Any way to import CSV investing transactions - but ?

Michael Rosen

I have old transactions I want to enter. I downloaded them into a CSV file. Is there any way to import these?

If not, why is it I can't change fields in bulk as I can with other registers? I'm forced to enter these old transactions with today's date then change them one by one.

Boatnmaniac

You might want to try downloading and installing ImportQIF which is a conversion program that might be able to convert your CSV file into a format that can be imported into Quicken. It's freeware and was developed and is maintained by a long-time Quicken user. I have not used it, myself, but there are many users who have posted here that the program works well. You can read up on it and download it from https://www.quicknperlwiz.com/ .

Michael Rosen

I downloaded this, but I still run into the same problem. These transactions are so old entering them, either manually or by import, doesn't change the cash balance. I get these balance adjustments that don't actually adjust the balance.

Michael Rosen

Here is what is happening.

Ps56k2

what are those column headers ?

Chris_QPW

When the cash balance doesn't change for buys/sells it is usually because your account has placeholders for that security.

Jim_Harman

To expand on what @Chris_QPW said,

Placeholders compensate for missing or incorrect investing transactions by forcing Quicken’s share balance for a security to match a specified value on the date of the Placeholder. This is usually the share count downloaded from your financial institution (FI).

Placeholders also prevent new transactions like Div, Bought and Sold prior to the security’s Placeholder date from affecting the account’s cash balance. It does this by creating a linked Cash Balance Adjustment just before the affected transaction. Deleting one of these will delete them both. This shows up as N/A in the Cash Amt column of the transaction list. To allow the cash balance to change when entering missing transactions that affect the cash balance, you must first delete all the Placeholders for this security that have later dates than the transaction you are entering.

To make Placeholders visible, go to Edit > Preferences > Investing and make sure the Show hidden transactions box is checked. 

Placeholders will have a gray background in the account’s transaction list (register) even if they are not selected, and will have “Entry” in the Action column.

Because transactions are missing or incorrect, Quicken will not be able to compute the cost basis or performance for the affected securities. You will see asterisks in the Portfolio views for this data.

Always back up your data file before changing historical transactions.

For more information on resolving placeholders, please see this FAQ:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7267839/quicken-faq-managing-placeholder-entries-in-quicken-for-windows