Retrieving transactions from renamed/deleted accounts

DukeBedford

In August, I renamed several accounts and deleted the accounts with the previous names. So I lost all the transaction history prior to August. I'd really like to get those old transactions back and merge them with the transactions in the renamed accounts. Is there a way to do this?

DukeBedford

I have Quicken backups from before the renaming/deletion, but I don't want to overwrite all the transactions since then. I'm hoping there's some kind of merger procedure I can use.

mshiggins

@DukeBedford are you using Quicken Mac or Quicken Windows?

Quicken Anja

Hello @DukeBedford,

First, I'd like to ask, are you using online services to download new transactions, or are you manually entering all of your data?

The only way to restore lost data would be through restoring a backup file. However, to combine it with the new account you created will be a little more of a tedious process and there are a couple ways you can go about that. No matter which route you choose to take, please make sure you save a backup of any data file you don't want lost.

One way is to restore a backup that has the data you are looking for and then exporting a Quicken Transfer File (QXF) that you will then import into your current file. Note that doing this will copy the entire restored file into your existing file. So once the importing process has been completed, you will need to go through and move transaction history from the old accounts that were imported to the new accounts to combine them. You will also likely need to correct the opening balance in each of those accounts once they have been combined so that the today's balance is also corrected. Then, you will need to delete any duplicate accounts that you didn't want imported in the first place as well as delete the imported accounts that you were moving data history over from once that is done.

Another option is to restore a backup, and recreate what you did back in August, except you would be moving transactions over into the new account as you go instead of just deleting them with all the history in them.

Let me know how you wish to proceed! Thank you.

DukeBedford

I'm using Quicken for Mac. I'm mainly using on-line services to automatically download new transactions, though I have a few accounts where I enter transactions manually.

I'm interested in Quicken Anja's second option, which would be to restore a backup from before the point at which I renamed and deleted accounts in August. I think where I went wrong is that I created new accounts with similar names and set up transaction downloads for them. Then I realized that I now had several duplicate accounts and deleted the old accounts. From a transaction download perspective, the surviving accounts were new accounts, so Quicken computed opening balances and positions and then began downloading subsequent transactions.

If I do the restore as of August, will four months of previous transactions be available to download automatically? I don't know how far back Quicken and the financial institutions can do automatic downloads.

Quicken Anja

Thank you for your response.

Typically financial institutions will allow up to 90 days of transactions history to be downloaded through automatic download methods. However, if the financial institutions offers a 2 step-download process called Web Connect QFX, they may offer the option to download more than 90 days. This timeframe varies from bank to bank (for example my bank allows the last 2 years).

Can you provide the names of the financial institutions you would need to do this with?

Thank you!

DukeBedford

All of the accounts affected are with Fidelity.

If I do a Quicken restore using an August backup, which is beyond 90 days ago, what happens to transactions that are older than 90 days? I can get these from Fidelity statements for August and September. Can I enter them manually?

DukeBedford

OK, I backed up my current Quicken file and restored from an early August backup. Now when I click the update icon, I get the following message. I really don't want to risk screwing up a Quicken database that contains entries back to 1992! What should I do?

This is an older copy of a file that is using Quicken Cloud. You can’t use connected services with this file unless you reset Quicken Cloud using the data from this file, which will disable Quicken Cloud for other copies of this file.

Do you want to reset Quicken Cloud using the data from this file?

Quicken Anja

Yes, you can reset the cloud on that. It will not affect the data in that file, and even if it does, it does not affect the backup file you restored it from.

As for your previous question, if you are missing any data, yes, you can enter those manually.

DukeBedford

This isn't looking good. I saved a local backup before I did anything. Then I went to "View/restore backups" and chose an automatic backup from early August (just before I did the account renaming). The accounts I renamed weren't there! I restored again from a July backup, but the accounts weren't there either. Now I've restored from the backup I made this morning, and everything looks right. But I still want to find those deleted accounts and merge the transactions from them into the new, renamed accounts. When I go to "View/restore backups" now, I see six backups from today. Apparently every time I do a restore, it creates a new backup first. The early August backup I first restored from to is no longer listed … it as apparently been absorbed into one of the later backups today. What do you think is going on?

Quicken Anja

Thank you for the additional information.

Before you try anything else, you said the financial institution is Fidelity. Are these investment/brokerage accounts?

Quicken Anja

@DukeBedford I have sent you a direct message, please navigate to the inbox in the top right-hand corner of the Community page and check your inbox.

Thank you!

DukeBedford

Yes, they are brokerage accounts.

Jon

@DukeBedford Regarding your backups disappearing, Quicken can be set to only keep a certain number of backups. In Quicken Settings on the Backup tab, in the Local Backups section it should say something like "Keep last 10 files and save to Backup Folder", with a pulldown for "last 10 files" where you can set the number. I don't recall what the default setting is but it probably isn't very high.

If re-downloading transactions from Fidelity doesn't go back 4 months (and in my experience it does not) you can manually enter the missing transactions from your Fidelity statements.