Please suggest a strategy for changing from Quicken H&B to Premier

ysg26

I now have QH&B with data going back a very long time including imports from Microsoft Money, property Rentals and Schedule C business. I no longer need any of that and want to start fresh with Premier. I want to keep all CURRENTLY open accounts, bank, investments, assets etc.. I also want to keep about half of all Categories and tax categories, only the ones used in the past year. I have about a hundred old unused categories. I also want to have access to everything in my current file for viewing purposes.

I am thinking of the following plan:

- Purchase Quicken Premier at retail
- Sign in to Quicken Premier with a new email/identity
- Do QIF export of categories and accounts from QH&B to the new QP
- End my QH&B subscription

Is this a reasonable approach or can someone suggest a simpler method?
Thank you

Boatnmaniac

Hi @ysg26 . First, if you have not already done so, you might want to review the Product Selector chart ( https://www.quicken.com/product-selector/reverse-nst ) in detail so you know which H&B features you will no longer have when you downgrade to Premier.

More specific to your questions:

- Purchase Quicken Premier at retail

You could do this because retail will often have better prices than can be obtained from Quicken.com. But be very careful that what you buy is not for new subscribers only. The best prices are usually, not always, for new subscribers only so read all of the listing details and look carefully at the product pictures very carefully so you don't buy one of those.

If you get the correct product at retail you can use that doing the dowgrade. (More on this later.)

- Sign in to Quicken Premier with a new email/identity

I would not do this. There is only 1 QWin software. Your subscription simply determines which features/functions are turned on or off. I think it would be better to continue using the same QuickenID and PW and instead use the downgrade subscription process. (More on this later.)

- Do QIF export of categories and accounts from QH&B to the new QP

Not necessary. If you downgrade your current subscription your H&B data will remain intact and viewable in Premier but you will no longer have the ability to use those H&B features. If you wish, you can hide or keep your business accounts separate so they will not clutter up your none-business accounts and data but there is no need to export that data (unless for some reason you really want to)….you can actually do this (hide or keep separate accounts and categories) at any time. You do not need to wait until the downgrade actually occurs.

- End my QH&B subscription

The subscription downgrade process will do this for you. This Support Article talks about the subscription downgrade process: How Do I Manage My Quicken Subscription? [Support Article].

Note that downgrading the current subscription can only be done within the last 6 months of the current subscription. The current subscription will then be allowed to run out. When it expires the new Premier subscription will then kick in. So, it's basically renewing the subscription but for Premier instead of H&B.

You can either do the downgrade yourself from within your current Quicken.com online account or you can Call or Chat with Quicken Support ( https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support ) to assist you in this process.

Since it is basically a subscription renewal you can wait until your current subscription is about to expire. Then you can decide to either order your downgraded Premier subscription from Quicken.com or, if you bought Premier at retail, you can enter your activation code for it at that time.

Did this answer your questions?

Boatnmaniac

(Correction: See below in bold italics.)

The "business module" is not gone in Premier. It is simply turned off. You will still be able to view the H&B data but you will not be able to edit/modify it. All of those business accounts will still be visible in Premier.

The P&L Report (and a couple of other reports) is a H&B-unique feature. It is not available in Premier. So, you would lose the ability to generate a new P&L Report if you downgraded to Premier.

It sounds like you think you will still need to use at least some of the H&B features. If that is the case, then you probably should not downgrade to Premier. Just stay with H&B.

Or what you could do is to downgrade to Premier when your H&B subscription expires and play around with it. It you decide Premier is not what you need you can then upgrade to H&B, again. If you do this, your Premier subscription price paid will be prorated and applied to the H&B upgrade subscription cost added on as additional time to the new subscription so there is no cost risk to you.

To be clear: Premier and H&B are the exact same Quicken software. It's just that H&B has some additional features turned on that are turned off in Premier.

As mentioned in my prior post you might want to review the Product Selector to see what the main feature differences are by clicking on: https://www.quicken.com/product-selector/reverse-nst . Many of your questions about what is different between Premier and H&B can be answered there.

If you need more detailed explanation of the differences you might want to contact Quicken Support at https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support .

NotACPA

You got it! And all data IS preserved.

Boatnmaniac

Hi @ysg26 . First, if you have not already done so, you might want to review the Product Selector chart ( https://www.quicken.com/product-selector/reverse-nst ) in detail so you know which H&B features you will no longer have when you downgrade to Premier.

More specific to your questions:

- Purchase Quicken Premier at retail

You could do this because retail will often have better prices than can be obtained from Quicken.com. But be very careful that what you buy is not for new subscribers only. The best prices are usually, not always, for new subscribers only so read all of the listing details and look carefully at the product pictures very carefully so you don't buy one of those.

If you get the correct product at retail you can use that doing the dowgrade. (More on this later.)

- Sign in to Quicken Premier with a new email/identity

I would not do this. There is only 1 QWin software. Your subscription simply determines which features/functions are turned on or off. I think it would be better to continue using the same QuickenID and PW and instead use the downgrade subscription process. (More on this later.)

- Do QIF export of categories and accounts from QH&B to the new QP

Not necessary. If you downgrade your current subscription your H&B data will remain intact and viewable in Premier but you will no longer have the ability to use those H&B features. If you wish, you can hide or keep your business accounts separate so they will not clutter up your none-business accounts and data but there is no need to export that data (unless for some reason you really want to)….you can actually do this (hide or keep separate accounts and categories) at any time. You do not need to wait until the downgrade actually occurs.

- End my QH&B subscription

The subscription downgrade process will do this for you. This Support Article talks about the subscription downgrade process: How Do I Manage My Quicken Subscription? [Support Article].

Note that downgrading the current subscription can only be done within the last 6 months of the current subscription. The current subscription will then be allowed to run out. When it expires the new Premier subscription will then kick in. So, it's basically renewing the subscription but for Premier instead of H&B.

You can either do the downgrade yourself from within your current Quicken.com online account or you can Call or Chat with Quicken Support ( https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support ) to assist you in this process.

Since it is basically a subscription renewal you can wait until your current subscription is about to expire. Then you can decide to either order your downgraded Premier subscription from Quicken.com or, if you bought Premier at retail, you can enter your activation code for it at that time.

Did this answer your questions?

ysg26

Thank you for your comprehensive reply. However there is one main question I need the answer to before proceeding as you suggest: You said "...your H&B data will remain intact and viewable in Premier but you will no longer have the ability to use those H&B features."

What exactly are those features? If the whole Business module will be gone how will I be able to examine the details of an old business transaction in the Vendor Invoices or Customer Invoices accounts? Will those accounts still be there if I now have a Premier version? Will I be able to run a Profit & Loss Report on a past year for the business accounts?

Boatnmaniac

(Correction: See below in bold italics.)

The "business module" is not gone in Premier. It is simply turned off. You will still be able to view the H&B data but you will not be able to edit/modify it. All of those business accounts will still be visible in Premier.

The P&L Report (and a couple of other reports) is a H&B-unique feature. It is not available in Premier. So, you would lose the ability to generate a new P&L Report if you downgraded to Premier.

It sounds like you think you will still need to use at least some of the H&B features. If that is the case, then you probably should not downgrade to Premier. Just stay with H&B.

Or what you could do is to downgrade to Premier when your H&B subscription expires and play around with it. It you decide Premier is not what you need you can then upgrade to H&B, again. If you do this, your Premier subscription price paid will be prorated and applied to the H&B upgrade subscription cost added on as additional time to the new subscription so there is no cost risk to you.

To be clear: Premier and H&B are the exact same Quicken software. It's just that H&B has some additional features turned on that are turned off in Premier.

As mentioned in my prior post you might want to review the Product Selector to see what the main feature differences are by clicking on: https://www.quicken.com/product-selector/reverse-nst . Many of your questions about what is different between Premier and H&B can be answered there.

If you need more detailed explanation of the differences you might want to contact Quicken Support at https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support .

ysg26

Very good plan. I will do what you suggest, and yes I reviewed the differences and have been using only the Premier features since the beginning of this calendar year. I was afraid about losing old data but I have no need to run new P&L reports. I'm assuming that old P&L reports saved under My Saved Reports would still be accessible. If not, I could upgrade back to Home & Business.

q_lurker

I'm assuming that old P&L reports saved under My Saved Reports would still be accessible.

I would not make that assumption! It might be valid, but I would not count on it. Those saved reports are actually recomputed each time you access the reports.

I would be more comfortable with saved pdf’s of the annual P&L reports. Presumably, you would not be revising any of those transactions.

joesalmon

Hi, i did the same change over last year. First you can get great prices for Premier at many online retailers, like amazon, newegg, even best buy. also sometimes quicken runs good promos. The data conversion was seamless, i didn't need to export anything and all of my reports and data was still there. But, you should back up your file, to an external drive or cloud, just in case. I then went into my accounts, counterparties, securities, etc and deleted the ones that were old. Another suggestion is to archive as much as possible.

ysg26

Thanks @joesalmon. So when you installed the retail Premier it removed your Home& Business things but you are still able to access Home & Business P&L reports or not?

NotACPA

When you downgrade you lose ALL H&B functions … but not the data.
So, Income and Expense reports are available, but not P&L as P&L is a Business report.

You would also lose the Business specific forms, such as invoicing and statements.

ysg26

If all the data is preserved then one could run a Income/Expense by Category and include only the Business accounts and get the same as a P&L report. I just tried it while still using Home & Business.

NotACPA

You got it! And all data IS preserved.