Should I switch from 2005 to 2006?

I don't think so. Regardless, there are lots of great cards out there that do direct downloads. Switch cards and upgrade Quicken, IMNSHO. That's why I did, and I'm very happy. Getting more cash back, too. :-)

Regards,

Margaret

Nope.

Yes, but not as easily as you could in earlier versions of Quicken.

There are two approaches: you can import the credit card transactions to a Quicken "cash" account and cut/paste them into the credit card account; or you can add a few records to the beginning of the qif file and import that file directly into the credit card account.

The card is Emigrant direct which pays 1.4% back on every purchase. That's hard to beat. Yes I know you can get 5% back on special purchases with other cards but this is every purchase. That's tough to beat. I anyone knows of a better card, please let me know.

I use three cards - two pay 5% on gas, supermarket, and drug store purchases. I alternate every six months to avoid exceeding the $300 cash back limit. The third is an MBNA Fidelity affinity card which pays 1.5% on everything. The cash is deposited automatically every three months to my Fidelity account, so of course you have to have an account with Fidelity to get the card.

Jim

The Fidelity 1.5% sounds really good. Is that visa/mastercard? The reason I haven't used my Schwab MBNA is that you can only download a complete statement at a time. Anotherwords, you can't download daily transasctions. Is that the way the Fidelity is also?

It's a Mastercard. And yes, the MBNA/Fidelity card is web-connect only, so you can only download the complete statement. Of course, you can look on line anytime to see what charges have accumulated. It even shows the authorizations, posted within minutes of the transaction.

Jim

Alright I'll bite... Can you direct me to were I can find what these few records might look like? Can I make them once and re-use them? I just upgraded from Q2003 to Q2006 and have one account that I have to bring qif records into. The import into "cash" and then cut/paste has worked (I've only had to do it once so far) but going directly to my "real" account would be nicer. Your guidance would be appreciated. Thanks. Geo.

There were two reasons that I did not post how to do this.

One: cut/paste from an existing account is easier in your situation, to my way of thinking. If you were trying to import to an investment account, I think the other method would be easier.

Two: I have posted the way to do this before. It is available in this newsgroup and in the Intuit Quicken forums.

Once more: add the following 4 records to the beginning of your qif file (assuming the file is for ONE account).

!Account NMyAccountName Txxxx ^

Where:

MyAccountName is the EXACT Quicken name of the account you intend to import to.

Where:

xxxx varies depending on the type of the account you want to import to.

xxxx = Bank for a checking or savings account xxxx = Cash for a cash account xxxx = CCard for a credit card account (unnecessary for Q2005 since you can import directly to a credit card account) xxxx = Invst for an investment account

Thanks.

I was pretty sure that you would have made reference to the formats here in the past - I just didn't know what to search for to limit the hits. I was sort of hoping that maybe a link to a post was available but the simple format that you repeated is pretty straight forward. Again thanks.

I've not yet accustomed myself to thinking about the Intuit Forums. I know they're there - just haven't developed the habit of looking there. I'll have to work on that.

You're probably right about my use of qif in Q06. It is for a single credit card [presently] and one with low activity to boot and the cut/paste worked plenty well enough. I just wanted to have the format on hand to play with onetime - maybe see if a batch script could take care of it. I get involved with those kinds of experiments sometimes - mostly find out what doesn't work.

Geo.

Perhaps search on "TINVEST" (no spelling mistake).

MikeB

Or "TInvst"

I guess that would have worked. I'll now have to do it to find out. But that's precisely the part I didn't know - what to search for. Thx. G.

I wouldn't have expected anyone to remember "TInvst" as a search key; but I think you could have used "qif" for the key, used my name as the author, and screened out posts that were over 6 months old, and probably found at least one usable post.

I ultimately found one - your 2/3/2006 post on Subject: "Clarification on whether Import/Export still exists in Q/2005 or Q2006". I eventually cheated a bit by including the "TInvst" in a qif, pollard six mos. or so google groups search. My initial search without the "TInvst" produced 50 hits and when I started looking at them I decided that had I done that in the first place I probably would have bailed-out as I wouldn't have been sure what I would have been looking for. So thanks for clue. Now all I have to do is (someday) see if it does anything for me that cut/paste doesn't do well enough. Geo.