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Migration from MS Money to Quicken Mac not working

hoodbu

Hi,

I am helping a family member, who has used MS Money for 15+ years, migrate to his Mac. However, transactions and account information do not show up in Quicken.

From: Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe Version 17.0.120.3817 on Windows 10
To: Quicken Starter 2020 Version 5.15.3 (Build 515.33035.100) on Mac OS 10.15.4

I created a sample test checking account in MS Money, added 2 transactions (a deposit and a withdrawal), and then exported that test account to a Loose QIF file. The QIF file looks like this:

!Type:Bank
D3/25'20
T10,000.00
CX
POpening Balance
L[Test Checking account]
^
D3/25'20
CX
Mtest memo
T100.00
N12345
PJohn
LBank Deposit/Conference
^
D3/28'20
CX
MMar '20
T-20,000.00
PAlice
LStaff Salaries & allowances:salaries/Office administration
^

However, when I import that file into Quicken, the account information and balance do not show up. A listing of All Transactions in Quicken yields no transaction. A listing of Accounts yields no Accounts. I should mention that the last line of the Import Log file just says this:

Number of transactions created for each account:

So, nothing is being imported. I want to mention that I also downloaded and installed on the Mac a free alternative to Money called GnuCash and it was able to import everything from the QIF file perfectly. But Quicken can't even import a QIF file with 2 transactions. What is needed for Quicken to be used as an alternative to Money?

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Comments

smayer97

QIF import into QMac is officially only supported for creating a new data file from Banktivity and MoneyDance. YMMV for another other usage.

An alternative would be for you to import MS Money into QWin first then convert/import QWin into QMac. Since you have a subscription, you have access to both Mac and Windows version of Quicken.

Also, in case you are not aware, if the subscription of Starter expires, the data file becomes read-only until you renew. All other versions allow you to continue to edit the data file even after expiration.

hoodbu

Thanks for your quick response. I just started my subscription today. There is no trial. If I can't manage to get Money imported successfully, then I will have to ask for my money back within 30 days.

hoodbu

Thanks for all your support. Using this method of MS Money > Quicken Windows > Quicken Mac, I was able to successfully migrate all the accounts and transactions.

However, there is one big miss. Check numbers do not appear in Quicken Mac whereas they do in Quicken Windows. In Quicken Mac, when I enable the 'Check #' column, it is listed as blank. The Import Log on the Mac does not say check numbers were omitted or that there was any error. Do you know how I can get this info?

As a background, MS Money had been only used for basic bank transactions with check numbers and multiple accounts, i.e. no investments or online linkage.

Any help on how to retrieve check info would be greatly appreciated.

jacobs

Do the check numbers show up in Quicken Windows? You need to isolate where they were lost.

Also, have you tried enabling the Quicken Mac Action column to see if the numbers dropped in there? Anything that's not numeric goes into Action rather than the check number field, so if there is any non-numeric character coming from Money, that might have moved your check numbers into the Action field.

hoodbu

Thank you so much for your continued support. Indeed they do show up in the Action column in Quicken Mac. In Quicken Windows, they showed up in the Checks column.

Hmm. When I had created the Test Checking account in MS Money and added 2 transactions, I assigned one of them a fictitious check number 12345, i.e. no non-numeric characters. Apparently, in conversion to Quicken Mac, that 12345 somehow got interpreted as non-numeric.

Is there any way to bulk convert values in the Action column to the Checks column? It would be nice to use the Checks column for the purpose intended so that new transactions in Quicken Mac can take advantage of it.

hoodbu

Is it such that if any account in Money ever had a non-numeric value for a Check, then all Check values for all accounts would end up in the Action column in Quicken Mac? Because if that is the case, I did find some accounts with non-numeric values for checks in transactions. I hope that empty values are not considered non-numeric. In other words, if a transaction does not use the Check value, hopefully that is not considered non-numeric.

jacobs

I can't really help you here, as I've only used the legacy Quicken Mac 2007 and converted that to the current Quicken Mac. Quicken Mac 2007 had a check field where you could enter check numbers or other actions; upon importing into the current quicken Mac, the numeric values go to the Check No. field and the other data goes into the Action field. But I can't answer how values are being passed from Money to Quicken Windows to Quicken Mac.

I would look at the data in Quicken Windows to see if that gives you insight into how to import from Money to Quicken Windows treated those values.

There is no way to bulk move values from the Action field into the Check No. column.

In the worst case scenario, can you just live with your old check numbers being in the Action field, while new check numbers going forward will be in the Check No. column? I know it's not optimal, but after a few months, how often do you refer to old check numbers -- a couple times a year, maybe; maybe less?

Chris_QPW

> @hoodbu said:
> Is it such that if any account in Money ever had a non-numeric value for a Check, then all Check values for all accounts would end up in the Action column in Quicken Mac? Because if that is the case, I did find some accounts with non-numeric values for checks in transactions. I hope that empty values are not considered non-numeric. In other words, if a transaction does not use the Check value, hopefully that is not considered non-numeric.

Let me first say that I'm a Quicken Windows only user so the next statement is only going on what I have read on the forums.

Quicken Windows has one field for check "numbers" which can actually be any text not just numbers.

From what I understand Quicken Mac started out with a field for check numbers that only allowed numbers. Then later there was a change where I they added another field (Action) for text ones. So during the conversion between them they had to decide how they would deal with the difference, and it sounds like they decided to split them to the two different fields based on if they are pure numbers or not.

Chris_QPW

BTW this is one of the examples of why I always say that people asking for a rewrite of software really don't understand how the world works.

At any given time developers make decisions on what they think is the best, but things change over time and also they find that they were mistaken about "what was best".

In Quicken Mac they did this with the check number field, and then there was the fact that they didn't put in support for linked transfers from the start, and now they have two fields for that now too. So every software that goes for any length of time builds up these kind of problems and they aren't easy to "fix" because some of the user want it to continue working the way it did before not to mention the problem with converting data files and such between the different possibilities.

jacobs

Chris_QPW said:

From what I understand Quicken Mac started out with a field for check numbers that only allowed numbers. Then later there was a change where I they added another field (Action) for text ones.

Actually, in legacy Quicken Mac (2007 and its predecessors), there was a single field called Number which could accept both check numbers and actions (ATM, EFT, Deposit, Withdrawal, etc.). When the modern generation Quicken Mac was built, it only accepted numbers in the Check No. field, with everything else placed in a new Action field. Action is not actually used for anything (e.g. entering Deposit doesn't make it a deposit); it's purely for users who want an extra field to help organize transactions.

Chris_QPW

Yes, I know the history and that the old Quicken Mac did it like Quicken Windows. I just didn't want to go into to much detail to confuse someone that is just starting into this. My real point is that I'm sure the developers thought they were "doing it right" at the time, but as time went on they found this and had to "correct it", and even in doing that might have made a mistake (I wouldn't have added a new field, I would have changed the current one to accept text). But the is the real world programmers are humans. We all make mistakes and sometimes we have to live a long with them.

I have a feeling one reason the budget in Quicken Mac still doesn't allow transfers is because of the extra complication that "mistake" of not supporting linked transfers from the beginning and having to have two field for it is causing.

hoodbu

Thanks for all your support. Good Useful product.
Only limitation appears to be that the Memo/notes/ remarks field appears to truncate in the converted version to about max 64 chars whereas MS money had about 100+ chars.