Searching for transactions in registers (Q Mac)

William McIntyre
William McIntyre Member ✭✭
I've used Quicken since about 1992. Until recently I could search for transactions or scroll through registers going back to then. I tried to search for a payee today and was unsuccessful even though I've purchased with my credit cards many times. I have two credit cards. When I tried scrolling through the registers to find the transaction, one went back to just 10/23/21 and the other to 7/20/21. I chatted with tech support and we decided that these dates were when the cards were compromised and new account numbers issued. He says I can never see transactions before those dates but if I go on the bank web site, it shows a seamless transition. The transactions under the prior account number show up under then new account number. Over the years I've had several compromises and I feel sure that I was always able to search or scroll Quicken for transactions under the previous account numbers. I'm wondering if the problem is that I recently started letting Quicken download transactions from the bank rather than manually entering them myself? Anyway, any help would be appreciated. I'd like to be able to search or scroll back to transaction no matter how long ago they were.

Comments

  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    I chatted with tech support and we decided that these dates were when the cards were compromised and new account numbers issued. He says I can never see transactions before those dates
    Changing card numbers and even accounts would not have wiped out your transaction history, so that sounds like terribly bad and wrong advice from Quicken Support. 

    But to unravel this, we'll need some additional information. When these credit card numbers got changed, do you recall what you did in Quicken? That is, did you mark the old accounts closed and create new accounts? You didn't start a whole new Quicken data file from scratch at that time, did you? 

    The first thing I would try is clicking on All Transactions at the top of the left sidebar. Now do a Search for the Payee you were searching for, and see if the older transactions show up in the register.

    When you have All Transactions selected, a Search will dig through all your accounts, including accounts which may be closed and hidden. If this Search finds the transactions you were looking for, it likely means you old account or accounts were marked as closed and hidden. There is an easy way to reunite the old transactions and the recent transactions back into a single account if that's the case, but let me not get ahead of myself here and see what you find by trying this Search.
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • BG RUSSO
    BG RUSSO Member ✭✭
    why is searching for tranactions not working?? I will put a keyword like "oil" and nothing comes up...it used to work?? any more suggestions?
  • BG RUSSO
    BG RUSSO Member ✭✭
    never mind....all good
  • Jacobs, I'm sorry I took so long to get back after your reply. I mistakenly thought I would get notifications of responses, and when I didn't I forgot about it. But to answer your questions- I did click on all transactions but that just took me back to the dates when my two Visa accounts were given new account numbers.

    As far as I can recall, all I did was double click on the Account names and then type in the new numbers. For instance B0fA Visa 1234 became BofA visa 5678. I don't think I marked accounts closed and hidden. But now I look at Hidden Accounts list and see one former Visa account number but no others. So apparently I must have closed it. When I clicked on that account, I was able to search and find the transactions that I was looking for in the first place. So that solves my immediate problem, but I'm left wondering what happened to the other account. Also, I've had both accounts for many years and they have been compromised and assigned new numbers several times each. When I find a hidden account, will it included transactions for all the account numbers that preceded it?

    I very much appreciate your help.
  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    There's no way for me to guess exactly what you did or your credit card company did, but nothing with account changes should ever delete any transactions in your Quicken file. If you or the financial institution triggered Quicken to close and account and create a new account, no transaction data should be lost. 

    If you want to re-unite your old transactions with new ones, you can use Shows & Hide Accounts to re-open the old account in Quicken; then click on that account in the left sidebar, Edit > Select All the transactions, and click-and-drag one of the highlighted transactions over the new account in the left sidebar. This will move all the transactions from the old account into the new account. You'll have to find the Opening Balance transaction in the new account and delete it, because all the old transactions replace the value of the opening balance. (If you decide to do this, before you start please (a) do a backup in case anything gets messed up, and (b) write down the current balance of the account, in case you need to make an adjustment to get it back to the correct value.)
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • Thanks
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