Shared ledgers in the cloud?

grusvag
grusvag Member ✭✭
My wife and I each have separate copies of Quicken on each of our own computers but we have a shared joint bank account. Is there a way for us to share a single ledger for our shared bank account in the cloud? So that both us can view the same account transactions and ledger in Quicken?

Best Answer

  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Answer ✓
    Not easily. The Quicken Desktop file is not designed to be synced across machines. Do not be tempted to store the file in a file sharing service (eg Dropbox) for this purpose. The file can eventually become corrupted.

    The answer depends on whether you want both of you to be able to make changes, or just one of you. I'm going to assume you want both of you to be able to make changes. There are basically three options for this situation:

    1. Use remote access software (such as TeamViewer) to access Quicken on the primary machine from the secondary machine. Once remotely logged in, you run Quicken just like you normally do on the primary machine. Doing this, there is only one copy of the file. This is the safest way. 
    2. Access (some of) your data using Quicken on the Web on the secondary machine. QWeb doesn't have all the features and capabilities of desktop Quicken. It is also known to create problems back on the desktop file sometimes.
    3. Make a backup on the primary machine, move it to the secondary machine and restore it there. You can do this in reverse as well. This is really the only way to move the file between machines if you want/need full local access. But it is, of course, very important that you are keeping track of which backup is the current one. Using a backup, rather than the actual file, is critical as it prevents introduction of permissions errors which can corrupt the file. 
    One way people do #3 is to point Quicken's auto backup to a file sharing folder (such as Dropbox or iCloud Drive). This is done on both machines to the same file sharing location. The most recent backup will always be on the file share. Then on whichever machine you want to run Quicken, instead of opening the local file, you restore from the file share backup. You just need to be careful that two people aren't making changes at the same time so that one person's backup overwrites changes made by the other person.

    Also, assuming you don't want all of your other accounts to be readable and changeable by each other, you would need to set up the joint account in its own separate Quicken file and use one of the above techniques on that file only.

    If I'm wrong, and you want only one of you to make changes and the other to "read only", then one of the above techniques would also work. Number 2 would probably be the easiest for a single bank account. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s

Answers

  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Answer ✓
    Not easily. The Quicken Desktop file is not designed to be synced across machines. Do not be tempted to store the file in a file sharing service (eg Dropbox) for this purpose. The file can eventually become corrupted.

    The answer depends on whether you want both of you to be able to make changes, or just one of you. I'm going to assume you want both of you to be able to make changes. There are basically three options for this situation:

    1. Use remote access software (such as TeamViewer) to access Quicken on the primary machine from the secondary machine. Once remotely logged in, you run Quicken just like you normally do on the primary machine. Doing this, there is only one copy of the file. This is the safest way. 
    2. Access (some of) your data using Quicken on the Web on the secondary machine. QWeb doesn't have all the features and capabilities of desktop Quicken. It is also known to create problems back on the desktop file sometimes.
    3. Make a backup on the primary machine, move it to the secondary machine and restore it there. You can do this in reverse as well. This is really the only way to move the file between machines if you want/need full local access. But it is, of course, very important that you are keeping track of which backup is the current one. Using a backup, rather than the actual file, is critical as it prevents introduction of permissions errors which can corrupt the file. 
    One way people do #3 is to point Quicken's auto backup to a file sharing folder (such as Dropbox or iCloud Drive). This is done on both machines to the same file sharing location. The most recent backup will always be on the file share. Then on whichever machine you want to run Quicken, instead of opening the local file, you restore from the file share backup. You just need to be careful that two people aren't making changes at the same time so that one person's backup overwrites changes made by the other person.

    Also, assuming you don't want all of your other accounts to be readable and changeable by each other, you would need to set up the joint account in its own separate Quicken file and use one of the above techniques on that file only.

    If I'm wrong, and you want only one of you to make changes and the other to "read only", then one of the above techniques would also work. Number 2 would probably be the easiest for a single bank account. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • grusvag
    grusvag Member ✭✭
    Thank you RickO, very much appreciate your highly detailed answer. Not sure I'll bother but it's good to know how to go about it should we decide to pursue this. Cheers.
This discussion has been closed.