Migrating from Q2007 for Mac to Quicken Deluxe (on Mojave)

drcuddy

I've been using Quicken since 1998 (or perhaps even earlier). I still have the distribution floppies the original release came on! I have over two decades of banking and investment records in the data file. I'm now on Q2007, with it configured for Canadian operation in the Preferences. I'm now contemplating an upgrade to the current version of Quicken Deluxe, thanks to attractive Black Friday pricing. I've tried in the past to migrate, once to Q2015, and then again two years later to Q2017. Both attempts were unmitigated disasters. After the import of my Q2007 data file into Q2015, I found dozens and dozens of problems. Balances wrong. Missing transfers. Missing equities. Broken reconciliations. No knowledge of the Royal Bank of Canada. I spent hours trying to 'tidy things up'. I spent hours on the phone with Quicken Support, all to no avail. I gave up. Foolishly, I tried again in 2017, with the same result. Some, though not all, of the problems seemed to be due to the fact that those new versions of Quicken for Mac really didn't know about Canada.

Having just upgraded my Mac to Mojave, I find that Q2007 is partly broken. (it refuses to auto-save backup files). Not serious, but it's clear that Q2007 is well past its end of life.

Is it practical to migrate from my Q2007 data file (which itself was migrated from Q2004, and before that, Q1998) to the current version of Quicken Deluxe for Mac? Will I have to spend hours again trying to tidy things up, if it's even possible to do so?

Any advice or insights from those who have been down this journey will be much appreciated.

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @drcuddy

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to post your questions and concerns about upgrading.

I would take a moment to review the information available here that has been compiled by @smayer97.

If the trouble you have experienced in the past is due to data integrity issues from multiple conversion, the only way to know what that outcome will be would be to attempt the conversion.

Quicken does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee should you run into an issue.

Hope this helps!

-Quicken Tyka

smayer97

One possible way around this is to note that the QMac version is the SAME in the US as in CA; only the default settings are different, which can easily be changed.

So, you can sign up and purchase QMac via the US site, using a US address (does not have to be yours and it is not verified or compared to anything, not even for credit card verification). Once purchased and downloaded, simply change the default preference to CA instead of the US.

smayer97

To be sure, all versions of Quicken for Mac have been created to support US & Canada in ONE version, as far back as I can remember.

smayer97

ywc about the QIF import of price quotes for securities.

As for import of QM2007, before specific features were added to QMac, everything assumed US usage, so that is why you saw in older versions everything defaulting to US. But now you can easily change between the two country settings.

And BTW, QMac is the only version that supports both US and CA FIs/Banks in the same app. QWin users aren't so lucky.

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @drcuddy

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to post your questions and concerns about upgrading.

I would take a moment to review the information available here that has been compiled by @smayer97.

If the trouble you have experienced in the past is due to data integrity issues from multiple conversion, the only way to know what that outcome will be would be to attempt the conversion.

Quicken does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee should you run into an issue.

Hope this helps!

-Quicken Tyka

drcuddy

Quicken Tyka,
Thanks so much for the link to the compilation by smayer. That is very helpful information.

After much searching (and help from Ms. Google), I have discovered the Quicken Canada webpage, and find that the Black Friday sale pricing is not offered to Canadians. Is that really true? We have Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) here too! If I were to sign up for a 2-year plan on the quicken.com site, could I still download and use the Canadian version of Quicken Deluxe for Mac?

Thanks.

https://www.quicken.com/canada

Quicken_Tyka

Hello drcuddy,
Thank you for the response.
At this time, the 40% off Black Friday deal is only being offered in the US to new users, also 2-year subscription is also unavailable for the Canadian product.
However, there is a 40% off discount for upgrading from an unsupported product.
You could either contact support directly to process an order for the 40% off or you may purchase the product in full and I can credit a partial refund for you.
https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support
Unfortunately, I am unable to speak as to why the Canadian version is not being included in this Black Friday/Cyber Monday deal or why it also excluded from the 2-year subscription option.

@drcuddy If you would like to purchase in full and have me apply the discount after the fact, please let me know!

Hope this helps!

-Quicken Tyka

drcuddy

Tyka,
Thanks so much for your kind offer. Over the last week or two, I've received a number of Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions from Quicken offering me 40% off, and promoting the 2-year subscription as well. The latest arrived this morning and announced "Cyber Monday: Best deal of the year on Quicken! "These 2-year offers are limited.Once they're gone, they're gone". I think your Marketing team dropped the ball by forgetting to update the quicken/canada webpages with the sale pricing.

I am still deciding whether to attempt a migration of my data from Quicken 2007 (for Mac), or move to Banktivity instead. From what I read on the community posts, the Canadian version of Quicken for Mac lags behind, and may not benefit from all the bug fixes and feature upgrade of the domestic (US) version.

smayer97

One possible way around this is to note that the QMac version is the SAME in the US as in CA; only the default settings are different, which can easily be changed.

So, you can sign up and purchase QMac via the US site, using a US address (does not have to be yours and it is not verified or compared to anything, not even for credit card verification). Once purchased and downloaded, simply change the default preference to CA instead of the US.

jacobs

drcuddy said:

the Canadian version of Quicken for Mac lags behind, and may not benefit from all the bug fixes and feature upgrade of the domestic (US) version.

Just to reinforce what @smayer97 wrote above, there is no longer a separate version of Quicken Mac for the US and Canada. There's just one product, no matter where you purchase it. Country-specific features can toggled between US, Canada or both in Preferences. 

drcuddy

@smayer97
Thanks for chiming in. Just to clarify, the Quicken Deluxe for Mac program that I'd get if I subscribe to Quicken is the same program for both US and Canadian users? (ie, there's a preference setting? That's the way Q2007 was architected:-)
After looking at the Quicken website, I got the impression that there are two different versions of the program: one for the US and one for north of the border. But I might have misunderstood.

If Quicken Deluxe for Mac really is a single program for both regions, I'm inclined to subscribe for a year, and start down the journey of migrating my data. But will continue to use Q2007 for 'production'.

While I have the opportunity, a BIG THANK YOU for the long thread you started (and have been moderating) about Mojave compatibility. I discovered it yesterday while investigating the 'unable to make backup' error messages.

drcuddy

@jacobs
Our posts crossed in cyberspace. Just as I posted my query to smayer (one program or two), your answer to that very question appeared.
Thanks!!!

smayer97

To be sure, all versions of Quicken for Mac have been created to support US & Canada in ONE version, as far back as I can remember.

drcuddy

My memory could well be failing me, but I'm sure the last time I went down this rathole (trying to migrate my Q2007 data), I found that the then current version (Q2017) had no preference to choose Canada vs US. I couldn't delete the many categories tied to US tax code lines. I recall that the currencies in all of my accounts got switched to USD. And many other issues appeared. After spending much too much time trying to clean things up, I gave up, and continued to use Q2007.

Besides the loss of auto-backups on Mojave, the only other issue I'm having is that Q2007 won't download quotes for securities. Actually, that feature started acting up in the summer (while I was still using Sierra). It was intermittent for several months, but now seems totally broken on Mojave. Do you know if that's a known limitation in Q2007? The app throws lots of errors like these. (Perhaps the quote server it's trying to connect to is no longer in service).

Thanks.

error 18:43:40.057854 -0500 Quicken 2007 nw_socket_connect [C12.1:2] connectx(24 (guarded), [srcif=0, srcaddr=<private>, dstaddr=<private>], SAE_ASSOCID_ANY, 0, NULL, 0, NULL, SAE_CONNID_ANY) failed: [64: Host is down]
error 18:43:40.057902 -0500 Quicken 2007 nw_socket_connect [C12.1:2] connectx failed (fd 24) [64: Host is down]
error 18:43:40.057940 -0500 Quicken 2007 nw_socket_connect connectx failed (fd 24) [64: Host is down]
error 18:43:40.058040 -0500 Quicken 2007 nw_socket_get_input_frames [C12.1:2] recvmsg(fd 24, 1024 bytes) [57: Socket is not connected]
error 18:43:40.058654 -0500 Quicken 2007 TIC TCP Conn Failed [12:0x155e100]: 1:57 Err(57)
error 18:43:40.061368 -0500 Quicken 2007 Task <4F715F99-7904-4992-B2E1-A50A4EF2FB6B>.<0> HTTP load failed (error code: -1005 [1:57])
error 18:43:40.061636 -0500 Quicken 2007 NSURLConnection finished with error - code -1005

drcuddy

@smayer97
I found the answer to question about quote server EOL on another thread.
Thanks!

smayer97

ywc about the QIF import of price quotes for securities.

As for import of QM2007, before specific features were added to QMac, everything assumed US usage, so that is why you saw in older versions everything defaulting to US. But now you can easily change between the two country settings.

And BTW, QMac is the only version that supports both US and CA FIs/Banks in the same app. QWin users aren't so lucky.

drcuddy

Thanks for the tip re QMac and US/Canada versions. I've downloaded & installed QMac 2020 (as they now call it), got it running, and found the preference to select US vs Cda. I converted my Q2007 data file with no crashes:-). The migration was smoother than I expected from past experiences trying to migrate to Q2105 and Q2017.

I have some cleanup to do - cash balances in some investment accounts are wrong (I know why, thanks to your Obstacles thread!), ACBs of many investments are off, various other glitches to figure out.

smayer97

You're most welcome. Glad all the info was useful. Hope the rest of the migration clean-up goes smoothly enough for you.

drcuddy

@smayer97
I see from your sig that you're also Canadian, so I hope you'll have some insight on an issue I discovered last night.

Even though I have the QMac 2020 preference option set to Canada🇨🇦, I can't find a way to get it to sell shares using the Average Cost method stipulated by CRA. It provides a choice of LIFO or FIFO methods of selling shares (also minimum capital gain or maximum capital gain methods).

From what I can tell QMac imposes the US-driven Lots methodology for selling shares. As a result, capital gain calculations that it makes will be incorrect (unless I happen to sell all of my holdings of a particular stock). Have I overlooked a secret setting that enables proper (Canadian🇨🇦) ACB calculation?

Thanks.

jacobs

@drcuddy  Quicken Mac doesn't (yet) have an option to handle securities on an Average Cost basis. Even though it's optional in the US, there are many of us who handle our investments on an average cost basis and wish Quicken would add this feature. For all the things Quicken users complain about, I'm surprised this doesn't come up more often as a significant sticking point. I can't use Quicken's values for my cost basis or capital gains, and must use the values provided by my financial institutions because Quicken's values are wrong.

There is an Idea thread for this functionality here. I encourage you to go there and to add your vote for it in the blue box under the first post.

drcuddy

@jacobs
Thanks for the quick answer. What a disappointment. I've been misled by Quicken's mendacious marketing. On the quicken.ca website, they advertise that Quicken for Mac Deluxe will let you "see your realized and unrealized gains", as well as "track cost basis and create capital gain/loss reports". The website doesn't bother to mention that the data reported by Quicken will be inaccurate.

I followed the link that you provided, and added my vote. Sadly, there are only 4 votes registered. I'm not holding my breath that Quicken will add support for the ACB method any time soon.

Regards, and thanks for the SuperUser insights.