Add a semi-automated way to clean-up/remove older data [Edited]

Tom Auer

I am using Quicken Classic for Windows, recently updated. I moved from a Macintosh to a Windows PC earlier this year, in part because I understood (and have experienced) Quicken to be better on the Windows side.

I understand that there is no longer any particular data size constraint like that which previously forced the end-of-year rollover process. I respectfully request that Quicken be updated to allow reconciliation, consolidation, and, where appropriate, deletion of accounts older than a user-specified date. It is very much my impression that the lack of this capacity represents resistance to the programming requirements it would entail, which I'm sure are non-trivial. Online account interfaces have changed over the years, and old data is neither useful nor accurate.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @Tom Auer,

I converted this post to an Idea post since it sounds like you're asking for a change to the way the Quicken program currently functions. Could you please provide more information exactly what you'd like to see? There already is an account reconcile function in Quicken. Is the reconciliation you're wanting to see different from that? If it is, please describe what additional functionality you'd like to see.

What kind of consolidation would you want to see? Could you provide more detail exactly what you're looking for?

What kind of account deletion would you want to see? There is already an ability to delete an account. Would this be an automatic process instead? If so, what would be the criteria to trigger deletion? Would the user have any ability to override?

In the meantime, there is some functionality in Quicken that may get you close to what you want. For investment transactions, there is an ability to archive transactions. See this article for more information:

https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3216496#:~:text=Archive%20Investment%20Transactions%20can%20be,(%E2%80%9CClosed%20Positions%E2%80%9D).

You can also create a copy of your file and specify the date range you'd like in the copy. Note: When you create a copy, all online services are disconnected in that copy. See this article for more information:

https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3217108

I look forward to your reply!

Tom Auer

Hi Kristina, thank you for your reply. I have no objection to having my post categorized as an idea, and posted it in what appeared to be the most-appropriate category.

I appreciate your suggested workarounds, but they're a bit beside the point I was driving at. The fundamental idea behind my suggestion is that long-time Quicken users, like myself, will accumulate a number of accounts that have complex, intertwined transaction histories. Simply closing an existing account is not helpful in this situation, because there will be historic transfers to and from that account that will become orphans.

The capability I would like to see is, and let's see if I can state this more succinctly: a user should be able to state, "all transactions before date X are no longer of interest," and Quicken would set the opening balance of every account at least that old the the balance on date X, and delete all transactions before date X, and close any account that did not have transactions after date X.

The idea is more of a semi-automated pruning process, than closing accounts one-by-one.

A related question, to which I don't immediately know the answer: when you close an account, what does happen to all transactions affecting that account?

Jim_Harman

You can already close accounts that you are no longer using or are closed in real life. If you close an account, the account is still present in your data file and its transactions are still available for review and reporting. Closing an account sets its balance to zero and disables it for transaction downloading. Your data file does not get any smaller. Closed accounts cannot be re-opened.

You can also hide accounts that you are no longer using and they will not clutter up selection lists and your Account Bar - out of sight, out of mind.

Are there specific operations that are performing slowly for you? This can happen if an account has more than about 10,000 transactions. If not, why do you want to delete older transactions from your accounts?

Tom Auer

Hi Jim,

Thank you for your thoughtful answer. My answer would be more along the lines of intuition than software performance: modern microcomputers have become vastly more powerful since I first used one in about 1980. Quicken operates with a dataset, which I try to grok (credit for the word to Robert Heinlein) to understand the progression of my finances over time. The software may cope with outdated and redundant data sets, but my mind does so with less facility.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for the clarification,

Thanks for coming back to provide more information on what you're looking for. If I'm understanding correctly, you want a semi-automated way to clean-up/remove older data.

Is that correct?

Jim_Harman

If you really want to get rid of the old transactions from you working data file, you can go to File > Copy or Backup file and select the Year end archive option. This will move old reconciled banking transactions prior to a date you specify to a separate file and leave your current file otherwise intact but smaller. Unreconciled transactions and all Investing transactions remain in your file. There is no way to re-combine the files if you change your mind.

This was popular in the old days when hard drive space was much more limited than it is today. One downside is that because your old data is now in a separate file, you can't include it in reports. So for example if the cutoff date was 2 years ago, you can not do a Net Worth report covering the past 5 years.

Tom Auer

Kristina and Jim, thank you for your continued thoughtful engagement.

With respect to File: Copy or Backup File… that's going in the right direction, but not quite dead on. Incidentally, I don't recall that feature being in the Macintosh version of Quicken Classic.

Kristina, you are understanding my thoughts correctly. If that feature were more flexible and more discoverable, that would be what I have in mind. (It might be interesting to experiment with the feature mentioned above, but it's not my highest priority today.) For example, if I could say: I want Quicken to track my finances for the last three years, or since an arbitrary (and not necessarily end-of-year) date, and trim away everything else, that would be a useful feature and is generally what I had in mind.

Jim_Harman

Even though it is called a "Year end archive", you can set whatever date you want for the cutoff. But again, unless you have tens of thousands of transactions in an account and you are having serious performance issues, I think you lose more than you gain.

You can declutter things considerably by hiding, not deleting Accounts, Categories, and Securities that you are not using.

If you want to experiment, you can make a copy of your working data file and experiment on that. Be sure to give it a different name so you know which file is which.

Tom Auer

JIm, interesting. I will tuck that away for a rainy day project.