Account data corrupted?

Question

I doubt there's an answer to this, but maybe someone can suggest a solution.

I've always used a workaround to mimic a double entry system by using a clearing account to which I post all entries. Today one of my retirement accounts popped up and every single entry going back years had been changed to 12/31/2024. Every explanation and entry had been cleared out; only balances—now re-dated to 12/31/2024 were left in the detailed account. Adjusting the account to yesterday's date was no longer possible.

How on earth did this happen? All of the other accounts similar to this one (my wife and I have 5-6 retirement accounts) were unaffected and could be updated as they always had been.

I can't imagine how to retrieve the data in this account easily.  It's not an Excel spreadsheet where it's possible to back up to a previous version when you make a mistake. The last time I backed up the accounts was about 2 months ago, but if I go back to that date I have to painstakingly re-input everything since that backup. Poor planning admittedly, but is there an easier way to fix the one account that's apparently erased years of updates? How did Quicken even do that???

Blue44 · Answer

Good advice on backups. Lesson learned.

As it turned out—have no idea why—but I closed down Quicken and intended to just close the corrupted account and re-establish it as if it were a new account with the current balance. I'd lose the old data but I'd just go from there.

BUT, when I restarted Quicken,—voila—the old correct account reappeared uncorrupted.  My is not to reason why…..

Thanks for your response; Happy New Year!

splasher · Answer

Check the BACKUP folder where your Quicken data file is located, there maybe a recent backup there when a program update was installed.

Other than that, let this be a hard learned lesson, backups are your friend, make lots of them, USB thumbdrive/disk space is cheap.

Personally, I make a backup every day that I make changes in my data file.  You don't have to keep them all.