Combining two Quicken files - Category fields & Import to bank accts

Goes211

I have two Quicken files that used to be together - about 5 years ago - then they were split into two separate data files because I thought it made more sense to have one file for personal and another for business.  I've made some changes over the years and now the client wants to move to QB online.  To avoid 2 subscriptions, we need to merge the two files back together so only one data file is converted to QB. 
There are no investments, all transactions are in USD, and since the files were together once, I was hopeful this wouldn't be too painful.
I read through many of the posts and spent a few hours matching up the Category lists & making sure none of the Accounts are the same in the two files.
As far as the Categories, each one also has Type, Description, Group and Tax Line Item.  All the Types match up (Income versus Expense), but I've noticed some of the Categories have different Descriptions, Groups, or Tax Line Items between the two files.   How these fields are populated doesn't matter in terms of reports or converting the data for my client, so I wasn't too worried about making these identical at first.

Question:

How critical is it that every field in each Category are the same between the two files?If I don't spend time editing these Category fields, will the fields in the files that I'm using as the basis for the new merged file be the field setting that are retained? 

UPDATE - So I'm trying this with lots of backups, but have another issue.  Quicken doesn't allow you to import qif files to bank accounts.  ??  How do I import the 15 bank accounts I need?  This was not mentioned in the 'merge' guidelines and I'm stuck.

Chris_QPW

Quicken will create new categories as needed when you do the import with all the fields of the category filled in.

The result may or may not be exactly what you want for the final data file.  Let’s imagine if one used totally different categories for the two different data files.  Once merged you would have both, and as such you could craft a report to give you either the personal or the business or combine them all depending on what categories you put in the report.
Clearly if there are overlapping categories from the two data files you would lose the separation in being able to report them, but and at the same time you might have to combine more categories into a report if the goal is to report on all the spending no matter if it is personal or business.

BTW Quicken’s ability to merge categories in the same data file is pretty good so if you had two categories that you want to combine after the import you could always do that.  What would be a nightmare is if you have a category in the personal and business data file that has the same name, but you really want them separate in the final data file.  You would definitely want to make sure you renamed the category in one of them before the import.

Chris_QPW

BTW you didn’t state how you are combining these data files, as in are you using the instructions for QIF export/import?  It sounds like you are.

From what I understand the QXF export/import is now working pretty good as long as there isn’t any investment accounts, and it if if works for you it would be easier than with a QIF export/import.

Goes211

Thank you! 
I was wondering about going the QXF route instead of QIF.
Are the steps essentially the same, but you export/import separate QXF files for each Account?

Chris_QPW

I think you might be confusing QXF with QFX (easy to do).  QXF are known on the import/export menu as Quicken Transfer format, and they are one for the whole file.  QFX files are known as Web Connect files and they are for downloading transactions from the financial institutions manually.

And for QIF files there is an option to do it one account at a time or all the accounts.

Chris_QPW

P.S. yes the process for exporting/importing QXF files is about the same, expect because there isn’t any options of what to select it is the whole file, it a bit simpler.