Year-end Copy does not exclude data as requested

Kevin Jarrett

Hi, trying to do a year-end copy to remove several years of old data. I go through the process, enter the dates correctly, but the new file still has the old data. File validates OK. Thoughts?

Chris_QPW

The year end copy certainly does remove data it is one of its main purposes. But it never removes investment transactions.
It also never removes transactions that are not reconciled. And the reconcile has to be on both sides of a transaction if this is a transfer transaction.

With that said most superusers here swear against using year end since they see no need to throw away good data.  I'm certainly in that group.  As such whereas the superusers have the most experience in most things they certainly will not have the most experience in using a function they don't like.

Every year people report problems with this function. And every year super users will run that function and it will seem to work for them. Maybe they get lucky maybe they're not looking at it close enough. And that includes me I run it and it seems to work but I certainly am not going to dig into it really deep.

I do find it hard to believe that everybody reporting a problem doesn't know what they're talking about. But there's a lot of categories of that some people report that the function fails and says it doesn't work. The most common of course is I told it to do something it said it did it and I look at the results and the transactions are still there.

Well to me the problem can fall into a few categories.

The first is that the GUI is confusing and they might not be selecting the right options.
The second is that they don't understand the criteria of what is needed like getting everything reconciled so that it will be removed.  from what I've seen this tends to be the one that is true the most often.
The next possibility has to do with something in the data file prevents it from working even though there's no error thrown.
and the last possibility of course is that they've changed something and it's broken.  To me this seems like the least likely given that there's been complaints for as long as I've looked at the Quicken forums.  So it's either always been broken or more likely it's one of the above.

Nash

(Windows Subscription) I tried to use the year-end function to remove old transactions before Jan 2010. (I have entries dating to the mid 1990s.) The reconciled transactions in spending and savings remained. It created a new entry for the opening of the accounts as a transfer from the account with the date the account was open (years before 2010) with a very large amount. Oddly, all the current balances remained good, which blows my mind. Validating the account finds no errors. I tried the process from scratch 3 times with the same result. My problem may be that I am trying more than a single year. It also may be the file has a long story of several editions of Quicken after being imported from Money. I am deciding to be fond of the old data.

Sherlock

A year-end copy does not remove old data.  If you want to remove old data, I suggest you select File > File Operations > Copy....

Kevin Jarrett

Interesting, because the screenshot I provided clearly shows you can EXCLUDE data by date range, and the resulting file WILL NOT have the data. If it doesn't remove the old data, why is that dialog present? A true mystery, Holmes!

Kevin Jarrett

Annnnnnnd I've just determined that the File | File Operations | Copy navigation yields the same result - transactions I said NOT to include (several years worth of data) are happily still present in the new file. Something's amiss, Holmes, I tell you!

Sherlock

Kevin Jarrett said:

Interesting, because the screenshot I provided clearly shows you can EXCLUDE data by date range, and the resulting file WILL NOT have the data. If it doesn't remove the old data, why is that dialog present? A true mystery, Holmes!

There is also qualifier on the screenshot you provided which tells you Quicken will only remove certain transactions.

Kevin Jarrett said:

Annnnnnnd I've just determined that the File | File Operations | Copy navigation yields the same result - transactions I said NOT to include (several years worth of data) are happily still present in the new file. Something's amiss, Holmes, I tell you!

Did you uncheck options on the Copy File window?

Kevin Jarrett

Well, ok. Unchecking that box did get rid of the data I wanted to lose. Sorta.

For Include transactions From, I used 1/1/2004. Used today for the To: date.

The new file has transactions for the full year of 2003. How is this possible? Talk about confusing UI.

I just tried it again, and UNCHECKING those boxes and using a From date one year later (1/1/2005) DID result in the data prior to 1/1/2004 getting removed, BUT, my net worth was significantly off. Whoops! Yeah, not having that.

So, I tried it yet AGAIN, this time leaving the "Include all prior investment transactions" box checked. Why not? The result was that the net worth figure was again correct BUT the data prior to 1/1/2004 wasn't removed.

Fun, fun, fun!

Thanks for trying to help. I'm going to live with the old data. Even with the data removed, the file size barely shrank at all (which was one of my goals - faster load times). The original was 83mb and the revised one without the data (and the wrong net worth) was like 82mb. Inconsequential.

Like I said, thanks for trying.

Peace!

-kj-

Sherlock

Kevin Jarrett said:

Well, ok. Unchecking that box did get rid of the data I wanted to lose. Sorta.

For Include transactions From, I used 1/1/2004. Used today for the To: date.

The new file has transactions for the full year of 2003. How is this possible? Talk about confusing UI.

I just tried it again, and UNCHECKING those boxes and using a From date one year later (1/1/2005) DID result in the data prior to 1/1/2004 getting removed, BUT, my net worth was significantly off. Whoops! Yeah, not having that.

So, I tried it yet AGAIN, this time leaving the "Include all prior investment transactions" box checked. Why not? The result was that the net worth figure was again correct BUT the data prior to 1/1/2004 wasn't removed.

Fun, fun, fun!

Thanks for trying to help. I'm going to live with the old data. Even with the data removed, the file size barely shrank at all (which was one of my goals - faster load times). The original was 83mb and the revised one without the data (and the wrong net worth) was like 82mb. Inconsequential.

Like I said, thanks for trying.

Peace!

-kj-

Quicken file size does not impact load times so you were wasting your time.

I am not able to reproduce the issues you have with the dates.

After removing the older transactions, it is necessary to reestablish appropriate initial balances.

JerryredAU

> @Sherlock said:
> A year-end copy does not remove old data.  If you want to remove old data, I suggest you select File > File Operations > Copy....

Well, I beg to differ. I've used Quicken for years and it certainly did remove old years from the year end copy. [Removed - Speculation] I remember well how the year end copy removed all the prior years from the current file. Bring it back!!

Sherlock

JerryredAU said:

> @Sherlock said:
> A year-end copy does not remove old data.  If you want to remove old data, I suggest you select File > File Operations > Copy....

Well, I beg to differ. I've used Quicken for years and it certainly did remove old years from the year end copy. [Removed - Speculation] I remember well how the year end copy removed all the prior years from the current file. Bring it back!!

The year end copy only removes reconciled non-investment transactions that are not transfers to unreconciled transactions.  

Chris_QPW

The year end copy certainly does remove data it is one of its main purposes. But it never removes investment transactions.
It also never removes transactions that are not reconciled. And the reconcile has to be on both sides of a transaction if this is a transfer transaction.

With that said most superusers here swear against using year end since they see no need to throw away good data.  I'm certainly in that group.  As such whereas the superusers have the most experience in most things they certainly will not have the most experience in using a function they don't like.

Every year people report problems with this function. And every year super users will run that function and it will seem to work for them. Maybe they get lucky maybe they're not looking at it close enough. And that includes me I run it and it seems to work but I certainly am not going to dig into it really deep.

I do find it hard to believe that everybody reporting a problem doesn't know what they're talking about. But there's a lot of categories of that some people report that the function fails and says it doesn't work. The most common of course is I told it to do something it said it did it and I look at the results and the transactions are still there.

Well to me the problem can fall into a few categories.

The first is that the GUI is confusing and they might not be selecting the right options.
The second is that they don't understand the criteria of what is needed like getting everything reconciled so that it will be removed.  from what I've seen this tends to be the one that is true the most often.
The next possibility has to do with something in the data file prevents it from working even though there's no error thrown.
and the last possibility of course is that they've changed something and it's broken.  To me this seems like the least likely given that there's been complaints for as long as I've looked at the Quicken forums.  So it's either always been broken or more likely it's one of the above.

Nash

(Windows Subscription) I tried to use the year-end function to remove old transactions before Jan 2010. (I have entries dating to the mid 1990s.) The reconciled transactions in spending and savings remained. It created a new entry for the opening of the accounts as a transfer from the account with the date the account was open (years before 2010) with a very large amount. Oddly, all the current balances remained good, which blows my mind. Validating the account finds no errors. I tried the process from scratch 3 times with the same result. My problem may be that I am trying more than a single year. It also may be the file has a long story of several editions of Quicken after being imported from Money. I am deciding to be fond of the old data.

Chris_QPW

Just for the record it does seem to work for me (As in I tested it and it appears to work, I don't actually personal use.)

Here is a screenshot of using 1/1/2021 as the cutoff date.
My checking account:


EDIT: Oops dropped the statement that everyone of the transactions before 1/1/2021 with the exception of the opening balance includes a transfer where the other side isn't reconciled.

I should probably go to those old closed accounts and set all the transactions to reconciled, but I'm just lazy in that regard.