Problem, solution requested

Sorry - AFAIK there are no provisions to merge or selectively export/import transactions in Qdata files.

-- Actually I was able to answer my own question.

I went to Google and entered: copy quicken transaction into a different quicken data file and it walked me through the answer. It worked.

In the future use an SD card for Quicken data. Use a card that fits your laptop and, if required, an adapter for the card to fit your desktop. Check the GB required before you get the card but the current Amazon sale of 32GB for $9 will be more than enough.

Then change both Quicken setups to use the SD card for all data and backups and when you travel just move SD card from desktop to laptop. On return swap the card back. Do not unplug the card unless Quicken is NOT running.

If you want a little more insurance backup the SD card by including it in you current backup/image OR copy all files into a folder that is already included in your backup/image.

Your credit card bill should just be a **single** transaction from your checking (Assuming you paid it from your checking account) to your credit card account with the transfer accounts in the transaction.

After all, you just wrote ONE check, right?

What do you mean 100 detailed items in your split???

Good thought. It would have obviated the need for all this fussing. Thanks.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, Andrew. It WAS a single split transaction with about 100 items in the split. In other words, it was vacation and we charged 100 items to our AMEX in a single billing cycle.

Imagine what a burden it would be if I had to re-enter this in my desktop Quicken, and what a relief it was to be able to copy it.

OK - you are aware that there's a alternative (I dare say) better/recommended method of entering credit card charges in an account as you go, rather than in a single split transaction payment entry, correct? Before I go further, I just want to ensure you are doing it your way deliberately for some reason?

Sure, Andrew. I like the Quicken product, and depend upon it for analysis of my expenses and income. But I want minimum contact with it. It leaves me more time to do what I really want to do.

I think you probably may just not agree with me. It's a matter of personal preference to me that I choose the way that requires the least interaction with Quicken.

Only problem is slight slow down in opening and saving backups even with SDHC. One could use USB external drive but that is heavier and something extra to carry around.

I suspect that rather than create a credit card account, he creates a single payment transaction in his checking account with all the charges for that payment.

It works, but not the cleanest way to manage credit card accounts.

When I save a Quicken file I up load it to Google Drive. You can use any cloud storage. If I ma going to use Quicken on a differente computer, which isn't often, I download it to the other computer.

I agree with using the way "that requires the least interaction" is the way to go. However, I average about 75 credit card transactions per month and your way would substantially increase my time interacting with quicken. I prefer the standard method which doesn't take much time at all.

You average about twice as many as I do, but even with 75 per month, that's only two and a half per day. It takes me only a very few seconds to enter one, and even if it takes you as much as ten seconds for each, that's only 25 seconds per day. What to do is your choice, of course, but to me, the time is next to nothing.

And by the way, you don't even have to enter the transactions manually. You can download them every day (or every few days, or even just once a month, just before reconciling) with one step update.

I do both: I enter them manually when they occur, then confirm what I entered with one step update every day. Even the combination of the two takes me very little time.

And to add an additional point: if you do something like what I do with one step update, reconciliation of the account becomes a trivial thing to do; essentially the account is already reconciled when you do the reconciliation, and so the monthly reconciliation takes only a very few seconds. So considering the time savings in reconciliation, you might find that my way "requires the least interaction."

I don't enter anything manually. Everything is on One Step Update. I do monitor "Category" and "Tag" and edit if necessary. 9 times out of 10, Quicken gets it right.

Ken Blake wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I do that as well. The primary resaon is that I know about bogus transactions within a day or two, without having to wait for my monthly statement, and then trying to remember what each charge was for.

OK, but I'm confused now. If you have gotten all the individual transactions from One Step Update, what and why is the big split transaction? From what you describe, I see no need for such a thing.

That was Gary who said that he does the split transactions. I was just trying to explain why I would never do that because I use OSU for everything.

My apologies.

Re-entering the conversation, as long as Gary knows there's an alternative (again, perhaps 'better' way, but as he said, 'to each their own'), I certainly can accept his answer. I was really just ensuring he knew (as someone in this thread said), it's not the 'optimal' way.