How to merge multiple transactions from two accounts into one

DRMick

I have 2 Property accounts that have collected transactions over several years. Now I want to merge them into one account. These are all manually entered transactions . The older one has 122 T/As, the other has 33 T/As. Is there an easier way other than Cut and Paste?

Classic Q Premier R53.32 Windows 10.

Boatnmaniac

Interesting. I had not done Move Transactions for a while but what I recall of it in the past was that when the transactions were moved, the category of the linked transfer transactions was simply updated to show the new transfer account. Nothing else about it was changed.

When I tested it just now, I got the same popup message you did that warned me the matching transfer transactions were going to be deleted.

I ignored those popups and completed the Move process. Then I went to the matching transactions and they were perfectly listed in the transfer accounts with the updated transfer category, except that the R status was removed. And all of the accounts were still in balance.

So, it seems that instead of simply updating the transfer category as I had thought earlier the transaction is actually deleted in the transfer account and a new transaction with the new transfer category is entered. That could explain why the R was removed….because it is a new transaction that has not been reconciled, yet. At least that sounds logical. But then the question is, why have I not seen this Move Transactions process remove the R and warn of deleting the transfer transactions before?

Digging into it further it seems that Move Transactions have been happening like this for years (I found a similar post from 2016). I still don't remember ever seeing that happen this way, though, so that is dumbfounding me some.

But the bottom line is that except for the R being removed and this odd popup warning (that IMO really should not pop up at all), the Move Transactions process works. It's just that unless you change the R status of transactions in the transfer accounts to C or not cleared as well, you will have to approve the Move of every transfer transaction and that can be very time consuming if you have a lot of transfers involved. This Move Transactions process is not as user friendly as I had thought it is and as it should be.

Boatnmaniac

Back up your data file before proceeding.

1. In one of the accounts, left click on the 1st transaction in the register.
2. Scroll down to the last transaction in the the register and while holding down the Shift key left click on it. Now all of the transactions should be shaded.
3. Right click anywhere on the shaded transactions and under Reconcile Status select Cleared. Then click on Yes.
4. Repeat steps 1 & 2 to get all the transactions shaded, again.
5. Right click anywhere on the shaded transactions, click on Move Transactions and select the other account. This will move all the shaded transactions into the other account. Any transactions with transfer categories will have the transfer categories updated as appropriate.
6. Now you can change all of the transactions back from Cleared to Reconciled if you wish.

Did this answer your question?

DRMick

Thanks for your help.

The transaction selection and clear part of this procedure worked. When I selected the Move command and display the list of accounts, these two accounts were not on that list.

I displayed those account details and compared them to the other property accounts that were on the list. These two accounts are Account Type: House. The rest of the property accounts are type : Asset.

I could not find a way to change that unless I create a new account as Asset. Any suggestions?

DRMick

I created a new Account to merge the other two account transactions into. I followed the steps for a mass merge. Transactions stopped with a POP Up: " Deleting transfer to cleared R item. Are you sure ?" I was unable to cancel the procedure so I tried OK and it went to the next transaction and Popup. The only way I could exit is End Task in Task Manager and closed Q. I found that operation, did clear the R in the credit card register that paid it. That won't work.

I restored the backup and abandoned the merge until I can find a way to do this.

DRMick

When you Move or Cut a Transaction to another account, why does Quicken delete Reconciled R in the Transfer account ?

Boatnmaniac

Interesting. I had not done Move Transactions for a while but what I recall of it in the past was that when the transactions were moved, the category of the linked transfer transactions was simply updated to show the new transfer account. Nothing else about it was changed.

When I tested it just now, I got the same popup message you did that warned me the matching transfer transactions were going to be deleted.

I ignored those popups and completed the Move process. Then I went to the matching transactions and they were perfectly listed in the transfer accounts with the updated transfer category, except that the R status was removed. And all of the accounts were still in balance.

So, it seems that instead of simply updating the transfer category as I had thought earlier the transaction is actually deleted in the transfer account and a new transaction with the new transfer category is entered. That could explain why the R was removed….because it is a new transaction that has not been reconciled, yet. At least that sounds logical. But then the question is, why have I not seen this Move Transactions process remove the R and warn of deleting the transfer transactions before?

Digging into it further it seems that Move Transactions have been happening like this for years (I found a similar post from 2016). I still don't remember ever seeing that happen this way, though, so that is dumbfounding me some.

But the bottom line is that except for the R being removed and this odd popup warning (that IMO really should not pop up at all), the Move Transactions process works. It's just that unless you change the R status of transactions in the transfer accounts to C or not cleared as well, you will have to approve the Move of every transfer transaction and that can be very time consuming if you have a lot of transfers involved. This Move Transactions process is not as user friendly as I had thought it is and as it should be.

Chris_QPW

That is a weird behavior. I haven't used the move except in testing a bit, so I never noticed this. It certainly looks like a bug.

Note you can't compare the current Move Transactions to any comment that is more than about 6 months old.

What you see is actually an improvement they put in recently.

Before Move Transactions would ask you on every single reconciled transaction if you were sure. As such there is an old FAQ that suggested using Copy Transactions instead and then going back and deleting the old transactions. Coupled with that some also suggested setting all the transactions to cleared, moving them and then setting them back to reconciled.

Note I tried reference that old FAQ, but is seems like most of the links on that main FAQ page aren't working any more:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7166077/faq-quicken-windows-faq-list

mshiggins

The referenced move transactions FAQ:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7160099/faq-how-do-i-move-transactions-between-quicken-accounts

DRMick

In my case I have hundreds of transactions in 2 accounts that are reconciled in several credit card accounts starting in 2007 so it would be very time consuming to go back and correct the missing R's. Then going back and checking for errors.

Chris_QPW

Well, given that you fully reconcile a register I would expect all the transactions to have R on them and as such once moved you would just select them all at once and mark them reconciled.

Boatnmaniac

I agree with @Chris_QPW. Just follow the same process used to remove the R status but this time instead change the status back to R. As my wife likes to tell me: "Easy-breezy!" No need to make it more difficult nor time consuming than it needs to be.

DRMick

The two asset accounts do not need the R or c. I would still get the 2 popup questions for each transaction when it moves and resets the R in the various credit card accounts. Then I would need to go turn that R back on after each transaction move. I can't see how that would be easy for hundreds of tarnsactions.

Chris_QPW

The assumption is that all the accounts are reconciled, therefore any account that is affected that has any of the transactions changed from reconcile you could go to that account, select all the transactions in it, and then mark them reconciled all at once. Clearly though if you have transfers to MANY accounts then this has to be repeated for each of those accounts.

Or maybe you just don't want to do this in the first place.

DRMick

Guess I will wait until something changes or I find another way.

Admin: you can close this discussion.