Multiple Databases

andrewrollins

Good evening. I currently have three different companies that does investing. Each company works with its own broker. I currently have them as three different quicken files in the same folder. Should I create three separate folders and backup folders for each company? Right now, all the automatic backups are going to the same folder. I would appreciate some guidance.

Andrew

splasher

andrewrollins said:

Thanks Spasher. As a follow up question, do I have to create the backup folder in each folder or will quicken automatically create it the first time you change the location of the quicken database file?

Quicken will create when the next auto-backup is made.

With Quicken closed, just move the data file to the subfolder (created by you) as desired, then double-click on the moved file to start Quicken.  Q will then remember the new location and show it in the recent file list (File menu).  Then repeat for the other files.  The auto-backups (and new subfolders) will happen by itself.

Sherlock

As each data file has a unique name, it is perfectly okay to maintain the data files within the same local folder.   Note:  We may only have one Quicken application running on a machine at a time and the application may only access one data file at a time.

andrewrollins

Thanks Sherlock. As a follow up, my other concern is that the automatic backups go to the backup up folder in the local directory. As a result the automatic backups for all the companies are in the same folder. Whilst not a problem, it would be neater if they can be in different folders. This is partially why I am wondering if you have a separate folder for each database, then it may be possible to have a different backup folder for each database. Any comments?

splasher

The automatic backups go to a subfolder named Backup under where the data file is stored, so having different folders for each of the different company files would keep them separate.

Thing to remember though:  Relying on the safety of backups on the same physical drive that the source file is stored, is foolhardy.  Be sure to make manual backups of the different data files to other media that is not permanently attached to the computer.  A disk failure affects EVERYTHING on that drive.

andrewrollins

Thanks Spasher. As a follow up question, do I have to create the backup folder in each folder or will quicken automatically create it the first time you change the location of the quicken database file?

splasher

andrewrollins said:

Thanks Spasher. As a follow up question, do I have to create the backup folder in each folder or will quicken automatically create it the first time you change the location of the quicken database file?

Quicken will create when the next auto-backup is made.

With Quicken closed, just move the data file to the subfolder (created by you) as desired, then double-click on the moved file to start Quicken.  Q will then remember the new location and show it in the recent file list (File menu).  Then repeat for the other files.  The auto-backups (and new subfolders) will happen by itself.