QIF files

QIF is a feature to import/export accounts and to merge accounts. Without it, if an account becomes corrupted, you will have to retype everything. With it you can export the register entries and import them into a new account. With it you could export one account from one file and merge or create a new account in another fie. With it you could merge two accounts into one.

Can I just clarify a couple of things?

I think I would say, QIF is a standard describing a file format and a feature allowing a user to import/export transactions and to merge/split accounts.

I think this may not necessarily be so. For non-investment accounts, it may be possible to correct corruption by doing a copy/paste of transactions from a corrupted account to a new, hopefully, not corrupted account.

Of course, it is possible, depending on the design of the "cut/copy/paste" process, that the corruption could be carried over to the new account ... but it was also possible for that to happen with QIF files too (though a saving grace was that, if you suspected the corruption made its way into the QIF file, and you could find it, you could likely correct or eliminate it). But if the cut/copy/paste process is robust enough, it could permit you to eliminate, at least some, corruption in non-investment accounts.

What that statement on the website means is that if have bank/401k/brokerage accounts at institutions that only provide .qif downloads of the transactions, you won't be able to import them into Quicken starting with the 2005 version. They originally planned to include credit card accounts in this restriction also in 2005, but put that off 1 year until the 2006 version.

Intuit has 3 methods of getting your account information from institutions into your Quicken data:

1) The oldest way was to use .qif file imports. This is the most tedious method and the biggest hassle for the user and what they are fazing out. You have to log into your institution's website and download your transactions to a file on your computer. Then do a File/Import from within Quicken and specify the qif file, the Quicken account and what you want imported from the file. 2) Web Connect is better than .qif file imports but it still requires you to login to the institution's website and request a download of your transactions. It then automatically imports the transactions into the correct account in Quicken (per your acceptance of them). But you don't have to the save a file locally or do the File/Import thing manually. 3) Direct Connect from within Quicken does everything automatically by connecting to your financial institution and downloading and importing the transaction information into your accounts. This is by far the most convenient method for Quicken users.

What Intuit is trying to do is get the financial institutions that are still using the .qif file import method to switch to one of the other two methods. I think they have two motivations for this. 1) I believe they charge these institutions to use the second two methods, but not the first; and 2) the second two methods are much more convenient for the users. I'm sure the 1st reason is their primary one.

So I hope this action does finally drive these institutions to switch from .qif files to Quicken Direct Connect. But I hate that Intuit charges these institutions to do so and thus some institutions charge for that access (e.g. Wells Fargo charges customers $3/month for Direct Connect, but Web Connect is now free since .qif to bank accounts is no long available in 2005 version). But that's what they can do with near monopoly status. We'll see how well they can throw their weight around with this since we're in the middle of it now.

Steve

Thank you for your explanation. I just checked and the bank does use qif file as their means of exporting to quicken. I guess we either stick with ms money or quicken 2004. Getting 2005 is definitely out.

This is not a huge hassle. It's not as easy as using web connect, but as a practical matter, web connect's never worked well for me when I use Mozilla, so most of the time I end up using QIFs. The only part of this that's really tedious is needing to make sure you export and import the right dates, though the import stage will generally (not always) take care of redundant transactions.

This is nice when it works. I've got it working on one bank account.

Particularly since if it truly were more convenient for the users (and I ain't saying it ain't) then users would certainly make this choice on their own, rather than shutting the QIF option out of newer versions of the software and crippling the web connect option on older versions.

Any potential user of Intuit products should expect to pay for an upgrade no less than every three years, perhaps even more frequently, not because compelling new capabilities have been added, but because the company will zap capabilities that you may have become accustomed to using and will exploit its monopoly in ways that would make Microsoft blush. Figure $30 or so every two-three years (your guess is as good as mine, and it's on Intuit's schedule, not yours) and don't forget to include the hassle of learning to work your way around a retooled interface.