How did I end up ith 2 account files for 1 bank account when migrating a 2013 backup file?

SetSee

As I continue to play with version R60.20 of the latest Quicken Classic Deluxe on my 2nd PC before committing to migrating my Quicken 2013 datafile with its 30 years of very useful data from my 1st PC, I have noticed something that may be a clue to what is not right with my situation.  It’s a search result from the Account List window that shows 2 copies of my main checking account:

The first one (XX84,XXXX) is from the PC-1 Quicken 2013 file backup that I restored to PC-2 using the R60.20 version; it has all my old transactions, but I cannot get the bank account linked.  The 2nd account shown (XXXX84) contains about 90 days of my most recent transactions from the bank and it does update (although I am not clear what I did to get it to update), but it has none of my data from PC-1's Quicken 2013 file.

My questions are thus:

1. Did I do something in the wrong order?
2. Do I have to connect to the bank to do "One Step Update" before or after I restore the old backup file?
3. Are there configuration settings I have to do before either of those actions?
4. Do I have to make some choice about the 4 ways Quicken can interact with my bank  (Express Web Connect, Express Web Connect Plus, Direct Connect, and Web Connect), or is it decided for me by the bank? I find the Help page on that confusing.

The UI options and prompts that I used in this effort on the new Quicken did not make me aware of the answers to these questions, and I cannot find the needed information in the Quicken Help pages.  So if you can answer the 4 questions and give me a link to where this is explained in the Help, I would be very grateful.

[Edited - Removed Personal Information]

Quicken Kristina

Hello @SetSee,

Thank you for sharing your experience. Typically, if you end up with a duplicate account, it is due to the account getting added as new instead of linked to the existing account when you are trying to connect it.

To answer your questions:

1. Based on the information provided, it doesn't sound like you did anything in the incorrect order.
2. If you are restoring a backup, it's better to reconnect after you have restored the file. Some connections may need to be reconnected/reauthorized in the newly restored file, so connecting before restoring the backup could result in making extra work for yourself.
3. It depends. Some financial institutions, especially those that allow Direct Connect, require that you authorize through their website before connecting.
4. It depends on the financial institution. You can click Advanced Options to select which of the available connection methods you want to use when adding an account, or you can just follow the Add Account flow and stick with the default connection method. Not all financial institutions support all the connection methods. Many support only one or two of the connection methods.

For the duplicate account issue, if you are not able to link to the older account, you may be able to consolidate the information into the newer account by copy/pasting the transactions to that newer account, then deleting the older one. Warning - Backup your file before doing this, just in case.

I hope this helps!

SetSee

Kristina, thanks for the information.  You say a couple of things that make me concerned that there is an issue with the order in which I do things (despite you answering “no” to my first question).  And I never explicitly “Added” an account to the new Quicken on my PC-2 after restoring the backup file—I only tried to set up connections to my banks for online transaction updates for the accounts imported from the backed-up Q file.  At no time was I ever prompted to tell Q what type of connection I wanted to make to a bank, which seems to happen when you Add an account explicitly (which I never did, but tried to do just now as an experiment, where I saw that it did allow you to choose a connection type).  Anyway, this is getting too messy.

I think my only recourse now is to uninstall the new Quicken on my PC-2 and re-install it, which will get rid of any data about my accounts or connections to banks.  And then with a freshly installed copy of Q, I will carefully create a new Quicken file from my backup file from PC-1, and then carefully set up connections to banks—and carefully take notes on what happens.  If I notice that Quicken has created a new/duplicate account for me, uh-oh!

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Setting up the connections is fairly similar to adding an account, but the financial institution and connection method are pre-selected, since Quicken would use the choices you'd made when you added the account in your original file. When reconnecting an account like that, it is possible to accidentally add it as a new account. Near the end of the process, there is an Add/Link screen (see screenshot below).

In that screen, it's important to verify that Quicken is seeing the correct account to link to. It should show "Link to existing…" in the Action column, and will list the name of the account, as it shows in Quicken, in the Nickname in Quicken column. If it says "Add to Quicken" in the Action column, that means it's adding the account as a new account.

You can click the dropdown in the Action column to switch from Add to Link and also to switch which Nickname in Quicken the account is getting linked to. If there is no dropdown and it shows "Don't add to Quicken", that means Quicken thinks the account is already connected, and the name it shows in the Nickname in Quicken column is what Quicken sees it connected to.

Please let me know how it goes!

SetSee

In playing around yesterday, I found that "Add to" vs. "Link to" difference you've pointed out and figured that was the reason I got 2 accounts (a subtly bad UI right there, making it too easy for the user to do the wrong thing!).

Later tonight I will be doing another round of "a fresh install of Quicken 2025 and re-importing my PC-1 backup file." When I link the bank accounts to the existing imported accounts, I hope that everything will look right and be working properly. Will let you know…

Boatnmaniac

@SetSee - Sometimes when setting up an account connection for download (or changing it or resetting it) the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount might be changed. It only happens sometimes and only with Spending accounts (i.e., checking, savings, debit card, credit card, etc.).

It is recommended that you enter and save the Opening Balance transaction dollar amounts into the Memo fields of those transaction before you try to set up the download connections. It is a 1X proactive process that can make it very easy to determine if/when this issue occurs and to quickly know how to correct it if it has occurred.

SetSee

@Boatnmaniac I am not clear about what you are warning me about. If I am importing on my new PC-2 a Quicken file backed up on my old PC-1 and a checking account with 10 years of history has an opening balance of $0, this could get changed during the connect-to-bank process? Or are you talking about a different kind of opening balance?

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20476125#Comment_20476125

Yes, there is a possibility that the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount might get changed from $0 to something else when setting up the download connection in the file on PC-2. Most of the time this does not happen but because it sometimes does many users recommend entering and saving the correct Opening Balance dollar amount into the Memo field before trying to set up the download connection. Then if the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount does get changed, it is very easy to identify and correct it because it was previously entered and saved into the Memo field.