import price quotes as CSV gives invalid header error

Quickster

What is the correct format to import price quotes as a CSV file? I am getting an error of "The provided CSV header was invalid."

My mutual fund doesn't have a stock market symbol so I can't sync prices automatically, but I am able to download a CSV file with historical prices from my brokerage.

So:

• I go to Securities > Price History for my mutual fund
• I select "Import History From CSV File…"
• I deselect "Preserve all existing quotes" so I can erase my manually inputted ones
• I select "Choose CSV File to Import…"
• I get the error "File selected did not have the required format / The provided CSV header was invalid." as see in this screenshot:

Apparently there is something wrong with the header of the file.

As downloaded it originally was:

Fund Name
Date,NAV
"2022-11-08","$100.00","---",

which obviously is wrong, since for one thing Quicken is looking for a "Close" price.

But I have attempted to correct it in numerous ways but can't find the secret incantation that Quicken is expecting. 

First I tried it without the first line and with the correct column name:

Date,Close

"2022-11-08","$100.00","---",

then tried to make the number of fields match:

Date,Close

"2022-11-08","$100.00"

and without quotes:

Date,Close

2022-11-08,$100.00

and without $:

Date,Close

2022-11-08,100.00

and by adding a Symbol (a made-up one since the fund doesn't have one):

Symbol,Date,Close

MyFund,2022-11-08,100.00

I have also tried saving the file in both DOS (CRLF) and Unix (LF) text file formats, I have tried it with "Open" instead of "Close," and I probably a few other variants I can't remember.

What is the magical header format I need to massage this file into?

There is no documentation that I can find except in the Quicken for Windows support site:

https://www.quicken.com/support/how-do-i-import-data-quicken-windows
and that says nothing about what it wants a CSV file to look like.

Does anyone have an example that works for them?

Quicken Anja

Hello @Quickster,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and telling us about your issue, though I apologize that you are experiencing this.

Please be advised that, unfortunately, CSV files are not compatible with Quicken which is likely the reason why you are receiving this error. Only CSV files downloaded from Mint are compatible with Quicken.

We apologize for any inconvenience! Thank you.

Quickster

Hi @Quicken Anja,

I think you misunderstood my question. I am not talking about importing financial transactions from Mint using the File > Import > Mint.com File (CSV)… command.

I'm trying to import securities price history which is supported when you open the Securities window, edit a security, and go to the Price History tab, as you can see in the screenshot here.

Quickster

You can see documentation for the functionality here:

https://help.quicken.com/display/MAC/Updating+share+prices

RickO

@Quickster The required headers are shown right in your screenshot above: Date, Open, Close, High, Low and Volume. The order doesn't matter, but all headers must be present. Extra columns may be present and will be ignored. Blank values in a column will be filled with "NaN".

Quickster

That did it, thank you @RickO !

The dialog and documentation don't indicate those columns are mandatory, which seems a little surprising since when you manually enter an item it says only the closing price is required and import is otherwise flexible about order and extra columns.

Also:
- you have to strip out any $ before any price or the value will show up as NaN
- you can't leave any values empty, each entry needs to contain 0 (or it will also show up as NaN)

- the symbol name for the security will be ignored