Is it possible to change the bank for an existing Quicken account?

Mike650101

I am changing banks after 20+ years of transactions in existing Quicken checking and savings accounts. I would prefer to keep all of this history in one place and not create new Quicken accounts.

Is it possible to change the bank account info for an existing Quicken account?

And if not, is there a way to do some sort of bulk "Move" operation to move all of the old transactions to the new account?

Boatnmaniac

Yes, you can change the Financial Institution (FI) for an account you have already set up in Quicken.  But you should note that once you do that you will lose visibility of which transactions are from which bank.  Instead, they will all show up under just the new bank's name....even those from "20+ years" ago. 

This also will affect any and all transfers into and out of your accounts.  All transfers that were completed will update to the new bank account names.

What many people do (and what I would recommend) is to simply leave the old accounts as is (perhaps even Closing the accounts in Quicken at some point) and then set up new accounts for the new banks.  This way you will retain all of that history correctly.

If, however, the historical record accuracy is not important to you then you can do the following:

1. Do not proceed until after you are convinced that all transactions for the old accounts have posted, cleared and downloaded.  Otherwise you will end up needing to manually enter transactions that have not yet been downloaded.
   
2. Backup your data file before proceeding.
3. Write down the Opening Balance transaction dollar amounts for each of your old bank accounts in Quicken.
   
4. In the Account Register for one of the old bank accounts:  Upper right gear icon > Edit Account Details > Online Services tab > Deactivate > General tab > delete all FI Information in the upper right quadrant of the tab view (everything above the Contact Name field) > OK.
5. Repeat #3 for each old account you want to convert to the new bank.
6. Add Account > type in the name of the new bank and select it from the list > if you are going to set up Direct Connect, click on the Advanced Options link, select Direct Connect and follow the prompts....if you will not set up Direct Connect, click on Next and follow the prompts > during the setup process Quicken will download accounts data from each of your accounts at the new bank >  make sure the downloaded data is Linked to the old bank accounts you already have set up in Quicken.

After the accounts have been set up with the new bank: 

1. Check the original Opening Balances in each of the accounts.  If the dollar amounts do not match what you wrote down earlier, edit them to match what you wrote down.
2. Look for new Opening Balances transactions that might have been entered during the Add Account process  They will most likely be dated with the date you actually opened the accounts at the new bank.  If you find any, Delete them.
   

Your accounts should now be in balance with all transactions from the old bank accounts now showing up as transactions for the new bank accounts.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Boatnmaniac

Yes, you can change the Financial Institution (FI) for an account you have already set up in Quicken.  But you should note that once you do that you will lose visibility of which transactions are from which bank.  Instead, they will all show up under just the new bank's name....even those from "20+ years" ago. 

This also will affect any and all transfers into and out of your accounts.  All transfers that were completed will update to the new bank account names.

What many people do (and what I would recommend) is to simply leave the old accounts as is (perhaps even Closing the accounts in Quicken at some point) and then set up new accounts for the new banks.  This way you will retain all of that history correctly.

If, however, the historical record accuracy is not important to you then you can do the following:

1. Do not proceed until after you are convinced that all transactions for the old accounts have posted, cleared and downloaded.  Otherwise you will end up needing to manually enter transactions that have not yet been downloaded.
   
2. Backup your data file before proceeding.
3. Write down the Opening Balance transaction dollar amounts for each of your old bank accounts in Quicken.
   
4. In the Account Register for one of the old bank accounts:  Upper right gear icon > Edit Account Details > Online Services tab > Deactivate > General tab > delete all FI Information in the upper right quadrant of the tab view (everything above the Contact Name field) > OK.
5. Repeat #3 for each old account you want to convert to the new bank.
6. Add Account > type in the name of the new bank and select it from the list > if you are going to set up Direct Connect, click on the Advanced Options link, select Direct Connect and follow the prompts....if you will not set up Direct Connect, click on Next and follow the prompts > during the setup process Quicken will download accounts data from each of your accounts at the new bank >  make sure the downloaded data is Linked to the old bank accounts you already have set up in Quicken.

After the accounts have been set up with the new bank: 

1. Check the original Opening Balances in each of the accounts.  If the dollar amounts do not match what you wrote down earlier, edit them to match what you wrote down.
2. Look for new Opening Balances transactions that might have been entered during the Add Account process  They will most likely be dated with the date you actually opened the accounts at the new bank.  If you find any, Delete them.
   

Your accounts should now be in balance with all transactions from the old bank accounts now showing up as transactions for the new bank accounts.

Let me know if you have any questions.

UKR

An "account", meaning a real world bank account is equal to an account register in one Quicken data file. You can have many account registers from as many banks as needed in one data file.

IMHO, there's no need to make a major move of transaction data. Leave your Quicken data file as is, with the old bank accounts still intact. Do not move data. Do not delete old accounts together with all their transactions. That will preserve your history.
Just add your new bank accounts and start using them.
Change your Scheduled Reminders to use the new bank accounts, too.

Mike650101

@Boatnmaniac I finally got around to doing this according to your steps and it worked flawlessly. Thanks so much for the help.

Boatnmaniac

I'm glad it worked for you.  Thank you for confirming.