Update one bank account to two Quicken files

Brian Bygland

I have access to multiple accounts at my bank, including my kids. After malware took out my sons quicken file and backups (long story), we came up with the idea that I use one-step-update to his accounts to my file as a backup. He will still update his own separate quicken file. Can one bank account be updated to separate quicken files? I've searched the posts and found questions that suggest it should be possible, but I want to made sure before I mess things up.

Ps56k2

The timestamp is stored in your local Quicken file - so each individual install of Quicken will have its own view of when the last update was completed.. 

splasher

Yes, it not an issue having the same account in multiple Quicken files, I do it all the time with testing.

NOTE:  You do NOT want to do this with copies of the same data file unless they have been created since Quicken (R34.13) changed the file copy process so that the internal data file id is changed in the copied file.

Ps56k2

The timestamp is stored in your local Quicken file - so each individual install of Quicken will have its own view of when the last update was completed.. 

splasher

Yes, it not an issue having the same account in multiple Quicken files, I do it all the time with testing.

NOTE:  You do NOT want to do this with copies of the same data file unless they have been created since Quicken (R34.13) changed the file copy process so that the internal data file id is changed in the copied file.

Brian Bygland

Thank you. I thought this was true but wanted to make sure before I screwed up anything.

Chris_QPW

I do have one word of caution, make sure that the other data file is truly a separate data file.  Don't use a copy of your data file.  Data files have unique Ids in them.  If you just make a copy of your data file it will have the same unique Id and as such when syncing the the Quicken cloud data set it will get messed up trying to sync two different data files to the same Quicken cloud data set.

Make sure you use either:
File -> New Quicken File...

OR

File -> Copy or Backup -> Create a copy or template (this copy/template generates a new data file unique Id)

EDIT  Oops I should have read the comments closer, @splasher explained this.