Merge two versions of same account

fishyOne
fishyOne Member ✭✭
Happy New Year, folks!

Using Mac 13.0.1. and Quicken Version 6.10.3 (Build 610.46328.100)

Somehow, I have two versions of what should be one account/file, each stored in a different place:

1. Quicken Active Files
2. Documents

I'm not sure when or why this happened. But I need to merge them (and not do this again!)

Any clues?

I do NOT want to store on the cloud.

Thanks!
Gina

Comments

  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Accounts and files are two very different things. Quicken files contain accounts. Since you seem to be listing two file paths, I'm going to assume you are referring to two versions of your Quicken file. 

    Before you start, make a copy of each of these files for safe keeping in case anything goes wrong with the merge. Then give each of the files a unique name so you can keep them straight. Do all of this with the Quicken app closed (quit). I will call the two files File A and File B for this discussion. File A would be the one with the most recent data.

    Now, open File B (by double clicking it in Finder), the click menu File > Export > Quicken Transfer File (QXF). Store the file anywhere convenient, such as Documents or Desktop. 

    Next, switch to File A (again, by double clicking it in Finder). Click menu File > Import > Quicken Windows File (QXF) and choose the QXF file you just saved. Quicken will import all of the accounts from File B to File A. If you have any accounts with the same name, they will be imported as duplicate accounts with a number (2) appended to the name. 

    Now you have everything in one file, but you have (possibly) duplicate accounts. You can merge the transactions of the duplicate accounts by dragging and dropping transactions from the duplicate to the original account in the sidebar. For example, select all the transactions in Checking 2 and drag them to Checking in the sidebar. You will want to try to select only transactions from the duplicate account that are not already in the original, otherwise you will have duplicate transactions in the original account that will mess up the balance. 

    After you have merged the accounts within the file, you can delete the duplicate accounts.

    Once you have File A in good shape, you can use menu File > Rename and File > Move to rename and move the file where you want it. You can then go back to the Finder and delete any unwanted files. And then in Quicken, menu File > Open Recent > Clear to clear out the recent files memory so you won't accidentally open an old file again.


    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • fishyOne
    fishyOne Member ✭✭
    Thanks so much. I called support prior to receiving your answer, and the guy refused to believe/understand that it wasn't a simple matter of deleting the older file -- that I had worked in both files.

    Some of us Quicken users are not accountants. We are experts in other fields and must use Quicken. :-)

    I followed your clear response until this point: "You can merge the transactions of the duplicate accounts by dragging and dropping transactions... You will want to try to select only transactions from the duplicate account that are not already in the original."

    How do I know which are the unique transactions (unique to one file)? There is no way to globally delete duplicate transactions?

    thanks so much
    Gina
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    There's no easy way to know which transactions are duplicates. There is no automated duplicate filter.

    Hopefully there's a fairly recent date before which you know everything is the same. So you only have to look after this date. If you can't easily see which are duplicates, then probably the best strategy is to just copy over everything after this "safe date" and then find the duplicates manually. But you can use some techniques to make this easier. One would be to filter the transactions to the date range in question, then sort the register by amount. That makes it pretty easy to spot transactions with the same amount and then easily see the duplicate pairs. Hope that makes sense.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • fishyOne
    fishyOne Member ✭✭
    Thank you! And yes, I was using the term "account" when I meant "file."
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