Yes, everything is being backed up. All of your accounts are in the same file.
That is normal. You can pick where you want the files to be. The default location is probably somewhere in your documents directory. (I keep mine on a separate drive in a directory E:\Quicken that I created for my Quicken files.
Max - Each Quicken 'file' (or, what is sometimes called sometimes a 'fileset') is actually a number of individual Windows files (plural) such as .qdf, .qel, etc. as you already know. Each individual Quicken file can contain any number of 'accounts', such as checking, securities, CDs, etc. By using Quicken to manipulate your backups and copying and other file operations, you need not worry at all about the number and naming conventions of the individual Windoes files that Quicken provides to you the illusion of a single logical entity called the Quicken file.
Many people think that one should NOT combine business and personal accounts either in your own banking world (that's why you have separate Business and Personal checking as you said) or in Quicken as well - and I'm not about to go into a holy war on this point which we debated already about 6 months ago or so.
So my suggestion would be to have TWO Quicken data files, one for your personal life and one for your business. One of those would contain two accounts you mentioned, and the other would contain only one - from what you've told us, I can't tell if "Washington Mutual Checking" is a business or personal account. So you'd end up with something like (I'm just offering suggestions of Quicke file names here to make a point) MAXPERS and MAXBUS and all the associated files like MAXPERS.qdf, MAXBUS.qdf, MAXPERS.qel, MAXBUS.qel, etc.
Really? Then I think I've got my Quicken Data folder screwed up.
I think I've made this a lot more complicated than it needs to be. I thought I needed a sub folder for each account.
Right now I've got a Folder called Quicken Data. In it are 3 sub folders I've created named US Bank Business Checking, US Bank Personal Checking and Washington Mutual Checking. Each of these sub folders contain QDATA files with the extensions of IDX, QDF, QEL, QPH and a DAT file.
When I do a backup it asks me which file I want to back up. By default it's pointing to J:/Quicken Data/US Bank Business Checking/QDATA.QDF, which I now assume is my actual working data folder that Quicken is working with. I back up this to a separate drive under US Bank Business Checking, and then browse to the other sub folders and back up those QDATA.QDF files as well in their separate backup sub folders.
So I can restructure my Quicken Data folder to just contain one copy of these 5 files? And then maintain my backups of these 5 files in a separate location, right?
I think I misunderstood your question and was confusing files and accounts. Andrew's response is good.
You said your files are named "QDATA." That implies to me that you let Quicken use its default name for data files rather than choosing your own. When you do File/New from Quicken, you can type in any name you wish. For example, one set of files could be named Personal and the other Business.
In general, I'd set up one Quicken file (actually a set of files, but Quicken keeps that all straight for you) for personal use and another for business. Whether you put them in the same directory or in separate directories is up to you. Quicken will name the files to keep them separate. If you are using a backup mechanism outside Quicken and using attachments, it may be easier to back up just the personal or business without any intermingling if they are in separate directories.
Each file can have an unlimited number of checking and other asset and liability accounts. For example, my Quicken data file has five checking and savings accounts at various banks, and a bunch of credit card accounts.
When I used Quicken for business, I had one file for personal accounting and one for business accounting. Each file had lots of accounts.
1) "Is there any way to separate them so they have their own QDATA file? " If you didn't use any transfers from one account to the other, you can use the Quicken file copy function to copy QDATA to some other fileset using a different name, then simply delete the account(s) that you don't want in one or the other, keeping all three accounts viable in one or the other. Maybe one would contain just your personal, the other the business. (Just keep a copy before you do anything drastic to recover!) Then you can rename QDATA to some other meaningful name as was previously mentioned, and the copied account to another meaningful name (in my other example, I used MAXPERS and MAXBUS).
2) "Or is that even necessary? " Again, as far as Quicken is concerned, no! As far as some people think you should never comingle business and personal accounts in bookkeeping systems, yes. Personally, I'd keep two SEPARATE Quicken file sets, one for business, one for personal use. YMMV.
I started to suspect my understanding of the inner workings of Quicken were skewed last week when I realized all three QData files were the same size - 3,996 KB.
Apparently I thought I needed a separate folder for each account when I set this all up a number of years ago.
What I was doing was, after updating transactions from my bank for each individual account I would go to File | Backup. I would choose the QDATA.QDF file from Personal Banking (for example) and back it up to a Quicken Data\Personal Banking folder on a different drive. After updating my USBank Business account I would do the same, Choose the QDATA.QDF from my Business Banking account and back it up to a Business Banking folder on a different drive. All I was doing was keeping three backups each time.
OK, so right now I have my three accounts - US Bank Personal, US Bank Business and Washington Mutual - all in the same QDATA file. Is there any way to separate them so they have their own QDATA file? Or is that even necessary? I have them all under Cash Flow Accounts, if that makes any difference.
I thought you said you had each of your three accounts set up in
*separate* QDATA files, not in one QDATA file. If you want to separate out accounts into their own QDATA files, then Andrew has suggested the easiest way--make a copy of the files and delete the accounts you don't want.
If you want to *combine* accounts from separate QDATA files into a single QDATA file, then file/export the accounts as QIF files and import them into the common file.
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