Can I change categories from year to year w/o losing historic data?

Richard Laird

I have too many categories and would like to start anew next year with a more workable number of categories. I do not want to lose the historic data.

Jon

If you rename or delete categories those changes will be applied to your entire file including past transactions. There's no way to have a bunch of old categories that no longer show up in your category list; you'd have to start a new file.

Richard Laird

If I start a new file, can I start from scratch, creating/naming categories with the same name as my current file? If so, I assume that the historic data will stay in my current file and I would be starting at zero with the new file.

Jon

Yes. Category names are unique to each file, so a new file is going to start with the default categories Quicken creates and you can make changes from there. Those changes won't affect your existing file.