah
  • Unknown Member
    edited January 2019
    Sarah, thanks! This was exactly what I needed. I was able to import my Excel data successfully using a program named ImportQIF and am now a happy Quicken user.
  • Quicken SarahQuicken Sarah Administrator, Moderator mod
    edited January 2019
    Don said:

    Sarah, thanks! This was exactly what I needed. I was able to import my Excel data successfully using a program named ImportQIF and am now a happy Quicken user.

    Hi Don,

    I'm glad to hear it and you are very welcome :)

    I've gone ahead and marked this post as "answered" but if there's anything else the Community or myself can assist with, please don't hesitate to let us know!

    Sarah
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