Archive Data - How to fix the transfer errors after file validation?

justmakeitwork

I recently performed the archive function and after file validation I get the following errors.

"The following transaction(s) involving transfers appear to be damaged.
You should delete them and recreate as appropriate."
< There is a list of about 30 transfers to investment accounts>

I understand the issue. I had a bank accounts which purged transactions older than 2010 however there were transfers from those bank accounts into an investment account.

My investment accounts are now unbalanced.

How do I clean this up? I feel like the archive process causes more issues than it solves.


Thanks

Frankx

Hi @justmakeitwork

I think that you have two options:

a) you can restore a recent backup file - one saved prior to the archiving event. Or

b) you can use whatever historical data you may have (old brokerage statements you may have or that are available online, etc.) to recreate those transfers.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

justmakeitwork

Hi Frank,
I have many backups and that is not an issue. My initial issue is that my data file is around 170MB (with no attachments) and I was hoping to purge some of the older data to get a performance boost. At times, Quicken seems to be sluggish, and stall when entering categories etc. I know the issue is not my laptop as it is a quad core xeon processer with 32GB of RAM.

I guess my question could have been better worded as, "If Quicken is providing an archive function to remove older data then what is the proposed steps to fix your file after you use the archive function? It seems weird that the archive function is intended to leave you with "damaged transactions".

Frankx

Hi again @justmakeitwork

I understand that you were not (and will continue to be) not happy with my response above. 

But the fact is that the archive process leaves one with an incomplete datafile that must be manually adjusted to fix certain one-sided entries.  And the only way to do that is to manually enter the missing half(s) of those entries.

Frankx

justmakeitwork

I wasn't sure if you understood my question or not. Now I understand what you are saying.

It makes sense that when you archive you will have incomplete transactions in the file. I was confused on the wording of the validation file as it refers to transfers being "damaged" and having to be re-created.
I wasn't sure if the file was actually damaged or if it was saying, "Since data was archived please manually adjust the following transactions to re-balance your accounts."

In my case the purpose of archiving the data is to reduce the number of old accounts I have in my file. Since I deleted the accounts that originally transferred funds into the investment account they no longer exist for me to add back a manual transaction.

One technique I have used in the past is to have a temp account that is assigned to the Separate Accounts area. My process is to a) add the temp account back to my accounts, b) fix the transfers by pointing them to the temp account and then c) move the temp account back to the Separate Accounts section. By doing this my accounts now balance and the Temp account doesn't throw off my total net worth because it is no longer part of my main data.

Would you agree with this approach? Do you have any other suggestions?

I believe the archive process needs a little more documentation on what to do in this scenario instead of leaving it confusing as to whether or not the archive process even worked correctly.

Frankx

Hi again @justmakeitwork

Thanks for posting back and giving me some additional information on your goals and related thinking, it is much appreciated.

I think that your "process" to deal with those one-sided transactions is great and the use of the separate account is clearly thinking outside the box.  And I do agree that more documentation, and perhaps also clearer documentation, will help users to better understand the issues and better prepare them for the potential negative effects of the archive process.

Take care.

Frankx