"Duplicate" transactions in QIF not imported

hamamatsu

I have valid duplicate transactions in my QIF file but, after creating a new Quicken file from a QIF, the duplicates are not there. It seems like some "clever" develooper is trying to do me a favor but, instead, is making me rethink considering using Quicken again.

My question is… does anyone know what gives here? Is there a way to tell Quicken not to be too clever and trust that my QIF is correct and to go ahead and add the duplicate transactions?

Jon

I've run into that myself. Back when I still used a lot of cash there were a few occasions where I'd made the same ATM withdrawal twice in a day. When moving my data into Quicken Mac via QIF I'd lose one of those withdrawals. I don't think there's a way around it. For me it was a one time thing; once I got my imported accounts fixed I didn't have to deal with it again.

hamamatsu

There is a bit more to this story. The Mac QIF import also tossed a seemingly random set of split transactions. I thought I found the pattern but… no such luck. I created three different data files all from the exact same QIF file and got three different results. Abominable!

I then switched to Windows to see if things were better. I never got far enough… it refuses to let me create a new Quicken Data File from a QIF file (as the Mac version does). And then, with a new clean data file, it refuses to let me import a QIF (which contains ALL my accounts and transactions and categories… etc.) without selecting an account first. I feel like I am using something from the dark ages. I created a dummy account to specify for the import but I didn't have the patiences to let the QIF import finish. I was contantly bombarded with a popup asking if a particular transaction was the same as a transfer just entered. How the heck do I know when it doesn't show the transfer just entered?! But, it refuses to provide me with a choice to answer the same (i.e. "No") for all future occurances. I do not have the time or patiences to click No for what could be a very, very large number of popups. Note that my QIF contains a HUGE number of transactions and 145 separate accounts. The data dates back to the mid 1990s!

Note, I am happy with my current alternative product (which I will not name fearing censure). I did want to give Quicken another look since I used it from the mid 1980's until maybe five or six years ago. I must say I am quite dissappointed!

My perspective is that I am a recently retired sofware engineer / architect. I began before most reading this were probably born… Fortran in my early (1970s) engineering college days (before they offerred software based degrees). In my first day job (late 70s) I used IBM 370 assembler and Cobol. (Skipping ahead due to too many "out of print" tools). Begining in the early 90s I used MASM, C, C++ and the last 15 years of my day job I used C# and TSQL (the last 13 of that I was the chief architect of a large successful product [but am not going to advertise here]). My recent "own time" stuff has been with some of the popular Javascript based frameworks like Vue/Quasar, React and Angular. I know, I am a dinosaur! But I have the knowledge and experience to recognize well designed (and useful) software. I think Quicken was good… quite some time ago. My guess is that everything is moving toward the modern glitzy web / mobile solutions and Quicken is simply being left behind. Ha! One good thing that has come out of this is the QIF processor program I wrote and used to attempt to diagnose the issues here.

Experiment over so now to try to get my money back…

jacobs

Quicken doesn't embrace QIF because their software engineers have been "left behind". It's an intentional decision. QIF is not as robust as its replacement, QFX (OFX). This is a change Quicken made back around 2006, so it's not new. Also, back at that time, when Quicken was owned by Intuit, the proprietary QFX format required financial institutions to register with Intuit, and in some cases, pay a fee to Intuit, for connectivity, so requiring imports to use QFX was actually part of the revneue model for Quicken. A competing product like Microsoft Money, which allowed QIF imports, didn't generate enough revenue and was discontinued, so the revenue part is more than a side note in this history.

One of the other improvements in QFX over QIF is that QFX prevents duplicate transactions because each trandaciton has a unique ID code. As you've discovered, this was one of the disadvantages of QIF. In any case, it's unlikely Quicken will go back in time to embrace QIF or even CVS imports.

There are a few converter programs sold by third parties which supposedly convert QIF to QFX format by spoofing the ID of a participating financial institution and creating unique tranasciton ID numbers. I have not used any of them, and we can't discuss them by name here since these are not Quicken-approved tools, but if you Google QIF to QFX converter, you'll see what's out there.

hamamatsu

Thanks for the response, jacobs. My existing product only offers exporting to QIF (well, and CSV and "raw JSON") so, if I were to continue with my experiment I would need to look for one of those QIF to QXF converters. I see the the Mac version does not allow creating a new file from a QXF so, hopefully, if I proceed down this path, I will not need a separate QXF for each account…

smayer97

@jacobs you are mixing up the use of QFX and QXF…. two very different file formats and usage.

jacobs

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20347811#Comment_20347811

Thanks. Not mixed up in my head, just a typo. Multiple times. :)