However, Quicken for Mac cannot import this. If your business is switching from the personal financial management program Quicken to the more business-oriented program QuickBooks, moving your data between the two programs normally involves using an intermediate file format called.
Today I was presented with a brand-new challenge: To convert a MoneyDance file to QuickBooks Online. It was quite theDance! I was given a.qif file, but all the tools I found within QuickBooks, QBO, and Quicken all imported.qif files bank account by bank account, instead of the whole file. And Quicken declared that qif files couldn’t be used for bank accounts or credit cards. I also had no way to import the Categories list. I turned to MoneyThumb’s qif2qbo converter, but it had the same 1-account-at-a-time issue. I finally found a solution!
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It took many steps and many software versions to pull off, but it worked. My description below does not include the version of the software (i.e., 2015, 2016), because by the time you read this I’m sure a new version will have come out. What’s more important is the Mac and PC platforms.
And away we go! My first step was to convert MoneyDance’s qif file to, surprisinglyQuicken for Mac! Where the PC version of Quicken had no tool for this, Quicken for Mac did allow me to import the file, with all the accounts and the categories list intact. The next step was to import the Quicken for Mac file into QuickBooks Desktop. Oddly enough, you can’t import a Quicken for Mac file into QuickBooks for Mac, so I had to convert it to Quicken for PC, using the Quicken Transfer Format, qxf. The hard part was finding the file on my Mac! When I opened the file into Quicken for Mac, the file was automatically saved into the Library, so it didn’t show up in any searches. I finally found it here: /Users/your username/Library/Application Support/Quicken 2016/Documents/yourfilename.quicken2016 After the conversion from Quicken Mac to Quicken PC, an error log appeared.
There were two main types of errors – characters, common in Quicken, became. Also, investment account entries were not imported, because Quicken uses live feeds for Investments, not recorded transactions. As a result, your Investment accounts will not show up properly in QBO. Now that I had the file open in Quicken for PC, I used QuickBooks Premier for PC to import the Quicken file.
During this process, a window appeared asking me how I wanted the Other Names to appear. If you just accept them as “Other Names,” they will later be converted to Vendors during the QBO conversion step, so there’s no need to click on every one right now. One thing I noticed at this point, was that MoneyDance had allowed my client to create multiple variations of every Payee. So, not only were there entries for every Chevron he’d ever been to, but every typo created an additional Vendor account. Some Payees had four or more entries.
These all can be merged easily once you get to QBO, but just be aware it’s a job that may take some time. Once the data was in QuickBooks for PC, it was easy to bring the information into QBO. In the end, this was one of the craziest conversions I’ve ever done. And the most fun! Here was the total path:.
MoneyDance for PC. Quicken for Mac. Quicken for PC. QuickBooks for PC. QuickBooks Online. If you need to convert MoneyDance to Quicken, QuickBooks Desktop, or QuickBooks Online, and don’t want to grapple with the headache or the 5 software steps, I will be happy to replicate this process for you., and we’ll book an appointment!
§ Import QIF Files in Quicken 2005, 2006, 2007 In Quicken 2005 and beyond, Intuit has disabled QIF data import on checking, savings, credit card, 401(k), and all other brokerage accounts. However, QIF import is not completely disabled, and there are simple workarounds to import QIF transaction files directly into those account types.
Import QIF via Temporary Account When you select the 'File - Import - QIF File' menu option in Quicken, a dialog will appear listing the acceptable destination accounts. Disabled account types will not be listed. One way to get around this limitation is to create a new cash, liability, or asset account. Quicken will allow importing QIF files directly into those account types, although there will be no reconciliation step.
Once the transactions are there, you can select all the transactions and use the move transactions feature to move them to your bank account. This method is described in further detail in this article:. This method has been tested in Quicken 2006. Importing via a temporary account takes a lot of clicks. Furthermore, by using an asset/liability account, you may lose the extended information required by brokerage/invesment account transactions.
An easier and more reliable method may be the one below. Import QIF via Account Header Another way to import the QIF file is to specify the destination account in the file.
To do this, open it in a word processor or text editor (like Notepad, Word, Wordperfect, etc.), and manually add an 'account header'. The account header is a special transaction that tells Quicken the destination account details for the subsequent transactions. The describes it as follows: 'The account header!Account is used in two places, at the start of an account list and the start of a list of transactions to specify to which account they belong.' To add an account header, simply place the following lines at the top of your QIF file:!Account N Checking T Bank ^ You have to customize the above text in the two places that are highlighted. Replace the word Checking with the name of your destination account. Make sure to supply the exact name used by Quicken. Next, replace the word Bank with the type of destination account.
The account type can be Bank, CCard, or Invst. Import the modified QIF file as usual. It does not matter what is the destination account selected in the drop-down box labelled 'Quicken account to import into.' When you click 'Next' to perform the import, Quicken will show a dialog box saying, 'Transactions found for Checking account.
Import transactions into Checking account?' You can click 'Yes', and voila, the transactions will be in your bank, credit card, or investment account. You will be able to review the transactions prior to posting them into your register. This method has been tested in Quicken 2005, 2006, and 2007 for banking transactions. It may not work for investment accounts.
If you are not sure how to create the account header for a particular account, you can export a few transactions from the account to a QIF file, and then open that file in a word processor. You can study the lines between the!Account line and the next occurring ^ (caret symbol).
The account type will be prefixed with the letter T. This may not work for all account types. It appears that Intuit left this feature in place so that QIF files can be exported and imported between different versions of Quicken, and for backup purposes in the same version. Thus QIF files exported from older versions of Quicken can still be imported into the latest versions, regardless of account type.
According to the site though, this is not supposed to work. Please be aware that the above methods are described 'as-is'. You may not receive technical support from Intuit to use them.
Make sure to prior to making any changes. Special thanks to Harry Dolan for this tip!
QIF Account Header The full account header has the additional fields shown below, but these are not necessary for a simple import. Field Indicator Explanation N Name T Type of account D Description L Credit limit (only for credit card account) / Statement balance date $ Statement balance ^ End of entry.
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