Importing Foreign Currency Transactions

bwdon

I have a Quicken file using USD but have enabled foreign currency transactions for CAD.

I have a number of Canadian accounts (2 bank, 2 credit cards, 2 brokerage) for which I have to MANUALLY enter everthing because Quicken doesn't support foreign transaction downloading.

If I created a Canadian quicken file and set up the accounts, I think I could download the transactions.

Question: Could I export the downloaded transactions from the Cdn file and then import them to the US file? … or is there something in Quicken that would say it is a CAD Quicken file and disallow the import to the US file?

Chris_QPW

What version of Quicken are your using Quicken Windows US or Quicken Windows Canadian?

Chris_QPW

Also, you are talking about a Canadian file and a US file are you saying you get this data file just after creating a data file?

I might as well throw out the "rules" that I think are true, but can't check because I don't have an up to date Canadian subscription.

In a US data file, it will not allow you to import anything other than USD, with the standard connection types, Web Connect/QFX file, Express Web Connect, Express Web Connect +, Direct Connect. You can import a QIF file because it has no syntax for the currency, and as such the numbers take on the currency of the account they are importing into.

In Canadian data file you can import foreign currencies using a Web Connect/QFX file. And for Express Web Connect this has become a pain in some cases because some financial institutions are sending the wrong information for the currency and the currency of the account has switched at times.

bwdon

Catching up …

Looks like that is the flaw in my thinking. I have US subscription but I was thinking that I could create a Canadian file with my subscription. I can't find the screen shot that you provided where you can choose the file type but I was expecting to be able to do that.

I looked - my Canadian banks will export .csv files but not QIf.

As I try to figure this out, I realize that my Cdn brokerage account has investments and cash balances in USD and CAD. … but in Quicken, I think the whole account has to be in one currency. Therefore, do I need to manage 2 investment accounts in Quicken for the one brokerage account?

What a mess!

Chris_QPW

The selection I showed you is extremely rare. In fact, I'm the only one that I believe has ever even seen it maybe outside of Quicken developers. And it isn't a mode I would suggest anyways. I did a Canadian beta years ago and my US Quicken Id got connected to a Canadian subscription (that later expired). This is the reason I see both choices. But even if one was to pay for both subscriptions to get both it wouldn't be ideal because even though the main install is for both, the patches for the two are different, and there isn't any telling what would happen if the wrong patch version was used while in the respective data file.

So, on with what can be done. You can use my free program ImportQIF to convert between CSV and QIF. It can be used for banking and investment accounts, but I will warn you of two things first off since the start of Quicken Subscription Quicken Inc has limited the functionality of the QIF import. See this: https://www.quicknperlwiz.com/quickenimportprocessing.html Whereas the biggest limitation is that you can't match existing transactions in the register.

The second warning is that mapping CSV files to QIF in investment accounts is a lot harder since you have to map both the columns to fields, and you have to map the "security actions" to what that actually means since there isn't any standard on names like Buy.

And you are correct, in Quicken the account can only have one currency. You will have to find a way to separate them.

https://www.quicknperlwiz.com/

bwdon

Thanks. Yes, I had read the limitations in your programs. I think I am stuck with manual entry which is cumbersome at best. The other idea is to create some kind of account with a dummy symbol that I manipulate the price of to creat the net balance. I loose out on the performance of those CDN investments, but win on ease of entry.

Thanks for your advice.