Is there any capability to lock down historical ledger entries against modification?

Question

Please read everything here, each sentence has critical information.

My father is suffering from dementia. But he has also done his own books using Quicken (and its predecessors) since 1984. Or, at least, he had backfilled back to that year once he did get started with it in the late 80s or extremely early 90s.

This means that Quicken is at the CORE of his financial world.

Unfortunately, he is now doing actions that he cannot remember later. He is looking at values, getting confused, and deleting them out of hand because he doesn’t understand them and thinks that they are wrong, even when they have been directly imported from the bank (the live update with his bank). Or worse -- inserted/removed from somewhere else by actors unknown.

This has proceeded to the point where he thinks that Quicken, THE COMPANY, is acting in a malicious manner and directly causing edits to his data in order to scam him out of money. He has already phoned up the police, and is ready to go to a lawyer to initiate a lawsuit against the company.

And no, this is DESKTOP Quicken I am talking about here, not Quicken online. So there is no chance of that. And yet…

I have been trying to correct his erroneous entries that have crept in over the last few years - removing all automatic entries and quickfill settings and other such “automatic insertions” that the program seems to be bizarrely configured to be always on, because it assumes all users want this to be turned on. And so far, my efforts have managed to avoid the worst problems.

However, my cleanup efforts are also being mucked around with when he goes in and sees something he doesn’t agree with. Like cheques being reconciled at the date they were deposited, and not the dates he made them out on.

He will not let go of Quicken. He is also not capable of learning a new program. It will just confuse and enrage him.

So I need a way of “locking down” all ledger entries older than a certain time frame. Say, a week or so back. And I need to be able to lock it down in ways that he cannot edit what is there, but I can still go back and continue my cleanup efforts.

And this “locking down” needs to look transparent, and to not have anything pop up into his face. He cannot have anything to alarm him.

Boatnmaniac · Answer

An idea you might want to consider if your father does not agree to you alone managing his Quicken data file.

* Let your father continue to manage his data file and don't do anything with it yourself.
* Then you can make a Quicken copy of that file (File > Copy or Backup File > Create a Copy or Template > give the file a unique name to easily differentiate it from the one your father is using > Save Copy > open the copied file.  If you are prompted to give the copied file a password, give it a unique one that only you will know.).  This copied file will retain all the data of the original file but it will be totally unique and separate from the original so there will be no cross-talk between the 2 files.  (If you make a Windows copy of the data file the 2 files will share common IDs and a common Cloud Account so there will be some cross talk between them which would be self defeating so don't make a copy of his data file via Windows.)
* In the copied file, if you were not prompted to give the file a password already, do so now:  Edit > Preferences > Startup > under Startup Actions > select a unique password.
* You will need to set up the accounts for One Step Update downloading in this copied file.  Do that via Tools > Add Account using your father's logins for his financial institutions.

This might take a little time to get set up and working properly but when done your father can continue to manage his own data file however he wishes while you can then manage the copied file separately.

splasher · Answer

The only option in Quicken is the Transaction Password (File menu).  You can read about it in Quicken help by searching for "Create a transaction password".  That section discusses two types of passwords, the one in question is in the bottom half of the returned write up.

BUT, it doesn't really meet your qualifications since it asks for a password if you try to change something that is before the cut-off date.  That request sounds like something that is going to bother him.

Best of luck trying to solve your situation with your father, it reminds me when we took the car keys away from mom.

Is there any way you can convince him that maybe you should take over his Quicken duties?