Quicken Mac 2007 Conversion issues

conversion · November 2021

I have a quicken Mac 2007 file that converts to the latest quicken for Mac. However, there seems to be conversion errors on brokerage accounts. A simple example is a $150 purchase of shares of a mutual fund. After the conversion, the transaction is shown as $144.40, leaving an extra $5.60 in the registry. This is the first transaction that is messed up... ( Oct 2014 ). Additional conversion errors since then increase the account difference to over $2700. I also see a lot of $.01 cent errors. These can be rounding errors and easy to identify and manually fix, if necessary.

It seems to me there is a bug in the conversion program. I tried to call support and they were not helpful. I wanted to log a bug and they said they could not do that and sent me here.

I really don't want to have to check 7 years of transactions after the conversion (= pain and suffering ). I think I have about 6 accounts that all have shown some form of this problem.

Any suggestion or help would be appreciated.

jacobs · November 2021

That's odd, since the conversion code has been unchanged for quite a long time, to the best of my knowledge, and many thousands of users have converted their files without those kinds of dollar amount problems. (The rounding, yes; the outright change in the amount, no.)

Are you sure in Quicken 2007 you didn't use the Commission field to make the dollar total of the transaction correct? I'm wondering if you're having some issue there. It seems hard to understand how the conversion would just change the transaction by some random amount.

You can report a possible bug form within Quicken using the Help > Report a Problem screen. But you won't receive any response to such a submission. Even if they can verify it, it goes into their database of bugs to fix, and might not get dealt with for some time. (They prioritize bugs based on both severity and how many users they think it affects; since the number of people converting from Quicken 2007 these days is probably pretty small, I'm guessing it wouldn't get treated as a high priority issue.) It's important to try to describe how to reproduce the error via your text or screenshots you include, because if the person on the Quicken end can't reproduce or verify a bug pretty readily, they'll just toss it. Unfortunately, this path doesn't lead to any quick relief for you.

I think you need to do a little more work to try to see if there's any rhyme or reason to the incorrect amounts, and to ascertain how widespread this problem is (e.g. every 3rd transaction, or 10 times over the years?). It may be that your best or only path is to work trough each account -- ideally side-by-side with Quicken 2007 if you still have a computer which can run it -- to fix your data and complete your migration to the modern Quicken MAc.

conversion · November 2021

@jacobs

In it simplest form, I have a NY529 that changes the "fund" as my child gets older. This one account has one major error. Basically, they sold $5000 of fund 1 and bought $5000 of fund 2. The purchase of fund 2 does not consume the $5000 from the registry to purchase the new shares. When I look at other brokerage accounts, I see the same similar behavior. I have deleted and re-added that transaction and I will re-import to see if any difference ( TBD, I wanted to try to update more suspect transactions before re-importing, so I will get more information on the next pass )

I have a 2nd file that I want to upgrade and it also has these problems. I imported this files ( it has a 401k in it ) and similar problems. Thinking the quotes files might be the problem, I deleted the quotes file. This had no effect.

Any other idea( like deleting the quotes file before import ) that I can try? Maybe re-build indexes or some other tricks and I can do?

Is there recommended way to export some data from my quicken 2007 for close review ( CSV files or something that can be opened to review the data for a given date?) maybe to verify that data in the original file is correct ( to prove the conversion is the trigger? )

MrJumbo · November 2021

I can verify that as a Quicken 2007 user for many years I had a similar issue. Thousands of transactions were imported apparently just fine. A few transactions were off. One spurious transaction was imported. Several accounts were affected, including some brokerage, some retirement, some cash (checking).

My resolution, since I didn't have hundreds of transactions to fix:

1) Check balances on each account, comparing to Quicken 2007 balances, making sure they are the same, to the penny.

2) Where a balance was not right, open Quicken 2007 and New Quicken side by side, then go through the register for that account. Start at the top and verify that the balances matched to begin with. Jump about halfway down the history of the account and check the balance again. If the balance is the same in both versions, go another halfway down (i.e. another 25% down through the file). If it's not, jump backward through history again, narrowing down where the fluke transaction is.

3) Fix the transaction, once I find it.

4) Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until the current balance is correct.

Several transactions were off by a penny. Others were off by other small amounts. Sometimes a discrepancy would result in hundreds of dollars of difference. A lot of issues had to do with stock splits or spinoffs (which I usually let Quicken 2007 handle automatically), so for instance it might show the Return on Capital at $273 and the new stock purchased at $271. Once I located the discrepancies, they all seemed pretty easy to fix. The number was not infinite, but I'd say it was probably at least a few dozen problems, and hunting them all down took a couple of hours.

My impression is that the new program is slicker and smoother and built from a clean code base and has many improvements minor and more significant, so I don't mind the investment in time to get things right. But the import problem is not imaginary.

I have a different issue with importing data, which I'll discuss elsewhere. I'm still looking for how to fix an issue where money market shares are imported at 1/100 the correct number of shares. But that's a topic for different place.

jacobs · November 2021

I definitely recommend rebuilding indexes in Quicken 2007 before importing to the current Quicken Mac; that can sometimes resolve/prevent various odd import errors. I don't think the quotes in Quicken 2007 are likely to be a source of problems.

conversion said:

Basically, they sold $5000 of fund 1 and bought $5000 of fund 2. The purchase of fund 2 does not consume the $5000 from the registry to purchase the new shares.

Are you saying that there is a Sell transaction selling shares of Fund 1 which increases the register balance by $5,000, followed by a Buy transaction purchasing shares of Fund 2 worth $5,000, yet the register balance is unchanged? Can you capture a screenshot of the two transactions in the register?

I would also look through the register to see if there are any placeholder transactions, which are gray, and often dated at the beginning of your transaction history. Placeholders are transactions Quicken inserts when it thinks the balance or holdings don't match due to some missing transaction history.

smayer97 · November 2021

Rebuilding indexes (⌘-⌥-B) DOES NOT affect investment/brokerage registers in QM2007.

There are different rebuilding features in QM2007 for that.

Command (⌘)-Option (⌥)-L in Brokerage Register Window - repair register - resets to FIFO method
Command (⌘)-Option (⌥)-L in Portfolio Window - repair ALL registers - resets to FIFO method
Command (⌘)-Option (⌥)-U in Portfolio Window - Rebuild Prices (based on transactions)

Not sure if any of these will solve your problems.

Always back sure you have reliable backups before attempting any of these.

Quicken Mac 2007 Conversion issues

Comments

Categories