Importing old data

Hi, Ed.

You'll have to ask the guy who input the beginning balance! ;^}

So far as I know, a Quicken "file" does not have a "balance". Each of the Accounts within the Quicken file has a balance. If there is only a single Account, then I suppose that could be referred to as the balance of the file, but that is not really the way to look at it.

Do you mean the beginning balance of your checking account? Or your stockbroker's account? Or your loan balances? You said you've been using "Quick"; do you mean Quicken? Or QuickBooks? Which version are you using now?

Where did your new Quicken file get "The Beginning ballance of my current file"? My guess is that YOU input the balance, either directly or as the result of several entries. Where did you get the numbers you input? Did the beginning balance take into account any outstanding checks or other reconciling items as of the new file's start date?

Why did you start a new file? Did you start with post-2004 transactions, or did you record some historical data, too? Did you simply re-create your old file, with all its history, to clean out any deadwood?

Yes, you could load your old Quicken file, Export all transactions - or all from one or more specific accounts, or for a specific period - and then Import them into your new file. But I don't know if that would accomplish what you want, because I don't know what you are trying to do.

RC

ok ok ok ... more info:

I've been using Quicken since '99 and now have 2007Pro.

In the past, I had problems with previous versions where I could not order the transactions in my checking by check number. The numbers would go in order but scrolling down more showed yet another series of checks which should have been in the middle of the previous set. I figured I'd start a new file... Fresh. I input the ballance of my checking manually and it is currently reconciled with my paper statement. The old file's last transaction was Oct 2005... and i can't remember that far back... I reconcile monthly so it was a surprise to me to see the balance on Oct 2005 in both files be so different.

The only reason I want to import is that it would be nice to have the data... what I should do is rename the accounts to it does not affect my current checking account.

-Ed

R. C. White wrote:

Hi, Ed.

Sorry to be so nosy about your finances, but we can't help if we don't know what you're trying to do. If we know (a) where you are now and (c) where you'd like to end up, we probably can help you with (b) how to get from (a) to (c). ;^} But if we are confused about either (a) or (c), then we get lost trying to figure out (b). :>(

In the checking register, click on the header of the column you want to sort on. Click at the top of the Num column to sort by check number; click again to toggle between ascending and descending. The small black triangle icon tells us which is the current order. And recognize that you may have entries with text (EFT, DEP, etc.) or nothing at all in this column, so they will be sorted to the top or bottom of the list. By default, I think, check registers are sorted by Date, so if your checks were written out of numerical sequence, switching between Date and Num will change the listing.

Remember Y2K? And all the confusion and publicity before and after January

WHICH balance? WHICH statement? From the 10/31/05 bank statement? From your checkbook? From your former Quicken file? The old file's last transaction was on WHICH DAY in Oct 2005? The balance on Oct 1 is not likely to be the same as on Oct 31 - or Oct 22.

We can't see the statement. You can, so YOU will have to look carefully to identify the reconciling items. If a check you wrote in Sep 2005 didn't clear until Nov 2005, your opening balance will need to be adjusted for that.

It still is not clear to me whether you want your new Quicken file to start as of 10/31/05, or 1/1/06, or at the beginning date of your former Quicken file - or some other date. If you want it to start at the beginning, then you will have to do something like: load your old Quicken file; use Quicken's File | Export and send all your prior data to a QIF file; then load your NEW Quicken file and use File | Import to bring in all that data. You can choose to export/import data from only a specific time period, or other selection.

But if your NEW file is to start with some recent date (11/1/05?), then why would you Import prior data? Except possibly for previously-acquired assets that you still have, such as a car, a home, or investments. If something like that is your concern, please be more specific in your question.

You've lost me here. Is your current checking account NOT the same as the one on 10/31/05?

Maybe all you really want to do is start a new Quicken File as of 11/1/05 (or some other recent date), while keeping the old file for historical reference. To do that, just start a new Quicken File with a name like ED2007, or rename the old one ED2005 and use ED again for the new one. Use ED2007 for your current and continuing transactions; when you want to check on something in the past, use File | Open to load ED2005 temporarily.

DO NOT trip over Quicken's terminology: A "file" may include only a single checking "account", but it usually includes several asset and liability "accounts" (checking, saving, auto, investment, loans, etc.), as well as many income and expense "categories" (salary income, rent expense, and so on). Quicken "accounts" continue indefinitely, year after year; "categories" accumulate until the end of a year, then start over for the next year. As a long-time Quicken user, I'm sure you know this, but it helps to restate the obvious now and then, just to be sure that we are speaking the same jargon.

RC

R.C. - What does THAT mean? Haven't a clue what you mean by that. My categories (eg: SEWER, TELEPHONE, CHESSCLUBDUES, etc.) are entities that have numeric values assigned as I categorize expenses to them, and if I run a report over multiple years, they certainly don't 'start over'. I must be missing something?

Hi, Andrew.

Thanks for catching that. I didn't word it very well. You are right: Categories continue indefinitely, just like Accounts. That's why I can look up today what I paid for my telephone bill back in 1998. And I can easily get a total of all my telephone expenses for all the years that I've been using Quicken, just by adjusting the dates in my report.

My accounting mindset was at work, I suppose. In pen-and-paper accounting, we "close" the income and expense accounts each year by making "closing" entries to reduce all their balances to zero. We put the net income (or loss) into the Capital Account, which does carry over to the next year, just like the Asset and Liability Accounts. Then the income and expense accounts start over from zero for the new year.

Quicken doesn't actually zero out the Categories at year-end. But, by default, it shows only the current year-to-date when we ask for an income statement report, which produces the same result. If we want a different result, we can Customize the report, or just change the period to be included.

I hope this didn't confuse Ed, the OP - or any other reader.

RC

Ok... Thanks for the details about the little triangles about the columns to sort. I'm a little beyond that. The issue I was having, is that when I ordered my checking account entries by Check number, I'd get something like this: 10,11,12,19, 20, 21, ATM, ATM, ATM, ATM,

What I miss is being able to search for transactions prior to my "migration". It would be nice to be able to search for all payments to my phone company, as per your example below.

My fear is that importing the data may imported whatever data corruption was present in the first place. Second, as I tried to explain, if I point Quicken to the old QDF file I "was" using, and look at my main checking account's ballance on the last transaction in the register, is not equal to (by a long shot) the opening balance of the first transacftion in my new QDF. I don't really care to reconcile stuff that's year's old. I could go into the old QDF and apply an adjustment transactions to bring the two in-line I guess... or I could rename the account to OldCheckingAccount and import that. This way, when I search for all transactions paid to my phone company, I'll look at my current checking account as well as OldCHeckingAccount. Does that make sense??

THis is not that big a deal... but I appreciate your responses !

-Ed

Ah, ok R.C.! No problem-0. Yes, I remember that fun exercise when I took the bookkeeping (did you know that's one of the only, if not only, words in English that has 3 pairs of repeating letters adjasent to each other?) class some years ago. "Adjusting" and "Closing" entries; brings back memories.

Thanks for the update as always.

Hi, Ed.

Yes, it makes sense. But I don't think it will work as well as you hope. I think a better strategy would be to leave the old transactions out of your new Quicken file. Leave all the old data (OldCheckingAccount, as well as any other Accounts in that file) where they are: in a separate Quicken file. You might rename that file something like EdOld (holding EdOld.QDF plus related EdOld.* files, of course). When you need to research old transactions, click File | Open and browse to EdOld.qdf and click on it. When you are done looking back, just File | Open your EdNew.qdf file and click. You will never have the two files open at the same time, so you won't be able to get a 5-year report covering 2002-2006, for example, but you can see the two separate parts and add them together.

Presumably, you won't want to actually make any entries in the EdOld file. It's only for historical reference. However, you might want to dig into it and see if you can spot what is causing the error in the closing balance (as of October 2005) in that checking account. It could be a weird transaction that also is messing up the listing of your check numbers. Fixing one or more errors could fix both problems. Once the EdOld file is "clean", you could either import it into your EdNew file, or you could export from both EdOld and EdNew and import them both into a new EdNOW file. ; Ok... Thanks for the details about the little triangles about the