Quicken - Year End Copy

LostCanuck

I'm considering making a Year End Copy of my Quicken data file. If I do this, what happens to all my reports that depend on the old data i.e. category spend by year, y-o-y portfolio performance etc.

Thanks in advance

Cheers,
Randy

Chris_QPW

In general, all the SuperUsers recommended not doing a Year End Copy, mostly because it doesn't do what most people think, and once done it is next to impossible to get your data back together.

Let me start with the last one you mentioned because it illustrates what I'm talking about.  Year End Copy doesn't touch your investment accounts at all.  It would be too complicated.  Just think about what would have to happen to all the security lots.

As for the data that is removed from the non-investment accounts, how would that affect the reports?
How would any missing data affect a report?
It won't be there and therefore not reported on.
If one wanted to see that information in the future, they would have to open the old data file that has that information.

Note that also that Year End Copy only archives transactions that have been reconciled, and that include both sides of a transfer.  If either side isn't reconciled, neither side archived.

But the biggest misconception people have is that doing a Year End Copy will improve the performance of Quicken.  I would have to say in at least 99% of cases that wouldn't be true.  Quicken uses a database, and it only reads in what it needs.  A non-investment account will perform the same whether it has 1 transaction in it or 20,000 transactions.  And as far as whole accounts go, Quicken doesn't read them unless it has to because something referenced it.

You will notice that in above I left out investment accounts.  It is known that a large number of securities/security lots/transactions especially in one account will cause performance problems.  As far as I can tell this has more to do with the investment GUI and the way they are constantly recalculating things in it than the underlying data in the database. But as I said Year End Copy doesn't touch investment accounts.

Arctic Hare

Chris_QPW said:

In general, all the SuperUsers recommended not doing a Year End Copy, mostly because it doesn't do what most people think, and once done it is next to impossible to get your data back together.

Let me start with the last one you mentioned because it illustrates what I'm talking about.  Year End Copy doesn't touch your investment accounts at all.  It would be too complicated.  Just think about what would have to happen to all the security lots.

As for the data that is removed from the non-investment accounts, how would that affect the reports?
How would any missing data affect a report?
It won't be there and therefore not reported on.
If one wanted to see that information in the future, they would have to open the old data file that has that information.

Note that also that Year End Copy only archives transactions that have been reconciled, and that include both sides of a transfer.  If either side isn't reconciled, neither side archived.

But the biggest misconception people have is that doing a Year End Copy will improve the performance of Quicken.  I would have to say in at least 99% of cases that wouldn't be true.  Quicken uses a database, and it only reads in what it needs.  A non-investment account will perform the same whether it has 1 transaction in it or 20,000 transactions.  And as far as whole accounts go, Quicken doesn't read them unless it has to because something referenced it.

You will notice that in above I left out investment accounts.  It is known that a large number of securities/security lots/transactions especially in one account will cause performance problems.  As far as I can tell this has more to do with the investment GUI and the way they are constantly recalculating things in it than the underlying data in the database. But as I said Year End Copy doesn't touch investment accounts.

I concur. Avoid using the Year End Copy feature.

LostCanuck

@Chris_QPW thanks for the detailed response and explanation. @Arctic Hare , thanks for validating

William Luisi

I've been using Quicken since the Chip Soft days. Any Super Users remember that? I have done year end copy in the past. and today my transactions probably go back to 2006; that's 17 years. I've been deleting accounts that have little value to me today, but honestly I've been reluctant to perform a year-end in fear one side of the register will no longer match the other side creating even more problems. Furthermore I have asset accounts with basis history that keeps the value of the asset up to date, and a tax record for safe keeping. If those registers were not reconciled, but I used a checkbook register to record, lets say a home improvement using the transfer feature into that asset account. If I then did a year end copy it seems to me that check register would now be broken from the transfer to the asset class. Or would the transaction on the checkbook register remain since the transaction in the asset class would be unreconciled? My data file is huge so I'm very concerned about doing a year end as well. What do the super users say about this old timer.

Chris_QPW

William Luisi said:

I've been using Quicken since the Chip Soft days. Any Super Users remember that? I have done year end copy in the past. and today my transactions probably go back to 2006; that's 17 years. I've been deleting accounts that have little value to me today, but honestly I've been reluctant to perform a year-end in fear one side of the register will no longer match the other side creating even more problems. Furthermore I have asset accounts with basis history that keeps the value of the asset up to date, and a tax record for safe keeping. If those registers were not reconciled, but I used a checkbook register to record, lets say a home improvement using the transfer feature into that asset account. If I then did a year end copy it seems to me that check register would now be broken from the transfer to the asset class. Or would the transaction on the checkbook register remain since the transaction in the asset class would be unreconciled? My data file is huge so I'm very concerned about doing a year end as well. What do the super users say about this old timer.

I don't use year end copy, see very little value in it and pain for any kind of looking up history of things to mention maintaining more than one data file.  It doesn't happen with Quicken Subscription, but it used to be that the data file format would change every year and as such if you wanted to keep them current you had to open all those old data files, but that itself is dangerous unless you remove the reminders, which year end copy doesn't touch.  Imagine opening a really old year end copy or any backup for that matter and Quicken trying to update the overdue transactions.

My data file goes back to 1996 has over 100 accounts, is 160MB (no attachments) and performs just fine.

Anyways addressing some of the things you mentioned.  First off, if you make a backup before using it, it should be pretty safe to try and see what results you get.  Some of your concerns might not be a problem at all.  If a transaction is a transfer and only one side is reconciled, both sides will be kept.  This might in fact, be used to "exempt an account" from being removed by the year end copy by first making sure none of the transactions in it are reconciled.  Note that investment transactions are never touched.  With brings up transfers into them that are reconciled on both sides.  I haven't tested this, but in general, if you delete an account that has transfers to other accounts, the category in the other account will be set to [Unspecified Account], so that is what I imagine it would do.

Arctic Hare

I've been using Quicken for a solid three decades. I would still be using my original data file were it not for some corruption events caused by deficiencies in the Quicken software. My current datafile is 1.2 GB (yes, that includes attachments) and I do not find that unwieldy.

I agree with Chis_QPQ. You could make a backup of your current file and experiment with year end copy. That being said, do you have any real performance issues and if so, could the performance issues be addressed by system upgrade?

I expect that doing a year end copy will have consequences, but you might decide you can live with them... but, is it necessary?

LostCanuck

@Arctic Hare I do not have any performance issue. Like others have mentioned, I have data going back to 1998 so loosing those historical links and data would not be good.

I saw the feature in Quicken and was wondering what, if any, value it brought. I'll stick with you all and not do them.

Thanks again for all the great advice

Cheers,

QuickBeth

I'm going to add my 2 cents. Ever since switching to Quicken Subscription I've had nothing but nightmares with some functions that I used to be able to do without any problem. Most recently was creating the year-end archive. I'll spare the details, but it completely messed with all my balances… and I discovered that for some reason it reversed all the charges and payments on my credit card accounts! Thankfully, before I created the archive I saved my old file on a hard drive and was able to restore everything relatively quickly. So, my 2 cents again: don't do it. If things are working well on your app consider yourself lucky and don't mess with anything.