What do I need to know to try importing several years of CSV data ? (edit)

amikahmad

I'm considering Quicken to help me catch up on personal and business for prior years.
What do I need to know going into this? I have all my .csv files from those years and can do bank imports but any quirks or potential challenges I should be aware of before starting?

My plan is to do all of 2021 first, then just go year by year and get caught up for 2023 for taxes.
Some of the earlier years I will need separate business and personal expenses from the same account before I had a dedicated bank account for business.

Any tips or advice appreciated. Or if Quicken is just not the right software for this that would be helpful to know as well.

Jim_Harman

Quicken does not import CSV files directly. If you want to import CSV files, you will have to use a third party converter.

If you are downloading transactions from your banks, some only go back 90 days.

Ps56k2

there is no magic -
as mentioned, there is no direct CSV import for Quicken - and the value would not be just the numbers, but also how you would "categorize" all the data - that is the heart of Quicken, being able to have a transaction and properly categorize it for reporting and tax scheduling.

Also - as mentioned - the downloading from financial institutions is totally depending on each FI - and even if they have a contract with Quicken to support any kind of data downloading. Some will offer 90 days online directly into Quicken and some will offer more with a manual download…. lots of puzzle pieces -

This time of year - people wander into the Quicken world with their shoebox of data and expect Quicken will somehow magically create all the info they need for their 2023 tax report -

amikahmad

Thanks for the responses.

What I am understanding in general is that I technically can do my 2021, 2022, and 2023 accounting. But…

1. I will need to categorize things into years, personal vs. business, etc. This is the only way to organize and segment between business and personal.
2. For transactions over 90 days I will have to convert .CSV into some sort of Quicken readable format. I assume the dates would be accurate at least.
3. After that I would have to save my 2021, start a new file and then do 2022, and then 2023. Backing up and saving each time and tackling each individual year independently.

Boatnmaniac

Well, it is not entirely true that CSV files cannot be directly imported into Quicken. There is one exception that does exist: If your CSV files are exports from Mint (Mint exports in a slightly modified CSV format) you will be able to directly import them into Quicken for Mac (QMac).

But it is true that if your CSV files are not Mint exports and/or if you will be buying Quicken for Windows (QWin), you will not be able to import them directly into Quicken.

There is a freeware conversion program called ImportQIF that many in this forum have posted about saying it works well at converting CSV, Excel, QIF and OFX files into a file format that can then be imported into QWin.

But ImportQIF is not compatible with Mac so this is not an option for Mac users. However, there are conversion programs that are compatible with Mac that can be purchased from various online sources.

You can read more about this at:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7944750/how-can-i-import-my-mint-data-will-my-categorizations-upload-if-i-do

Chris_QPW

You can use my free program ImportQIF to import your transactions. If your transactions already have a category column that you want to preserve then I suggest the output format should be QIF since it has syntax for that, whereas the QFX format doesn't.

As for separating personal from business, using separate accounts is "nice", but not 100% required. The main requirement would be that you uses/used different categories for them. Once in Quicken the business categories, can be assigned business tax lines and that will for the most part get Quicken to separate the two.

You can find ImportQIF at: https://www.quicknperlwiz.com/

Ps56k2

1 - the Quicken category is a very granular feature….. there are some built ins, but you setup new ones -
like a transaction that is put into a very specific category for later reporting -
CAR….. fuel, service, tolls, registration, etc

2 - the whole CSV issue -

3 - Not sure why you would create different files - just keep ALL your data in a single file - with freq backups -

You might just buy the Quicken Home/Business version and try it for 30 days - not even working with your CSV data -
because you will then know how Quicken looks on the inside and what you can do with your existing data, and what effort it will take to somehow get into Quicken…… Personal vs Business and all the categories that will need to be created -