Spotty investment transaction transfers between Quicken files -- QIF? QXF? other?

rattytom
rattytom Member ✭✭
in Investing (Windows)
I am having trouble transferring investment transactions from one Quicken file to another newer file. The goal is to consolidate the investment tracking on these two files, because at one point I started all over and so am carrying a newer date range on the newer file, but the older transactions (for the same accounts - 3 brokerage accounts in all) remain on the older file. This is on Quicken for Windows, a 2020 subscription. Windows 10.

I gather that I have to use a QIF file to export/import these, at least Quicken Help seems to say QXF doesn't apply to this situation. (See below, is there some "improved download solution"?) So I carefully backed up, created the applicable QIF files (one for each account) from the old file, and imported them into the corresponding account in the new file. But not all transactions imported, and I can't find any consistent pattern in what's happening or not. One account seems to have imported only the uncleared transactions. The others imported both uncleared and cleared, but only up to one point in the date range. About 20-60 % of the couple hundred or so transactions in each of the accounts have moved.

I have good backups and separately created QIFs and I will try this again, but I wanted to see if there is something big overall I'm missing.

Also, is there some "improved download solution" here, aside from QIF or QXF? I ask because a Quicken help page about QIFs (https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3217115) says -- "QIF import isn't available to import transactions into individual checking, savings, credit card. 401(k), or any other brokerage accounts." - -
-- which surprises me, I thought QIF was what I need here (these are brokerage accounts, cleared transactions in both files have been downloaded from Vanguard over the years).

But then the next sentence in that page says -- "To import transactions into these accounts, see the improved download solution replacing QIF."

The words "improved download solution" are hotlinked - when followed, it took me to a "server not found" link http://quicken.intuit.com/go/articles/GEN82220. Quicken support told me this is not supported because Quicken is no longer Intuit. Is there some kind of potential solution here, other than QIF?

Any help appreciated, thanks.

Answers

  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2021
    I'm not sure why the QIF transfer wouldn't include all the transactions, provided that the "action" of the transaction is something that the QIF has syntax for.  The QIF format doesn't know anything about matching lots and such, so any kind of open options wouldn't transfer correctly.  And I think there are some kinds of actions where there is split and (transaction kind of split, not security split) it doesn't know about.

    About the only major thing I can think of that would have tons of missing transactions would be if you are using "Show cash in a checking account".

    Note that the warnings about importing into account types other than asset and liability accounts doesn't apply to Quicken Subscription.
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  • rattytom
    rattytom Member ✭✭
    Thank you Chris. All the action types are normal investment moves like buy/sell (sometimes add/remove) securities, dividends paid or reinvested, cash transfers. There are no transaction splits. And I have not specifically elected "show cash in a checking account" - whenever there is a cash balance it just shows as cash in the account.

    Both the source (old) and target (new) files have a combination of cleared and uncleared transactions - mostly cleared when they've been downloaded from my online brokerage, but some uncleared, which are generally manual entries I had to put in to provide a missing cost basis or fix a placeholder. The one account seemed to move over only the uncleared transactions, but the other two were a mishmash (some cleared, some uncleared) of what did copy in.

    You said "the warnings about importing into account types other than asset and liability accounts doesn't apply to Quicken Subscription" - Since I'm on subscription, maybe that means I can try a QXF account for these export/imports, instead of the QIF? I'll try that.
  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
    Unfortunately Quicken Windows has never implemented the importing of investing transactions using a QXF file.
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  • rattytom
    rattytom Member ✭✭
    PROBLEM SOLVED -- a corrupted target file. Some more unsuccessful attempts to import from the QIF files I had made led me to suspect that either the source file (the QIF I had exported to from my old/original file, for transfer to new Quicken file) or new/target file was corrupted.

    I made a copy of the target file and ran "validate" from File operations/validate-repair. Problem solved - the QIFs then imported into the target file as expected.

    I reached the conclusion that something was corrupted by comparing transactions in the QIF file (expected to import into target) with transactions that actually appeared in the target after the problematic import, i.e. before the fix. I found it helpful to save transaction lists from both source and target files prior to doing this. To "save transaction list" from the QIF (source), I first imported it into a new test Quicken file containing only the imported transactions from the QIF, then saved the transaction list. Also, noting that that import (to a brand new test file) worked led me to think it must be my source file that was corrupted, which it was.

    I should have checked for some kind of file corruption to start with, would have saved a good bit of effort.
  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
    That's great news.  I'm glad you figured it out.
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