Moving from Quicken to PocketSmith: file formats, history and what to expect

Plan the move before you export anything

Long-time Quicken users usually have two things worth keeping: years of categorized transactions and a calendar of scheduled bills. PocketSmith can take the first through its Quicken importer. The second has to be recreated as budgets, which is also how PocketSmith builds its cash-flow forecast. If you are still deciding whether PocketSmith is the right destination, read our Quicken alternatives guide first; this page assumes the decision is made.

PocketSmith recommends importing into a fresh PocketSmith account to avoid creating duplicate bank accounts, and suggests resetting an existing account first if it already holds data. [1] If you have been trialling PocketSmith with a bank feed, decide now whether to reset it or use the existing-account route described below.

Export from Quicken: QIF for Windows, CSV for Mac

In Quicken for Windows, choose File, then File Export, then QIF file. You select an account, a date range and the items to include: transactions, account list, category list, memorized payees, security lists and, in the business edition, business lists. [2] PocketSmith asks for one QIF file for each bank account, so repeat the export per account with the full date range you want to keep. [1]

Quicken describes QIF as legacy and says it is being replaced over time by its newer QXF format, which it recommends unless you need to transfer investment or business data. [2] That advice is about moving between Quicken installs. PocketSmith's accepted formats are OFX, QFX, QIF and CSV; QXF is not among them. [3] For a PocketSmith move, QIF is the documented route.

Quicken for Mac cannot export QIF, according to PocketSmith, so Mac users export CSV files and use PocketSmith's regular file importer. [1] Do not open those CSV files in Excel before importing. PocketSmith says its Invalid date error usually comes from a CSV previously opened in Excel, which can rewrite a dd/mm/yyyy file into US mm/dd/yyyy order. [4]

Import the files into PocketSmith

For a new PocketSmith account, start on the Welcome page: choose Start here under Upload your data, then MOVE FROM ANOTHER APP, then Quicken. Upload the files, enter an account name, bank and balance for each, and click Start import. When it finishes, the Categorize button takes you through uncategorized transactions. [1] For an account that already has data, open the Manage menu, choose the Express Migration Tool, pick Quicken and follow the same steps. [1]

CSV imports ask you to identify the Date, Amount and Merchant columns; categories, labels and notes are optional, and any column left not assigned is skipped. You can save the format to reuse it for the next account. [5] When a file overlaps transactions already in the account, PocketSmith offers three choices. It recommends replacing transactions on overlapping dates, which replaces every existing transaction in the file's date range and loses labels and notes on those rows; leaving overlapping dates out can miss transactions; keeping all may create duplicates. [5]

• Start with your main checking account and one year. Confirm the closing balance matches your last Quicken reconcile before importing the other accounts.
• If an account has a live bank feed, PocketSmith says to unlink the feed first to avoid duplicates. [5]
• Expect to spend most of your time in the categorize step, not the upload.

Check signs and balances after each account

Credit cards are where imports most often go wrong. PocketSmith says some card providers show an expense as 23.95 and a repayment as -300.00, while PocketSmith expects the expense as -23.95 and the repayment as 300.00. The fix is to drag the file onto the account again, choose Replace transactions on overlapping dates and tick the option saying the amounts are reversed. That replacement drops categories, labels, notes, attachments and splits on those rows, so fix signs before you categorize. [6]

Balances are a setting, not just a sum. For offline accounts filled by file imports, PocketSmith recommends Use Calculated Closing Balance, which works the balance out from your transactions. With that option you can enter a known balance and its date, and PocketSmith calculates current and historical balances from that anchor. [7] Use the closing balance from a Quicken statement you reconciled as the anchor.

Turn scheduled bills into forecast budgets

Quicken users often rely on scheduled transactions to see future balances. PocketSmith does this with budgets. Every budget you create is applied to the forecast, such as the graph at the top of the Calendar page, and PocketSmith says more budgets give a more accurate forecasted balance. [8] You can start one from the Budget page, the Calendar or the Trends report. [8]

The simple form asks for the category, whether it repeats, the amount and type, and the forecast account. The advanced options add start and end dates, a Transfer checkbox and a Bill or scheduled income checkbox. The forecast account is only for forecasting; any transaction in the category counts toward the budget, whichever account it came from. [9]

Card repayments deserve their own setup. PocketSmith recommends treating card purchases as expenses, putting both sides of each repayment in a transfer category, and using a transfer budget for repayments, set at an average and adjusted when each bill arrives. [10] Here is how a typical Quicken schedule translates. The budget form article does not list the repeat periods on offer, so confirm each schedule's frequency is available when you create it. [9]

What to expect in the first month

Most of the first month goes on categorizing and tidying: renaming merchants, setting category rules and checking that transfers are marked as transfers. Splits are worth care. PocketSmith keeps the original transaction and creates a new transaction for each split part, the parts must add up to the original, and there is no un-split function, so to reverse one you edit the original back and delete the extra parts. [11]

Keep Quicken installed and your data file backed up until PocketSmith's balances have matched your bank for a full statement cycle. The Quicken file is your only copy of anything PocketSmith did not take, such as memorized payees and reports.

• Back up the Quicken data file and keep it.
• Export each bank account as its own QIF (Windows) or CSV (Mac).
• Import into a fresh PocketSmith account through the Quicken option.
• Fix reversed card signs before categorizing.
• Set Calculated Closing Balance with a reconciled anchor date for offline accounts.
• Recreate scheduled bills as repeating budgets and check the forecast.