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Proper Procedure for deleting old closed inactive accounts.

tbf47

I have 20 old accounts that have been closed at the institution and in Quicken for about 20 years. They are a mix of checking, old IRA's, old Brokerage, old Mutual Fund Companies. I am looking for dialogue and or advice on the deleting these or not. Hoping to gain some software speed by reducing the overall file size. Thank you for your opinions and or advice.

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Accepted answers

UKR

The only "safe" (sort of) procedure that I know of would be:

Make sure that all these old accounts are reconciled. Quicken will not archive transactions which are not reconciled. Transfer transactions must be reconciled in both account registers, Transfer-from and Transfer-to. Investment registers do not archive all security Buy / Sell / etc. transactions to retain gain/loss - related information, even if you don't own shares of a security any longer. (* see below)
Create a Year End Archive copy (aka YEC) of your data file with a cutoff date several years back (I'd suggest, keep 4 - 7 years of history in your current file)
After YEC, in your current data file make sure that there are no transactions left behind (except for the account's Opening Balance transaction).
When the account's empty of transactions, it's OK to delete it safely, without potential impact on still - active accounts with transfers to/from the old account. And you still retain your old account's transaction history in the YEC file, should you ever need it.

(*) If you're an active investor, think about performing an "Archive Investment Transactions" procedure, especially on still active accounts with hundreds or thousands of individual securities and their transactions. Read this for more information before you try YEC.

All comments

UKR

The only "safe" (sort of) procedure that I know of would be:

Make sure that all these old accounts are reconciled. Quicken will not archive transactions which are not reconciled. Transfer transactions must be reconciled in both account registers, Transfer-from and Transfer-to. Investment registers do not archive all security Buy / Sell / etc. transactions to retain gain/loss - related information, even if you don't own shares of a security any longer. (* see below)
Create a Year End Archive copy (aka YEC) of your data file with a cutoff date several years back (I'd suggest, keep 4 - 7 years of history in your current file)
After YEC, in your current data file make sure that there are no transactions left behind (except for the account's Opening Balance transaction).
When the account's empty of transactions, it's OK to delete it safely, without potential impact on still - active accounts with transfers to/from the old account. And you still retain your old account's transaction history in the YEC file, should you ever need it.

[Deleted User]

@tbf47 - there would be no reason to delete any transactions. Software speed is not dependent on your data file size.

I would recommend closing and hiding the old accounts, so they are totally disconnected from online services and excluded or excludable from the Account and transaction entry lists.

Have you tried starting a new data file? If you have, did that make any difference in performance?

tbf47

Thank you @QuickUserPSP . I appreciate your advice

tbf47

@QuickUserPSP - a few months ago at the time when I was having terrible problems with sluggish software performance in OSU and Program Launch and other internal software operations, I was able to speak with someone a couple of times who contacted me as a result of my contacting the COO office. The very first thing recommended was to delete data right out of shute. And to that end I was reluctant and so I discontinued the contact. I appreciate your candor in the matter.

[Deleted User]

@tbf47 - I am pretty sure your issues were and are fixable. No one at Quicken is willing to create a streamlined process and document how to rebuild a data file. If they did, I think that would fix 99% of the data corruption issues. I have rebuilt my data file several times. It is not easy with the current state of the export files and extract reports. Before I retired, my job was to understand systems and find ways to convert data from one system to another. I had to create conversion programs that would work for all different kinds of accounts and data. So for me rebuilding the data file was not that difficult, but still it was time consuming because of the export files are not in good shape because they are not kept updated.

I have my theories about how and why the data files get corrupted, but I think if I shared my theories, I would be censored. But if anyone from Quicken asks, I would be more than willing to share.

tbf47

I agree. The tail is wagging the dog more than likely and has for a few years now. I.T. has to be reminded from time that the software is at the service of the enterprise not the converse.