Archive and start anew?

Cander3000

You used to be able to archive past years and then start fresh in a new one. I have hopelessly messed up my beginning balances, and also have many categories I would like to rename or re-arrange to subcategories, etc. Any ideas on how to save all prior work and just start fresh for the current year only in a new file in a way that would keep the accounts and categories lists for me to edit?

jacobs

Modern Quicken Mac hasn't had such a feature in the 8 years the program has existed, although some users have asked for it.

You can start a new file at any time, and it won't affect your old file, which you can keep for historical reference when you need it. But starting a new file will require setting up your accounts anew, and starting with Quicken Mac's default set of categories.

Since you plan to edit/merge categories to make them more to your liking in a new file, it may be better to do so in your current file. (After you make a backup, just in case you make things worse. ) For your messed up beginning balances, you can simply edit the opening balance transaction (if there is one) or insert a dummy transaction (using the category Adjustment) back at the beginning of time to force your account balance to match current reality. Do this for each account to get your balances correct, and then you can move forward.

Cander3000

Thank you. One part of my problem with categories is that I want to make some subcategories belong to a different category, or become a category. But I can't figure out how to move the transactions without just having them all deleted and having to re-enter.

jacobs

@Cander3000 It's actually pretty easy to re-arrange categories and subcategories. Open the Window > Categories screen to view all your categories. Everything here is basically drag-and-drop. If you want to make a main category a subcategory, just drag it under the main category you want; if you want to make a subcategory a main category, just drag it out from underneath the main category. If you want to make a subcategory of main category A into a subcategory of main category B, just drag it from under A to under B. Click the pencil icon to edit the name of any category or subcategory. You can merge two or more categories by Command-clicking to highlight them, and then click the Merge button at the bottom to merge them and specify which name will be retained for the merged category.

As you make these changes to categories and subcategories, they are automatically applied to all existing transactions which use them. So you shouldn't need to edit any individual transactions; just tweak the categories the way you want and all your transactions will be updated.