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successful conversion of Quicken 2007 file to latest

jasonp_austin

Just got a new MBP 14" with Monterey 12.1. Used Migration Assistant to copy all my data from my old Mac (2011 MBP 15" running High Sierra). Sadly found out that Quicken 2007 no longer ran (because not 64-bit). Purchased Quicken for Mac Deluxe on website and installed. Tried to open existing file but did not work.

Went back to old MBP and tried to Save a Copy, oddly that did not work. I had done that before but that must have been when I was running Snow Leopard. Read some posts here that needed to do this operation on a non-APFS drive, including loading source file from non-APFS drive.

Copied existing Quicken file to non-APFS external drive, ran Quicken 2007 and was now able to Save a Copy onto that same non-APFS drive. Connected that drive to new Mac and new Quicken was able to load and convert the file (using cloud-based converter).

Checked all my accounts and they were all correct except for one investment account. It showed I had over 1000 shares of MOT (which doesn't exist anymore so it was getting the price from MSI) instead of zero shares. It had the correct stock split of MOT into MSI (2011 timeframe), and moved the correct shares of MSI from that account to another, and seemed to remove the correct number of MOT shares out of the account. But still it ended up with 1000+ shares of MOT. Not sure why. So I just added a transaction one day after the original split to move those shares out (to nowhere) so then at that point all the accounts in the new file lined up with the old file.

So having said all that, I'm happy my data is now in Quicken and I can still use it. Though I would have gladly paid Quicken $100 to have a 64-bit version of Quicken 2007 and used that instead. The new interface is totally different and jarring, but I guess I'll get used to it at some point. Still trying to figure out the reporting. I really liked the "Qk Report" function of the old Quicken, maybe that can be added at some point?

Also since I don't really need the transaction download features (well, assuming I can still upload QIF's or QFX's into the new Quicken, haven't tried that yet) I'm not looking forward to seeing the renewal banner on the screen when my one year is up.

Cheers.

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Comments

jacobs

Glad to hear you were able to get your conversion to work. It generally does, but some users have corruption in their Quicken 2007 databases which can make it impossible. The Save a Copy that you did was the best way to get a clean Quicken 2007 database to convert.

Yes, the new interface is jarring to everyone who converts from Quicken 2007. All I can advise is not to have too strong a knee jerk reaction that you hate it, and give it some time to get used to the new interface. I originally didn't like the single-line register interface, for instance, but after some time, I grew to prefer it to the old look; I find it's easier to skim down a screen of transactions when every other line isn't formatted differently, and the scrolling is smooth instead of page by page. There are some things which I think are better in Quicken Mac, some which are worse, and some which are different but neither better nor worse.

A lot of the things we used to do with Quick Reports can now be done with the Search box in the upper right. Choose one account or an account group or All Transactions in the left sidebar, make sure the column you want to search for (e.g. memos) is visible, and then enter your search term. You can also generate a "quick report" on a transaction's category or Payee by Control-clicking on a transaction and selecting the appropriate option in the menu.

As for importing transactions into Quicken, once your subscription expires, you won't be able to. Even importing QFX files requires a subscription. (And QIF is generally not supported at all.) But these are issues to deal with a year from now!

jasonp_austin

Thanks for the info Jacobs. Wow, no QIF import. That's how I got stock quotes into Quicken 2007 for a long, long time (after 3-yr subscription expired long time ago). But if no QFX import either then no way to really do what I have been doing with Quicken without a subscription. My bank account transaction are very few so I just enter those manually, or have them auto-enter from the Calendar. My CC accounts I download QFX from the CC websites (some are better than others), convert to QIF using a Perl script, then auto-add Categories based on Payee, then upload that QIF into Quicken. Hmmm, I also do similar thing with investment QFX's (for dividends, etc.).

If letting Quicken do this automatically, how good is it at assigning Categories based on the Payee? Does it "learn" from past transactions of same Payee?

I'm bummed there appears no way to run Reports based on the Memo field (yes, can search for Memo text in a single account as you said, but that's not the same). I upvoted the request for that feature, and complained to Quicken, but in the interim, seems like only way now would be to start using the Tag field instead of (or in addition to) the Memo field.

jacobs

Just an observation: you’re doing a lot of work to avoid paying for a Quicken subscription. Is it really worth doing all that to save $50 a year? (I’m not asking for you to answer; just throwing it out for you to think about it.)

Regarding auto-categorization: the ability to build and edit QuickFill rules makes the program very capable of properly categorizing transactions.

Regarding price quotes: you can import price history via a CSV file, but it’s tedious to do for all your holdings because you need a separate file for each security.

jasonp_austin

Thanks - I will definitely check out QuickFill to see if that will help with categorization.

It seems like I'm doing a lot of work, though it seemed to take longer to write out what I'm doing than what it actually takes

In practice we have 2 CC's that have almost all of our CC transactions. So it takes me less than an hour/month to download, process, and import into Quicken (2007). Some of that time is looking at the transactions to spot any suspicious activity, which I would be doing anyway in the new Quicken.

I'm going to try updating thru Quicken and if that works out well I may stay with the subscription model.

I tried that with two investment accounts yesterday, and it only download transactions from 12/30/21 to latest, not anything earlier than that. Then I downloaded the QFX file manually from the website, and specified 120 days of transactions (verified by looking at file), uploaded that into Quicken and same thing, nothing older than 12/30/21. Is it because I only purchased my Quicken on 1/4/22? Or some other reason?

jacobs

The number of days Quicken will download is determined by each financial institution. Most financial institutions allow 90 days back. Only downloading the past week seems quite odd.

The fact that your QFX download only went back a week is even more odd. I suggest opening the QFX file in TextEdit to look to see if there are more transactions there or not. The syntax of QFX/OFX is a little cryptic, but once you start scrolling through, you'll be able to discern individual transaction and the transaction dates. If there are only transactions back to 12/30/21, then the issue is with the credit card company, and you'll need to contact them to pursue this. If the QFX file has transactions going back to September, then post back here and we can talk about some other testing scenarios to try to get this figured out.

jasonp_austin

I verified the QFX file has transactions going back to 09/10/2021 (I have a QFX to QIF converter to view the data more easily). These are investment transactions. Any ideas? I'll also try Quicken Chat support to see if they can help.

jacobs

@jasonp_austin Normally, the only reason transactions present in a QFX file don't show up in Quicken is because they are duplicates of transactions previously imported into Quicken (even if they were deleted). Each transaction has a unique ID number (the Financial Institution Transaction ID, or FITID), and Quicken maintains in its database a list of every FITID ever imported into your file; if a new transaction has a FITID which already exists in the list, then Quicken ignores the transaction because it sees it as a duplicate.

I don't know if that's what's going on in your case, but there's any easy way to check. Create a temporary new file (File > New > Start for Scratch) and don't connect any of your bank accounts (select "my bank is not in the list" followed by "Add manual account"). Now try to import the QFX file. Since this Quicken data file has no previous FITID numbers to reject and transactions as duplicates, we want to see if all the transactions show up.

Report back what you find, and we can follow where the path leads next.

jasonp_austin

So Quicken Chat rep suggested same tactic. Yes, by starting scratch from new file I can import the QFX, it shows dialog with the two accounts it found in the QFX and asks to create new accounts from that. Also, if I happen to have created two new brokerage accounts right before that I have the option of linking the transactions to those accounts.

However if I try to do this in my existing Quicken file it does not work. Rep stated this:

"Yes the normal process is to import your transactions on this original file, however we have a general issue that quicken for mac is not importing the QFX file from the bank, as soon as the issue gets fixed you will be able to simply open the QFX file, and link it to the existing accounts and all will work fine"

What does work however is in those new file accounts, to File->Export->Quick Transfer File (QXF) and save this. Then in my existing Quicken file, import that file via File->Import->Quicken Windows File and that got me all the transactions in two new accounts. I then had to drag & drop the transactions from those accounts into the existing accounts, then delete the new accounts. Cumbersome but it works.

Really hope this bug gets fixed soon!

Oh, did not find out why the bank download transactions stopped at 12/30/21. Maybe a bank limitation? Or could be same issue as with QFX import?

smayer97

jasonp_austin said:

I verified the QFX file has transactions going back to 09/10/2021 (I have a QFX to QIF converter to view the data more easily)...

BTW, a QFX file is simply a text file that can be opened with any text editor or word processor. No need to convert it to any other format. Simply right-click the file and select Open With...

jacobs

smayer97 said:
BTW, a QFX file is simply a text file that can be opened with any text editor or word processor. No need to convert it to any other format. Simply right-click the file and select Open With...

Yes, we already discussed earlier in this thread opening the QFX file in TextEdit. Jason simply used the converter he had available to make things easier to read than the unformatted QFX text.

jasonp_austin

Yes, that is true, though the ones I usually get are without carriage returns. So hard to read until you change every "<" to a CR. But I already have a cmdline (Perl) QFX to QIF converter so it's trivial to do so.

1selectman

I'm in the Quicken 2007 upgrade file conversion maze! Let me describe my situation:

I'm using a 2018 iMac running MacOS 10.14.6. Its boot drive is an APFS volume.

For several reasons, including the fact that I use Turbotax, which now requires a higher OS version, I'll have to upgrade my OS to a newer one.

From what I've in this Community, I've concluded that I should proceed as follows:

1. Save as backup my current Q2007 file to an external, non-APFS formatted disk as a '.qdfm' or, if better, export it as a '.gif'.

2. Upgrade the OS on my computer to MacOS 10.15 or later as required by Turbotax for 2021.

3. Delete Quicken 2007 from my computer.

4. Install Quicken Deluxe (subscription) on my computer.

5. Once I've done the above, how do I get the "cloud-based converter file, and which file saved in step number one above do I convert: the '.qdfm' file or the '.gif' file?

Thanks for taking the time to read this and, I hope, reply. (Including any hints or cautions)

...............Mike Stupinski

jacobs

1selectman said:

1. Save as backup my current Q2007 file to an external, non-APFS formatted disk as a '.qdfm' or, if better, export it as a '.gif'.

Definitely not a .gif; that's a format for animated pictures! Your existing Quicken data file is a .qdfm file. It isn't really necessary to move it to an external disk before you upgrade the operating system, although you definitely should have a backup of the file (and ideally your whole hard drive). Modern Quicken Mac will read the .qdmf Quicken 2007 data file.

2. Upgrade the OS on my computer to MacOS 10.15 or later as required by Turbotax for 2021.

3. Delete Quicken 2007 from my computer.

It's not pressing that you delete Quicken 2007 right away. It won't run, but it won't do any harm being there either. You should hold onto the program on your backup file just in case for some emergency reason you need to get the program and data file running again on a Mac with an older operating system. (Such as if there's a failure with the import into Quicken Mac.) But I'll have a better suggestion in a second…

4. Install Quicken Deluxe (subscription) on my computer.

5. Once I've done the above, how do I get the "cloud-based converter file, and which file saved in step number one above do I convert: the '.qdfm' file or the '.gif' file?

When you launch Quicken Mac it will ask you to sign in with your QuickenID (The same one you use for purchasing there subscription) and all land on a Let's Get Started page. you will select to start from a Quicken 2007 data file, and then select your .qdfm file. Quicken Mac will do the rest: uploading your data to its cloud-based Quicken 2007 exporter, then downloading the data back to your computer and importing it into Quicken Mac.

Now, I have a suggestion about a better order for doing this: first install the new Quicken Mac (#4), then convert your Quicken 2007 data file (#5), and then later, upgrade macOS (#2). Why? Because on your current Mojave operating system, you can run both Quicken 2007 and Quicken Mac, and you can even run them simultaneously. If your import of data works flawlessly, you may never need to look at Quicken 2007 again, but if any accounts look off in Quicken Mac and you want to compare to Quicken 2007, you'll be able to do so. And in the worst case scenario that the importer fails (it's rare, but if you have a damaged Quicken 2007 data file, it's been known to happen), there might be some steps to take to try to clean up the Quicken 2007 data file and try again. But you can only do this if you still have a computer capable of running Quicken 2007. That's why I'm suggesting to convert to the new Quicken first, make sure everything is okay in Quicken Mac, and then update your operating system. Make sense?

Oh, one preventative step to take with Quicken 2007 before importing your data: make a copy of your .qdfm data file for safekeeping, launch Quicken 2007 -- hopefully for the last time -- and rebuild the file indexes (Command-Option-B). when that completes, you can quit Quicken 2007. This step is likely not necessary, but the index repair has prevented/resolved problems for many users. Make are you know which copy of your data file is the latest one for importing into Quicken Mac