How do I work with my uncle's Quicken data file?

MicrosoftMoney

I am using a current subscription of Quicken Classic Business & Personal on a Windows 11 PC. . Eventually, I will need to take over management of my uncle's finances, but right now I'm just trying to learn how he does things. He uses an old version of Quicken for Windows that no longer allows any online services, but that's fine for him - he doesn't want to download transactions or link Quicken to his accounts in any way. He uses it more like a handwritten checkbook register, except that he has recurring bills and income set up to be entered automatically.

For now, he will continue using his file on his own computer. He sent me a copy of his QDF file to look at. I opened Quicken, and selected his QDF file. I expected to see a notice that it was being updated to a new file version, but I did not get that.

I am given these options. What happens if I choose Change Owner vs Sign In vs Cancel?

Here are the things I'm concerned about under each of those choices:

1. Will my uncle be able to continue using his copy of the file without any complications? For example, what will happen when he tried to open his copy of the file? Will Quicken try to synchronize the 2 sets of data?
2. Will his recurring bills and income remain intact in my copy of the file?
3. Would I be able (eventually) to set up online access for downloading transactions? Would I need to change ownership of the data file at that time? And what would happen to his copy of the file if I did ?
4. What other issues should I understand how these work?

For right now, the purpose of his giving me a copy of the file is to familiarize myself with his finances. But I anticipate that it may not be very long (a year?) until I will be responsible for tracking their expenses, etc.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Boatnmaniac

@MicrosoftMoney - If all you want to do is review his data file to see how he is doing things and will not be actually managing his finances for him at this time, you might want to consider doing the following. This will create a totally separate and unique data file from your uncle's so you can play with it in any way that you please with no concerns at all of causing any issues for your uncle in how he is using his data file. With his file open on your computer:

• File > Copy of Backup File > Create a copy or template > Next > you can keep the suggested file name (it will be the same as what your uncle named it with "Cpy" added to the end of it or you can give it a unique name of your choosing > Save Copy > open the copied file and use only that one going forward (at least until you actually need to take over doing your uncle's finances).

Your copied file will have everything in it that your uncle's file has, including preferences and other account settings but it will have a totally unique file ID and Cloud Account and it will be registered to only you. So you can do whatever you want to do in there and rest assured that absolutely nothing you do in there will impact your uncle's data file nor his use of it.

I suggested going this route because:

• No one needs to be concerned about flipping back and forth about signing into nor changing the file owner once this process is completed.
• Unless something has changed, there actually is some cross communication that does occur between files with the same file ID and, therefore, the same Cloud Account. I don't remember all of the cross communications that can occur but one that sticks in my head is that category changes made in your use of his data file will also be made in his data file. There was a list of other issues but for the life of me I can't remember them all nor can I find the discussions about this in this Community (they took place 4-5 years ago or so so maybe they are archived?). In fact, the Copy process I spelled out above was developed by Quicken at least in part to address this cross-talk issue so a Quicken-copied file would not cross-talk with the original file like a Windows-copy does.