Before renewing subscription I want to restart with new file and quicken account. Is it worth it?

dw833

Before renewing my subscription, I've decided to start over with my quicken files and account.
I have so many issues with out of balance accounts, missing reconciliations, incorrect categories and transfers, etc. Could go on, but it would be a rant.

I have several constraints before I do that.

Wanted feedback on how much to expect from this restart.
Has anyone else did this and seen an improvement in your quicken experience?

Create a new file. I will add all accounts again to this new file.
The new file will contain transactions starting with 2024 for all accounts.
Transactions from previous years will not be downloaded. Want to make sure that never happens.
If I download transactions for an account only 2024 and onward will download.
How is that accomplished?

New quicken account setup. I don't won't any syncing from previous quicken account.
I will add one account at a time and work with it before going to next account.
Hopefully this will help prevent many of the issues I have.
Will I be able to register a different email account and start a new account with my next subscription?

Preferences.
There are preferences I want to set for the new account and file.

No syncing and no web/mobile access.
I know if the syncing it turns off , it prevents some downloading.
Ok with that and will have access to a file in qfx format for most accounts.
Hopefully, I get can get a good start without having download issues.

File Backups
If quicken creates a file backup, it will not be opened unless I approve it in real time.
I find this to be one of the biggest issues with problems in quicken.I have many different backup files that I did not create.
When I open quicken those backup files are used instead of the main file. Why?
I always want the original default file to open by default.

Turn off all auto categories and renaming rules.
In fact, if I had a list of auto-anything for quicken I could use that.
Will turn off all of it.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Not sure if any of this will improve my quicken experience.
I've used quicken since 1994. The past few years especially have been a struggle using it.
If there is an alternative for windows personal finance software, I would have switched by now.
There doesn't seem to be anything.
If I can't get quicken working satisfactory, I won't renew my subscription.
Will not use anything or switch to one of the mobile apps.
Don't won't to do that, but my level of frustration has reached a point I don't want to continue with it.

Richard Schreyer

I did almost the exact same thing, but did it in early January. I did the following however

As I wanted to have prior year comparisons for income and expense accounts I ran an Income and Expense report for each month in 2023 and printed them so I would have a record of total income and expense by category by month.

I then created new account for Quicken and started by establishing my catgories for expense and income in a brand new 2024 date file under the new useerid account.

I then created a financial account called 2023 and booked all the categories for 2023 by month.

I then setup my financial accounts downloading whatever amount of transactions they would download. I then would delete any transactions that were dated prior to 2024 and adjusted my opening balance accordingly.

With the new username, new data file, sync turned off, quicken located in root C I have not had the continous download issues that were plaguing me. I am convinced that the new userid had a lot to do with fixing my download problems.

It has now been 3 months of almost total bliss, with the only problem being that I have fidelity rewards card and I am off by the cents, but just keep clearing the "C"'s to "R" manually and move on.

Bottom line what you are proposing and what I did greatly improved my quicken experience.

I

dw833

Thanks for the reply, Richard. I don't get much good news dealing with quicken. But this is good news that you thought it improved the experience.
I will create another account with quicken and get started on this soon. Hopefully it will work ok for me also.

dw833

I've reinstalled quicken and created a different account. Turned off as many auto anything I can find in preferences.
I want to download my transactions for 2024 only. How do I set the download for only a specific date range?

NotACPA

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20428899#Comment_20428899

IF you banks/cards/etc allow you to initiate the download from their website, you MIGHT be able to specify a date range.

But, from within Q itself there's no way to do that. Q just asks the various FIs "What have you got", and they send it.

Your best be is, probably, just to take the download from within Q and delete what you don't want.

BE CAREFUL, however, because checks/charges/etc from the end of December 2023 (or even earlier) might still be outstanding on 1/1/24 and you'd want to include those.

dw833

quicken fidelity.png

quicken loan payoff.png

I've imported my banking accounts for checking/savings/loans. Only imported transactions that are on Jan 2024 statement. And then set the opening balance. That is mostly ok. Have one problem with the loans. The status of the loan is both having a balance and paid off. Not sure why that is. See attached image.

I imported Fidelity 401k information. For some reason, the register balance is showing double the correct balance. Not sure how to fix that. See attached image.