A way out of quicken?

Buy an older version of Quicken used, upgrade, and then upgrade to the latest version.

The respected father should perhaps use a freeware backup program to back up the data files to an external drive, e.g. a USB-connected flash drive or hard drive in an external case, both of which should be removed/powered off when not actively being used. Cobian Backup is a great backup program, as is SyncBack, both free or available as a freeware version. Google for them. The data files are usually located under the program files in Program Files or wherever Quicken was installed.

Larry

thanks for useful pointers - will try those things!

Helen

There are later Quicken UK versions than Q98; I think the last one was Q2004. Look for the most recent one on eBay.

Regardless of what version of Quicken you use, keep your Quicken data in a separate folder of its own. You can "backup" that folder by using Windows to "copy" the folder to any destination you like. (Quicken "backups" are nothing but exact copies of your Quicken data fileset ... which you can duplidate with a Windows "copy" ... provided you insure you have every Windows file that comprises your Quicken data).

Setup one or more "backup" folders on your hard drive; backup there first. (The odds are you will need a backup to recover from software problems or user errors more than you will need a backup to recover from hardware problems; backups on your hard drive are very handy for the more common need.) When necessary, "copy" your hard drive backups to the offline medium of your choice to protect yourself from hardware problems.

I'm in a similar position, using Quicken 2002 Deluxe & Business for the UK. You can upgrade to later versions of UK Quicken (ebay will provide if nothing else) and that will handle the backup problem.

However, I'm looking for a longer term way out I think. I need to investigate MS Money, and I've also tried KMyMoney under Linux. KMyMoney would pretty much do me if it only had a financial calendar view similar to Quicken's. It -does- have a calendar view, but it's for entering scheduled transactions only, it doesn't show you historic ones or have the nice predicated balance graph that Quicken does.

Shame - I've been a Quicken user since about 1992 I think. But if they've pulled the product then it's time to look around.

Cheers, Ian

Have you actually been able to use the balance forecast planner graph? I've set the graph to show 1 year. When I try to use Update Forecast, I get an error (The number of scheduled transactions has exceeded Forecastings limit). I have about 35 scheduled transactions which doesn't sound like a lot. I've tried to reduce the number of scheduled transactions by removing the checking account from the planner's list of accounts. I still get the error even though about half of my scheduled transactions have the checking account as either the source or destination. This is even if I give Update Forecast a date range of 3/2007 to 4/2007!

Maybe there's a trick I need to use.

Mike

Not run into that problem myself, though I'm not sure how many scheduled transactions I have - 35 sounds a bit high for me, I think something like 15 or 20 would be more what I have. Then again, I'm only in testing mode with this at the moment. Until it can match the financial calendar view, I'm happy continuing with Quicken 2002.

I'm actually on OS X so I'm doubly unsupported by Intuit (OS X version isn't multicurrency, no PC version for the UK). I run Windows in a virtual machine specifically to use Quicken, an also set up a virtual machine running Linux (Ubuntu) to try out KMyMoney. One more virtual machine to give MS Money a go seems like the order of the day at the moment, but I'm quite keen to go open source if possible. Don't want to find myself in this position again should MS pull out of the market or (more likely in the long-term future) start moving their stuff to tie-in with online subscriptions etc.. KMyMoney is -almost- there for me, if this calendar view gets beefed up then I'm happy to make the move.

Cheers, Ian

I've seen that message before, but don't remember just where. I always thought it was a bug or possibly corruption that Quicken could not correct. I'm pretty sure I don't get it in all my files.

What specific steps are you taking to get the message? Are we talking about the "Cash Flow Forecast" on the Planning menu?

Yes, it is indeed the cash flow forecast from the Planning menu. The problem is very easy for me to reproduce, I choose Cash Flow Forecast then click on Options. At this point, I choose Update Forecast then OK. At this point, I get the error message "The number of scheduled transactions has exceeded Forecastings limit."

Do you get the same message if you try the planner's forecast?

After looking at it, I think the planner cash forecast is different than the cash forecasts that show up by the calendars. These ones seem to be limited to showing a single month at a time and only allowing accounts from the top half of the "Cash Flow Center". On the other hand, the results are much more plausible.

I'm wondering about changing our main credit card account into a regular bank account to try the calendar forecasts on a more complete set of accounts. I might be able to create a new bank account, select all transactions in the current account then cut and paste them into the new account. I'd obviously want to make a backup first.

Any comments?

Thanks

Mike

I was hoping I could provide some meaningful observations, but so far, my efforts to dig up something useful have proved futile.

I investigated using my regular file in Q2005, and test files for Q2002, Q2004, Q2006 and Q2007. All exhibit the same behavior you have reported. (I should say that the "test" files were largely created by bringing forward files from the previous versions ... that meant bringing forward the Scheduled Transactions and probably any corruption ... though I believe I have Validated all the files).

Most of those files contain from 45 to 55 transactions in the Scheduled Transactions List (a *very* loose estimate) ... with varying frequencies.

Using Q2005 Deluxe, US: I created a New Quicken file; created one new checking account, and began adding transactions in the checking account. After adding each transaction, I would right-click on it, the left-click "Schedule Transaction". Then I would open the Cash Flow Forecast and tell it to "Update Forecast" using the default date range (01/2007 thru 12/2007) - the same date range that produced the error in all my previous tests.

After adding 49 Scheduled Transactions (and giving virtually every one of them a One Week frequency), I had yet to get any message about "too many scheduled transactions". Following the addition of the 50th (to be honest, I actually got to 52 scheduled transactions before my next "test"), I finally saw the message about too many transactions. After reducing my Scheduled Transaction List to 49 transactions, I no longer got the message.

So I am inclined to retract my earlier guesses that this is a bug, or due to corruption. There just appears to be a Quicken imposed limit on the number of Scheduled Transactions that the Cash Flow Forecast can process. A limit I would prefer was higher.

Yes.

I agree completely.

Basically, I agree. I use this (the Bills and Scheduled Transactions graph) for my "cash flow" judgements.

The reason this statement is here is that I wrote it many hours before I actually finished the post I finally sent ... having forgotten what I already written by the time I posted. The reason I thought my post wouldn't be useful was that I had reached the point of entering more than 40 Scheduled Transactions ... and had begun to believe that I would not uncover a single useful piece of information.

I no longer think my post is quite as useless as I did when I wrote that first paragraph ... though it's definitely not as useful as I would have liked.

That's interesting! I tried Validating my files again. Validation did find a few issues this time (In my case, it doesn't usually). I can now update the forecast without errors! Now I need to see how useful the forecast is.

Mike