Converting from Ibank to Mac Quicken

YYJDennis

I have followed the procedure to export a qif file from Ibank/banktivity and open it in a new file in quicken. It imports a bunch of accounts and transactions, but all of the transaction amounts are zero and they're all dated 2001-01-01. Help!

jacobs

@YYJDennis  Here's my guess: Quicken wrote a converter for iBank years ago, and it worked. Somewhere along the way, the folks at iBank/Banktivity made some change to the structure of their QIF export. (That could have been just keeping up with new features, or a minor tweak to fix a bug -- or could have been to slow down defectors and stick it to Quicken to keep up.)

On the Quicken end, my guess is they aren't constantly re-testing this import process, so if something has broken, they're likely not aware of it. Or if they are, they have decided not to invest resources into keeping up with such updates because their stats show relatively few people are using it.

I think you have two possible paths forward:

(1) Use the Help > Report a Problem to explain carefully that the import from Banktivity appears to be broken; Include in your note that you'd be willing to provide a copy of your Banktivity file to help them with testing. You generally will not hear any response to such a bug report, except in rare cases whether they want to reach out for more information. Unfortunately, if the person at Quicken validating the submissions cannot reproduce the problem -- which they clearly can't without a current Banktivity data file -- they may not investigate it further.

(2) Contact Quicken Support by phone, and ask a support representative to screen share with you to walk through creating a new file from the Banktivity exported QIF to see that the data is not importing correctly. It should be possible for them to document this and escalate the case to the produce development team. Unfortunately, some support reps may not go that extra mile, and may fall back on the reply from Quicken Anja that Quicken has no control over the QIF export and does not guarantee the results.

While I understand Quicken has no control over what Banktivity does, I feel that if they have a feature to import from Banktivity, then they should look into reports that something changed and that it's not working -- or they should remove the claim that they can import from Banktivity if they have consciously decided not to pursue it.

Quicken Anja

Hello @YYJDennis,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community to tell us about your issue, though I apologize that you are experiencing this.

Unfortunately, Quicken has no control over the data that is exported from other personal finance applications. You can try exporting and importing a new QIF file from Banktivity, however, we cannot guarantee the outcome. 

For more information about this, please review this support article and open the blue dropdown section titled Start from a .QIF file exported from another application (Banktivity or Moneydance).

YYJDennis

> @"Quicken Anja" said:
> Hello @YYJDennis,
>
> Thank you for reaching out to the Community to tell us about your issue, though I apologize that you are experiencing this.
>
> Unfortunately, Quicken has no control over the data that is exported from other personal finance applications. You can try exporting and importing a new QIF file from Banktivity, however, we cannot guarantee the outcome. 
>
> For more information about this, please review this support article and open the blue dropdown section titled Start from a .QIF file exported from another application (Banktivity or Moneydance).

Already done.

YYJDennis

Why does this thread show as answered anyways? My question wasn't answered.

Frankx

Hi @YYJDennis,

That is only an indication that someone submitted or suggested an answer (or that multiple answers were submitted/suggested).  It doesn't mean that the answer actually solved the issue - you, as the original poster have control over that - and you should see the "Did this answer the question? YES - NO" directly below all posts that appear after your original post.

Frankx

jacobs

@YYJDennis  Here's my guess: Quicken wrote a converter for iBank years ago, and it worked. Somewhere along the way, the folks at iBank/Banktivity made some change to the structure of their QIF export. (That could have been just keeping up with new features, or a minor tweak to fix a bug -- or could have been to slow down defectors and stick it to Quicken to keep up.)

On the Quicken end, my guess is they aren't constantly re-testing this import process, so if something has broken, they're likely not aware of it. Or if they are, they have decided not to invest resources into keeping up with such updates because their stats show relatively few people are using it.

I think you have two possible paths forward:

(1) Use the Help > Report a Problem to explain carefully that the import from Banktivity appears to be broken; Include in your note that you'd be willing to provide a copy of your Banktivity file to help them with testing. You generally will not hear any response to such a bug report, except in rare cases whether they want to reach out for more information. Unfortunately, if the person at Quicken validating the submissions cannot reproduce the problem -- which they clearly can't without a current Banktivity data file -- they may not investigate it further.

(2) Contact Quicken Support by phone, and ask a support representative to screen share with you to walk through creating a new file from the Banktivity exported QIF to see that the data is not importing correctly. It should be possible for them to document this and escalate the case to the produce development team. Unfortunately, some support reps may not go that extra mile, and may fall back on the reply from Quicken Anja that Quicken has no control over the QIF export and does not guarantee the results.

While I understand Quicken has no control over what Banktivity does, I feel that if they have a feature to import from Banktivity, then they should look into reports that something changed and that it's not working -- or they should remove the claim that they can import from Banktivity if they have consciously decided not to pursue it.

YYJDennis

> @jacobs said:
> @YYJDennis  Here's my guess: Quicken wrote a converter for iBank years ago, and it worked. Somewhere along the way, the folks at iBank/Banktivity made some change to the structure of their QIF export. (That could have been just keeping up with new features, or a minor tweak to fix a bug -- or could have been to slow down defectors and stick it to Quicken to keep up.)
>
> On the Quicken end, my guess is they aren't constantly re-testing this import process, so if something has broken, they're likely not aware of it. Or if they are, they have decided not to invest resources into keeping up with such updates because their stats show relatively few people are using it.
>
> I think your have two possible paths forward:
>
> (1) Use the Help > Report a Problem to explain carefully that the import from Banktivity appears to be broken; Include in your note that you'd be willing to provide a copy of your Banktivity file to help them with testing. You generally will not hear any response to such a bug report, except in rare cases whether they want to reach out for more information. Unfortunately, if the person at Quicken validating the submissions cannot reproduce the problem -- which they clearly can't without a current Banktivity data file -- they may not investigate it further.
>
> (2) Contact Quicken Support by phone, and ask a support representative to screen share with you to walk through creating a new file from the Banktivity exported QIF to see that the data is not importing correctly. It should be possible for them to document this and escalate the case to the produce development team. Unfortunately, some support reps may not go that extra mile, and may fall back on the reply from Quicken Anja that Quicken has no control over the QIF export and does not guarantee the results.
>
> While I understand Quicken has no control over what Banktivity does, I feel that if they have a feature to import from Banktivity, then they should look into reports that something changed and that it's not working -- or they should remove the claim that they can import from Banktivity if they have consciously decided not to pursue it.

Thanks. I've decided to just enter things manually. I now have the transactions downloaded for my bank and credit card accounts, so it's just the investment transactions I need.

Dennis

Jon

> @YYJDennis said:
it's just the investment transactions I need.

A couple years ago I imported my Banktivity data into Quicken for Mac. The investments were the one thing that didn't make it through at all. I had to rebuild the activity in the investment accounts from scratch.