Thinking of upgrading Q Deluxe to Q Business & Personal for HOA usage (edit)

todmobile

Hi I am thinking of upgrading Quicken Classic Deluxe to Quicken Classic Business & Personal. If I do, will all data merge properly? I don't actually have a business but I am a Treasurer for our small HOA of 33 homes. I'm wondering if using the business & personal software, I can send out dues invoices and do the accounting for the HOA, and also if I were to pass the Treasurer job on in the future, if I can pass along HOA related stuff without of course sharing my personal stuff. For the past 2 years I've used Wave software for the HOA which is free. The only thing I like about it is I can send HOA dues invoices. The vendor management, reconciliation and reporting is time consuming and hard to use.

volvogirl

Yes your data will be there. It is the same program, you are just turning on the business features. But the HOA stuff should not be in your personal file. You should have separate data files. Go up to File-New Quicken file.

Jon

I agree with @volvogirl that the HOA accounts should have their own file.

Quicken Mac Home & Business does not do invoices yet, so if that's a critical feature you should hold off for now.

Chris_QPW

Are you using Windows or Mac? That is critical for if invoices are there or not. Looking at your profile it says Windows other.

Windows has the full business features, Quicken Mac just got started and doesn't have all of them, and doesn't have invoices.

Boatnmaniac

You can have as many different data files as you want. If you do as @volvogirl suggested (File > New Quicken File) you can set that new file up specifically for your HOA. Your current financial data will remain intact and separate from it in your current data file.

When it comes time to pass along your HOA responsibilities to another person, that other person will need to first set up their own Quicken ID & PW (Quicken.com account) and then download/install Quicken to their own computer using their own Quicken ID & PW. Then you could provide them the HOA data file and when they open that file it will reasign the data file from you to the new person.

todmobile

thank you. I did start our putting the HOA in my personal data file….I set up HOA homes as customers, set up vendors and the bank account.

Then - read about setting up a separate data file - and so I didn't have to re-enter all he info, I made a backup first, then deleted all my personal accounts, then I made another backup and restored just the HOA to the new empty data file I created.

Then restored the file that had my personal & hoa combined, and deleted HOA stuff.

I get worried about the question of syncing - does each data file sync separately.

Appreciate the assistance! :)

Thank you @volvogirl , @Boatnmaniac @Chris_QPW @Jon

Boatnmaniac

When you made a backup of your combined file, then restored it (with a new file name, I presume) I suspect it did not do what you intended it to do….that is to now have two completely unique data files. Each data file has an ID assigned to it and that ID does not get changed when making a new file from a backup or by using Windows to copy the original file. Having 2 different data files with the same ID is problematic and it will cause some "cross-talk" issues and perhaps some unexpected program issues, especially if you use Quicken's Mobile & Web features.

To confirm that this might be the situation you now have:

1. If you already have Mobile & Web turned on in one file, open that file.
2. If you do not already have Mobile & Web turned on: File > New Quicken File > name it TEST > enable it for Mobile & Web > no need to set up any accounts in it.
3. In the file you have open: Edit > Preferences > Quicken ID & Cloud Accounts > Cloud accounts associated with this ID > look for your personal and HOA file names in the middle column > do they share the same Cloud Account Name in the left column?

What you want to see is that each data file has its own unique Cloud Account. If the Cloud Account for each data file is unique and not shared, then you are OK and can stop at this point. But if the Cloud Account is shared between files you should take the following actions.:

1. Open 1 of your 2 main data files. (The following process will deactivate all online services for the accounts in the file you select so you might want to select the account that will be less affected by this process so you don't have as many account to do Add Account or Setup Now, again, later.)
2. File > Copy or Backup File > Create a Copy or Template (under Advanced Options) > Next > decide whether to keep the original file name with "Cpy" added to the end of it or to create a new file name (so the original file does not get overwritten by this process) > Save Copy > decide which file you now want to open and use….the Original file or the New Copy file.
   

Your New Copy file will now have it's own unique ID and Cloud Account that will not be shared with any other data files so you won't experience the data file cross-talk issues. If you had any accounts in the New Copy file that used to be connected for downloads, you can now proceed to set up those connections, again, via Add Account or Set Up Now.

A few final "clean-up" suggestions:

• In all data files where you are not using the Mobile and/or Web services, make sure to turn off Sync (Edit > Preferences > Mobile & Web > Sync = OFF).
• For the original file that you copied: Delete all backup files of it so you do not end up recreating the shared Cloud Account issue, again.
• Once you are confident that the New Copy file has all the data in it correctly and your online services (if any) are correctly set up and functioning, again, delete the original file that you copied.
• You can open that TEST file, again, and double check to make sure that your Personal and HOA files now no longer share the same Cloud Account.
• You can delete that TEST file, if you wish, but there is no need to do that. In fact, you might want to retain that TEST file for times when you want to test out different scenarios before you actually implement them into your main data files.

Let us know if you have any questions.

Frustrated24

Todmobile - Does Quicken Personal and BUsiness work for managaing your HOA. I need to manage a membership organization and am wondering if this software (MAC) version will do the trick. Need to track dues, donations, ticket purchases Thank you.

jacobs

I need to manage a membership organization and am wondering if this software (MAC) version will do the trick. Need to track dues, donations, ticket purchases

@Frustrated24 While I think you could probably figure out ways to make it work for you, I suspect you'd be better off using software designed for nonprofit membership associations. You might use Quicken for the basic income and expense tracking, but still use some other system for tracking dues, donations, and ticket purchases. For about a decade, I was the volunteer treasurer of an association and used a custom Filemaker Pro database to track some of these things Quicken was not engineered to do. My day job was running a nonprofit organization with a membership/donor component, and if donations are any significant part of what your organizations does, I really think an online platform built for membership and donation management might serve you better. (I used MemberClicks for many years, which is pricey, but there are a lot of such platforms now.) You can track donor history, integrate credit card processing for online donations and ticket sales, send email messages, and more that Quicken isn't really designed for. It depends how large your organization is, how many members/donors you have, what the transaction volume is, and what features you need.

Frustrated24

Thank you Jacobs. Your comments are most helpful. I guess I should look into Membership based software.