How to merge an old bank acct and a new (different) bank acct into a single new register?

REJones

My objective is to have a single historical register with the old/closed bank checking acct transactions (for past 21 yrs) and the new/different bank checking acct transactions. Each bank acct is currently in a separate Quicken data file. Is idea this even possible?

Greg_the_Geek

How to 'merge' two Quicken files? — Quicken

Jim_Harman

It is possible, but why do you want to do that?

If they are different accounts in real life, generally it is better to keep them separate. For one thing, you may get better performance with a new account that has fewer transactions in it. And combining them may cause problems, for example if there have been transfers began the accounts.

Chris_QPW

Note the question is about copying the transactions in one data file/account to another data file/account.

As such the "merge" would be "overkill", and you can't use the procedure for moving transactions between accounts in the same data file, because it is in two different data files.

As for performance problems, it really depends on how many transactions we are talking about.  Non-investment accounts don't tend to have any problems up to about 32,000 transactions in a single register.

The main problem one would have with this is that checking accounts are seldom "self-contained'.  They have transfers to other accounts, and those transfers will cause problems.

The general procedure is easy, export the account as a QIF file (File -> File Export -> QIF File), and import it back into the data file/account using the QIF import.

Be sure to have a backup just in case something goes wrong.
You might also consider changing the transfers to regular categories to avoid the transfer problems.
http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/changetransfers.html

TTSguy

I was going to do the same thing, but a couple of the Superusers enlightened me. I tried it on a small scale and decided not to after I was left with a syndrome called 'Cranial Interuptus" otherwise known as level 3 brain damage due to the transfer issues, and double and missing transactions in several accounts in doing so.

You can really [mess] up your Quicken badly, so if you do proceed, make several backups at several places.
Chris was enlightening with his information. This process is not for the faint of heart. Proceed with caution!

[Edited - Language]

TTSguy

This should be addressed in the Quicken "Support" tab section

REJones

Many thanks to all of your great responses. I now have some potential issues to think through before taking any steps in this direction. Will sit on it for a few days...it's not a "must have' situation.