My desktop computer died and I managed to transfer my Quicken 2001 Deluxe files to a backup laptop, but I haven't got the original program. If I were to purchase a 2006 version of Quicken, would I be able to use my old files by just importing them? Would any version of Quicken 2006 do this? Thanks in advance.
AFAIK, it should. Be advised that you will no longer be able to import QIF files if you upgrade beyond Q04. If QIFs are important, you should look on eBay for copies on sale..
Regards, Hank Arnold
professor wrote:
No, but it should work if you RESTORE the backup using a new version of Quicken 2006. Importing is a facility used for QIF and QFX files.
All except the New User Edition.
I realize that QIF files can no longer be imported into Q2006. It appears that many people don't like losing this capability. Why do you think Intuit did this?
I think Intuit did this because they did not want to be bothered with people calling them after getting confused by it. QIF files have no way of associating an existing transaction in the register with a transaction data item in the QIF. In other words, in the real world you could have two credit card transactions in the same dollar amount to the same merchant on the same date, and it could be legitimate. A QFX import would show the two transactions as separate transactions, and if you imported the data again later with a QFX, Quicken would know that you have already imported both, so it would not import them again. With QIF, you would get those transactions added with each import. So if your downloads overlap, you will get data with duplicate transactions.
QFX is far more robust, and has far more meaningful information than what QIF supports.
That being said, despite what Intuit tells you officially, you CAN import QIF files. You might need to alter them first. One of these days, I might write a program to do that and put it out there, but in the mean time, here are some guidelines.
If you have data for a bank account (credit card, checking, savings, etc) then create a cash account. Import your QIF into the cash account, select the transactions you want, and move them to the register where they belong. Assuming that you have Q2006 select all transactions by clicking on them, and using the shift or control keys in the standard Windows way to select multiple transactions. Then use the Edit > Transaction > Move transaction(s) menu item to move them.
For investment data, it's a bit more work. Quicken accepts some formats but not others. A general rule is that if you have a QIF that starts with !Type:Invst, you want it to start with
!Option:AutoSwitch !Account NName of investment account in Quicken TInvst ^ !Type:Invst
... D3/15'06 NXIn PTransfer L[My Checking account] MTransfer for my IRA U2000.00 T2000.00 $2000.00 ^
...then you would need to have an account called "My Checking account" already in place. If you don't, the import will still work, but the xfer acct data will be missing.
Once you have that, you go to import your QIF, but set the "Quicken account to import into" to "" and it should work.
Remember, these are general rules and it's possible that something in your data is not the way I might expect it to be. So if you want to try this, it is IMPORTANT TO DO THIS FIRST: Click on File > new, and create a new Quicken file. Import things there first, and look over your data carefully. If you are SURE that it did what you wanted, then you can back up your regular Quicken file first to be safe, then do the import to your regular Quicken file.
Even though I outlined this for investment accounts only, I think the same rules will work for other kinds of accounts, with the account type changed of course. It's just less of an issue for bank accounts, though, since there's an official way. Also, asset account data can be moved to/from cash accounts, so the same rules apply as above. Import to a cash account first, then move transactions.
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