Can my wife and I both work from one Quicken file?

My wife and I both use Quicken to manage our family's finances. Can we both log into and use Quicken on the web to access same file? Is it secure? If not, how do spouses handle co-managing finances via same Quicken file?

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  • NotACPA
    NotACPA SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Do you have one Q data file of your combined accounts and categories?  Or two?
    What is your desktop operating system?  Because Q Web is an adjunct to one of the desktop products ... not a standalone system.

    Q user since February, 1990. DOS Version 4
    Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Business & Personal
    Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP

  • No...separate files not combined. I’m using Windows and she’s on Mac. I’m guessing we’d both need to use same operating system. If we did, though, could we work off same file somehow? Maybe she only downloads certain accounts and me the rest so we don’t have overlapping transactions with conflicting expense categories. Then both upload to Quicken Web? Seems difficult.
  • NotACPA
    NotACPA SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 2019
    I'm pretty sure that since you have different Q products, that you also have different Q User ID's ... and thus you'd have to have different Q files on the Web.
    Also, Q Win and QMac [Edit/ previously incorrectly said Q Web /EDIT] files are NOT interchangeable ... entirely different file formats.
    SO, while each of you could easily only download your own accounts ... you couldn't use Q Web to "merge" them.  They'd still be different files on the Web.
    SO, even if you have a strong pre-nup (as my wife and I have) I'd just designate one of you to be the family Q user ... and have everything done in a single Q product.
    But, I have another question for you.  Do you file a Joint tax return?  If so, why  not create a joint Q data file ... and then import it into Turbotax to make your combined financial lives easier?

    Q user since February, 1990. DOS Version 4
    Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Business & Personal
    Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP

  • Lol on prenup comment. My goal is to have her manage most of the family expense related finances and be able to track her spending vs budgets. I’m doing it now and it doesn’t make sense for me to code expenses that she makes and knows better. Plus she doesn’t have adequate purview over how we are doing vs budget. I’d rather her do that and then I will deal more with income related and non standard expenses like taxes. I’ll have some household expenses too (ie groceries) for which I could use a chkg account and credit card that we share (and she downloads and codes) or, if we can combine files on the web, we would just merge our two files few times a year and look at the overall. She’d have to be on Windows version obviously which wouldn’t be a problem. Seems odd that Quicken doesn’t have a solution for this so families can tag team their finances better. Maybe cloud based Mint is better but I’ve been on Quicken for over 20 yrs and don’t want to move off.
  • NotACPA
    NotACPA SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    She could run Win in a VM on her Mac ... and then you could move the Win data file back and forth ... except this is a somewhat precarious process.
    Moving the file INTO either product will overwrite the previous data file there.  AND, that will cause any transaction input into the "target" machine after the "transfer out" on that machine to be lost.
    Q, simply, isn't really a multi-user system.  It's intended for one user on one computer.
    OR,  how about her using the Q Mobile App for her purchases ... and downloading from that into YOUR QWin?

    Q user since February, 1990. DOS Version 4
    Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Business & Personal
    Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP

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