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Merging accounts with transfers and downloads

kah3f

My husband recently passed away. Our bank accounts were jointly owned. The bank opened new accounts in my name only and recorded the starting balance as the balance in the old accounts when the new one was created. But automated downloads couldn't detect this so now all my accounts are duplicated. I have tried merging but then I seem to be getting into trouble with transfers among the old accounts. What is the best way to handle this situation?

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Accepted answers

Frankx

Hi @kah3f

Based on what you've posted above - I agree that, in your Quicken file, you should enter a transfer for each account from the old account to the new account. And you will then also need to delete the "initial balance" transaction that Quicken made for each account. With those entries you will end up with the old accounts being "zeroed out, and the new accounts with correct current ending balances. And - No, Quicken will not keep trying to download the initial transaction in your new accounts.

Also, if you want to continuing to download new transactions into the new accounts, you'll need to set them up under your username and password (if you haven't already done that.

Let me know of you have any followups.

Frankx

Boatnmaniac

@kah3f - Please accept my condolences on the loss of your husband. That alone is stressful enough without throwing on top of that the need to sort through and get in order all of the financials.

In addition to @Frankx ' suggestions, two additional suggestions:

Check to see if you have some duplicate transactions because of overlapping transaction dates between the old and new accounts. If there are, you'll need to decide which accounts (the new or the old) you want those transactions to be retained in. Then manually delete the duplicates in the other accounts. Otherwise you will have difficulty balancing the accounts. This should perhaps be done before you do the balance transfers from the old accounts to the new accounts.
Go to the Online Services tabs of Account Details for each of the old accounts. If you see a "Deactivate" button there, click on it. This will ensure that no future downloads to the old accounts will occur. This will not affect downloading to the new accounts. At some time in the future you might want to consider closing the old accounts in Quicken but I suggest not doing that until you are absolutely sure that there will never need to be any additional old accounts activity (manual entries, editing, etc.) in Quicken.

Boatnmaniac

Jumbo10 said:

After the Capital One Bank fix I now have 2 different accounts for the came credit card. Both accounts have been given different names. How can I merge the former account into the new account for one continuous account?

Backup your data file before proceeding. Then I suggest you take the following steps:

1. In the new account: Delete the Opening Balance transaction.
2. Compare the old and new account transactions to see if there is any overlap showing the same transactions in each account for the same time period. If there is overlap, in one of the accounts (it doesn't really matter which one), delete those transactions that are also found in the other account. This way you will not have any duplicate transactions in the new account when this merging process is completed.
3. In the old account:

Left click on the Opening Balance transaction.
Scroll down to the last transaction and while holding down the Shift key left click on that one. All of the transactions should now be shaded.
Right click anywhere on the shaded transactions and then left click on Move Transaction(s).
Select the the new account from the drop-down and click on OK.

4. All of the old account transactions should now be moved to the new account. If you had any transfer transactions in the old account they will have been updated to be new account transfers, instead.

5. Double check the old account to make sure there are no remaining transactions. If there are, move them over to the new account.

6. Check the new account to make sure it is in balance. Troubleshoot any balance issues found or enter an account balancing transaction.

7. Once this process is done you can close the old account or delete it (I suggest deleting it).

8. If you deleted the old account and if you wish to you can now rename the new account to whatever you want.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you encounter any issues.

All comments

kah3f

Responding to myself, I should perhaps clarify that at least for checking, the bank account numbers are the same; checks and electronic transactions work as before. But Quicken still sees them as distinct accounts.

Quicken Jared

kah3f said:

Responding to myself, I should perhaps clarify that at least for checking, the bank account numbers are the same; checks and electronic transactions work as before. But Quicken still sees them as distinct accounts.

Hello @kah3f,

I am sorry for any frustration or confusion this situation has caused. Thank you for taking the chance to get in contact with us about this matter here on the Quicken Community. I am also sorry to hear about the loss of your spouse; my condolences.

I want to be sure I understand what is happening by asking for a little more detail. You are noticing that two checking accounts - one for your deceased husband, and one for yourself - with the same account number are receiving the same downloaded transactions after updates, correct? Are you noticing this with .QFX file imports, as well?

I look forward to your responses, and hope to assist you further in this discussion, if it proves necessary.

Thank you,

Quicken Jared

kah3f

No, what happened was that the bank changed the "signature" of the accounts as Quicken sees them, and put in a (bogus) initial deposit of the balance of the old accounts but there is no corresponding transfer from the old account, so I have two checking accounts with the same balance, one checking account that's been active since then so have some duplicate transactions, and two of each of the savings/MM accounts with the same balance. At this point it seems my best approach is to create a transfer from the old accounts to the new ones and delete the "initial balance" transaction, but will Quicken keep trying to download it?

kah3f

Further: many of these accounts were downloaded under my husband's bank login and that has been cancelled, so they are no longer accessible to downloading.

Frankx

Boatnmaniac

@kah3f - Please accept my condolences on the loss of your husband. That alone is stressful enough without throwing on top of that the need to sort through and get in order all of the financials.

In addition to @Frankx ' suggestions, two additional suggestions:

Check to see if you have some duplicate transactions because of overlapping transaction dates between the old and new accounts. If there are, you'll need to decide which accounts (the new or the old) you want those transactions to be retained in. Then manually delete the duplicates in the other accounts. Otherwise you will have difficulty balancing the accounts. This should perhaps be done before you do the balance transfers from the old accounts to the new accounts.
Go to the Online Services tabs of Account Details for each of the old accounts. If you see a "Deactivate" button there, click on it. This will ensure that no future downloads to the old accounts will occur. This will not affect downloading to the new accounts. At some time in the future you might want to consider closing the old accounts in Quicken but I suggest not doing that until you are absolutely sure that there will never need to be any additional old accounts activity (manual entries, editing, etc.) in Quicken.

kah3f

Thank you to everybody who responded and for the condolences. The old accounts were being downloaded through my husband's login which has been cancelled, but I just double checked that none were still set up for download. I also had to zero out some retirement accounts that were transferred into mine, but that was easier; I just had to remove all the shares. He had always handled the Quickening so I wasn't sure how he had set everything up, but I've got it figured out now.

Jumbo10

where specifically do i find "transfer"?

Jumbo10

After the Capital One Bank fix I now have 2 different accounts for the came credit card. Both accounts have been given different names. How can I merge the former account into the new account for one continuous account?

Boatnmaniac

Jumbo10 said:

After the Capital One Bank fix I now have 2 different accounts for the came credit card. Both accounts have been given different names. How can I merge the former account into the new account for one continuous account?

Backup your data file before proceeding. Then I suggest you take the following steps:

Left click on the Opening Balance transaction.
Scroll down to the last transaction and while holding down the Shift key left click on that one. All of the transactions should now be shaded.
Right click anywhere on the shaded transactions and then left click on Move Transaction(s).
Select the the new account from the drop-down and click on OK.

5. Double check the old account to make sure there are no remaining transactions. If there are, move them over to the new account.

6. Check the new account to make sure it is in balance. Troubleshoot any balance issues found or enter an account balancing transaction.

7. Once this process is done you can close the old account or delete it (I suggest deleting it).

8. If you deleted the old account and if you wish to you can now rename the new account to whatever you want.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you encounter any issues.