How can I create End Of Year backup and reset register to new year (Q Mac)
Up until 2020 (when Quicken fundimentally changed), I could do an EOY save that would save all the cleared register transactions from 1/1/(last year) to 12/31/(last year) and clear all of those from the active register which I could rename (Current year) i.e. End of Year 2024 - 1/1/2024 to 12/31/2024, Active register 1/1/2025 renamed 2025 with only 2025 transactions and uncleared previous transactions from pre 2025.
Since January 2020 I have no longer been able to do this and every time I've contacted Quicken support they have been less than helpful. I don't like having 4 years of trans actions in one register file without making yearly backups.
It is beyond comprehension why this functionality was removed and why any requests on how to do it with current versions are basically ignored. Has anyone found a method that doesn't involve basically redoing the register or doing a restore/rewrite.
I currently run Quicken Classic for Mac, 8.0.1. MacOS 15.1.1on a M1 Mac.
Answers
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@Saransk93 Nothing "fundamentally changed" with Quicken in 2020. The "modern" Quicken Mac was launched in 2014, and it was a complete re-write to Quicken from scratch after the old Quicken 2007 reached the end of its ability to be modernized to run on Apple's newer operating systems. Did you perhaps switch from Quicken 20-07 to the current subscription Quicken Mac around 2020? Otherwise, there have been no changes like the one you describe.
Modern Quicken Mac has never (since it was introduced in 2014) had the ability to separate or archive older data. Nothing has been removed from the program; everything in the program has been coded from scratch, and anything that's missing has simply never been coded. Perhaps you are referring to modern Quicken Mac not having the same functionality as the old Quicken 2007? The reason for this is that the modern Quicken Mac uses a much more modern, industrial database which is not prone to the types of data loss, corruption, or slow-downs in the legacy Quicken Mac 2007 and Quicken Windows. The intent is for users to keep adding data year after year so that you have instant access to your financial history over many years. I have more than 30 years of data in my Quicken Mac data file.
I guess my question is why you have concerns about having 4 years of transactions in a data file, when it is expressly built for that? You can — and should — create backups of your data file regularly (Quicken will create them automatically each time you quit, if you have this enabled in your Settings), and I recommend doing a manual File > Save a Backup once every month or two so you will build up a folder of older backups should you need to go back in time to find something. Also, using the Time Machine software built into macOS is a very safe and reliable way to keep months and years of backups of all your data, Quicken and everything else on your Mac, that I recommend every Mac user take advantage of using.
There is an Idea thread (feature request) for users who would like to see the developers add this functionality, but they have not yet said yea or nay on whether they plan to develop this. A previous request for archiving older years was nixed by the developers.
I do see a feature like this serving a purpose for people who have had major "life events", such as marriage, divorce, grown children leaving home, etc. and want to significantly purge/change old categories and tags and payees which they no longer need in their life today. (Payees and Categories can now be hidden if you want to make old ones not show up in dropdown menus.)
But strictly for separating our data year by year, I don't see why you'd want to do that; it defeats one of the big reasons for using Quicken, being able to see investment performance, income and spending year over year without having to open multiple different files to look at old data. If you disagree, and have a reason other than "I've always done it that way", it would be helpful if you can explain why such a feature is important to you.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993-1 -
I have to agree with the point this ought to be a required feature for ANY financial software. From my perspective - little to do with performance, and everything to do with risk management. The IRS requires taxpayers to keep 7 years of data for audits - however, if you have more, they will happily audit more; so, it is in a tax payers best interest to only keep 7 years of financial data.
In my experience using Quicken Classic for MS-DOS, this feature never impacted investments - because the historical prices were always kept.
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From my perspective - little to do with performance, and everything to do with risk management. The IRS requires taxpayers to keep 7 years of data for audits - however, if you have more, they will happily audit more; so, it is in a tax payers best interest to only keep 7 years of financial data.
Actually, according to IRS, you generally only need to keep records for 3 years from the date you filed your original return (or 2 years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later) for IRS audit purposes. You only need to keep up to 7 years of data if you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction, or if you do not report income that you should report, and it is more than 25% of the gross income shown on your return.
In any case, in the event of a detailed IRS audit (which seems increasingly unlikely as employees are slashed), you always control what documents you share with IRS. They will not come into your home and access your Quicken file to look back into the past! 😉 An IRS audit would specify what time periods and data they want to look at. The only time they would request to look further into the past would be if they find proof of false information on your returns indicating taxpayer fraud.
Bottom line: unless you're committing tax fraud, or not filing tax returns, there is no increased risk of maintaining a Quicken data file with decades of data.
That said, this functionality would help users in certain cases, so I do believe it should be built.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
I am one of the users who do not wish to clog up my computer with data beyond the current year and 7 years previous! So why is Quicken so adverse to coming up with a way to do this efficiently instead of making its users do it manually, spending hours if not days or weeks in order to clean it all up????
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@SSTOUT49@OUTLOOK.COM When the modern Quicken Mac was first created a decade ago, and it was lacking this feature, I believe we gained some insight that the developers — who had hundreds and hundreds of features yet to implement — viewed this as something most users were asking for because "I've always done it that way" as opposed to something they functionaly needed. The new SQL database under the hood of the new Quicken Mac made the amount of data in the file mostly irrelevant compared to the old databases in the legacy Quicken Mac 2007 and Quicken Windows.
Since then, users have continued to ask for this functionality, and I think have presented some very legitimate use cases for purging some old data. What we don't know is whether the current development and management team is actually averse to implementing such a feature, or if they have just prioritized over features as more pressing needs. I would guess the latter, and I'd further guess this will eventually get built. But there are still lots of important features the developers have marked as "Planned" which will likely be implemented over the next year or two which will probably come before this one.
We all use Quicken differently, so while this may be a top feature wish for you, for others it is unimportant — and their top features may be things you don't really care about. Until the developers have fewer big feature requests, it will always be like this: they will always have to make judgment decisions about which features are more needed or more beneficial for the largest number of users. And however they order the priorities, they will end up pleasing some users and disappointing others.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930
