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Starting A New File after 30 years

wingsr1

I've been using Quicken since 1996 and over the years life has transitioned and changed. The number of stored transactions causes slow searches and its just cumbersome with all the categories that are no longer used. I'm thinking of starting over at the beginning of 2027 with a clean file. I plan on doing a clean up between now and Jan 1 of checking, savings, and credit cards so that will be far simpler. Property and debt isn't an issue. My biggest question is hints on how best to track investments in Quicken. I'll have the opportunity to set each type up as a new account so it would be ideal to do it right this time around. Any thoughts and hints would be appreciated. I'm in Quicken for Windows Release R69.53. Of course the downside is that I may/will lose the history going forward but I'm willing to do that.

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Sceptic

@wingsr1 After nearly 30 years of history, a fresh start on January 1, 2027, sounds reasonable. My only caution is to spend extra time planning the investment accounts, since they're usually the hardest part to recreate later. Keep the old file archived, establish the new accounts with accurate holdings and cost basis, and you'll still have access to all of your historical data whenever you need it.

Many longtime Quicken users are surprised to find that transaction count alone is not always the cause of performance issues. Before starting over, it may be worth validating the file and reviewing whether there are unused accounts, attachments, or other factors contributing to the sluggishness. Quicken generally handles fairly large data files better than it did years ago.

If your goal is simplification, this is also a good time to evaluate whether some accounts could use Simple Tracking instead of Complete Investing. If your primary goal is tracking account values and investment performance, Simple Tracking can significantly reduce complexity because Quicken tracks holdings and balances without maintaining a detailed transaction register. Many users find it easier to manage, especially for retirement accounts. However, if you rely on detailed investment transaction history, lot tracking, capital gains reporting, or investment transaction reports, you may prefer to stay with Complete Investing.

When you say you'll have the opportunity to "set each type up as a new account," are you referring to the individual brokerage/retirement accounts, or are you thinking about organizing investments by security type (stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, etc.)? Understanding your current setup and what you'd like to change would help people offer more specific suggestions.

Starting a new file is certainly a valid option, especially after 30+ years of history. However, investments are usually the area where most people later wish they had preserved additional history. Before making the switch, consider creating an archive copy of your current file so you'll always have access to historical reports, capital gains information, and investment performance data if needed.

splasher

The problem with starting over is that with investment accounts, you will lose all of the history and everything not accounted for with the few transactions that are downloaded will be lumped into a placeholder for each security in each account.

Quicken has an archive function for the investment accounts where any security that is not active, will be moved to a new archive account in the current data file and since you will rarely open it, it is never loaded into memory and slow down Quicken.

Using the copy function on the File menu could be used to create a file with all of the non-investment accounts information prior to your 1/1/2027 data file cleanup.

My current data file is 125MB with NO attachments ever stored in it and goes back to 1996. Attachments take up too much room and can only be accessed one at a time via Quicken, which is no way to keep them stored and quickly available.

Chris_QPW

This is certainly a very person thing and as such no one answer fits all, so take this as just what I did.

Near the end of last year I decided I was going to move my investments from JP Morgan mainly because they are about the only brokerage that allows you to lock your investment accounts from transfers out of the accounts. So, I got that all done just before the year ended, which made deciding what to do for the start of the year a clean break.

It has been decades since I have even tried transferring anything from Quicken for filing taxes so the detailed investment records I was keeping were not that useful to me. I also have a very simple investment strategy so, just managing it at Fidelity with a bit of a help from a spreadsheet (for rebalancing, and making a prediction retirement income/spending and such, Quicken's functions for this have always fallen short of what I have wanted.)

So, when I did the transfers out of the JP Morgan accounts I just choose not to even create the Fidelity accounts. There was a few reasons for it. Since all the investments are at Fidelity what they provide is at least as good as what I would have got if I did Simple investment mode in Quicken with zero risk of any outside connections (people tend to skip over the fact the the financial institutions have stated that risk on them, not the financial institution). And at the time Fidelity had just switched to Express Web Connect + and I decided just to skip all of that excitement.

My wife is still working part time and has a 401K account, which I decided to just change to Simple investment mode. The only reason I decided to track it all in Quicken is because the Merrill Lync website for 401K account stinks and so it easier just to see the balances in Quicken.

My checking account, and two credit cards stayed at Chase and are still tracked in Quicken. And still track a CostCo credit card in Quicken.

So, it is now about close to a year since I started that and since the beginning of the year that I have tracked my investments in Quicken and here are my thoughts on that.

Performance was never a problem in my data file, but of course with no investment accounts to even look in, that part just drops away. One needs to understand that Quicken only reads in accounts when you open them, so an account that just sets there untouched and in this case hidden doesn't have any performance hit

But my decision to not even track the investment accounts in Simple mode does have some big ramifications. It means reports like net worth are no longer useful and same for the Lifetime planner.

This isn't a lose for me only because I have separate spreadsheet that handles both of those for me. The rebalancing in Quicken has never tracked with the way I do it and the Lifetime Planner is not maintained and as such inaccurate not to mention that its fixed choices of what accounts to take money out of first is almost exactly backwards from the way I would do it.

I think that if I was unsure of what to do I would probably copy my data file and setup, but with the investment accounts in Simple Investment mode and try that along side of the main data file for a bit to see how I would like it.

One thing that wasn't mentioned is that setting up a completely new data file has it pitfalls and can consume a bit of time. You are leaving a lot behind and somethings you might not be thinking about like you reports, memorized payees, renaming rules, … There are ways to transfer some of that, but it isn't the "5 minutes" that Quicken Inc puts on their website.