Incorporating year-end file with current year file

Bonnie Walker

I impulsively chose to create a year-end backup on 9/30/22, so transactions before 1/1/22 are on a different file. I've decided I want the full file back, and Quicken Support says the most reliable way to do that is to restore the year-end backup from 9/30 and run file updates of all my accounts again. He said the tool to cull out date-selected transactions on an account basis has a lot of pitfalls and clean-up work. Neither option is desirable. Kicking myself for assuming there was a clean way to add a year-end file back to one's current working file.

Mark1104

agree there is no good option and I;'d go with your first option.'

Frankly, I don't know why anyone would want to use the year end feature.....it was something that made a lot of sense 25 years ago when hard drives and RAM were quite limited.  I';ve used Q since 1994 and I used to carve out a year end file to minimize the size of my working file, but I stopped that in 2000. 

Bonnie Walker

Ugh. Thank you, Mark1104. Yep, I don't know why I clicked that box!!!

Greg_the_Geek

How to 'merge' two Quicken files? — Quicken

Chris_QPW

It probably doesn’t apply, but for data files that don’t have investment accounts one can use a QXF export/import which works better than QIF exports/imports.

Bonnie Walker

Thanks -- I may try this when bringing the old file up-to-date.....Thanks for your help and website!

lawrs21813

Quicken: if your listening: If Year-End-Backup is 25 years old, and not supported, particularly for investment files, why not put some energy into it or remove it?

Chris_QPW

lawrs21813 said:

Quicken: if your listening: If Year-End-Backup is 25 years old, and not supported, particularly for investment files, why not put some energy into it or remove it?

Year-End-Backup is a completely different subject.  You can use it (I don't recommend it).  What can't be done, at least not easily, is recombining separated data files.

Exporting/importing of QIF files has always been problematic, and they have been discouraging it use since at least 2004 (Quicken Mac doesn't even support the QIF format).

And the export/import of QXF files isn't 25 years old (2010 for export, 2012 for import), and wasn't designed for this use, even though if they would extend it features it could be used for this.

It was first implemented as an export only to convert a Quicken Windows data file to a Quicken Mac Essentials data file, which didn't support investment accounts.  Later Quicken Mac got support for investment accounts and its export/import does support them, and Quicken Windows export does support them, because the Quicken Mac team put that code into Quicken Windows.  What never has happened is Quicken Windows getting importing of investment transactions through QXF.

They really should implement this if for no other reason for people trying to convert from Quicken Mac to Quicken Windows, but so far, the Quicken Windows development team haven't seen fit to do so.

Bonnie Walker

So I took Quicken Support's advice to restore the year-end backup that I did on 9/30 and run file updates again to clock the file up to current. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be...no dropped transactions, no spurious beginning balance entries or other extra postings. I've been a Quicken user since early days with DOS, and the last few years have not been good for error-free processes. Relieved that this worked, thought. Thanks, All!

Chris_QPW

Sounds like you got pretty lucky that your financial institution(s) would allow downloading transactions that far back, but it is great that it worked out!