How To Archive Investment Transactions To Improve Performance
Overview
Archive Investment Transactions is a version of the Move Investment Transactions option. It is available only in the Subscription Release of Quicken and it is designed to reduce the number of transactions in an investment account by moving inactive transactions to a different account within the same data file.
Note: For accounts with a large proportion of closed positions, this can improve register and report performance noticeably.
Archive operates by creating an empty investment account with the original account’s name followed by ‘-archive’ and moving transactions to it for securities whose share balance is zero (“Closed Positions”). Archive Transactions will also create a transfer transaction, if necessary, to ensure that the cash balance (and market value) of the ‘-archive’ account is zero, and the cash balance (and market value) of the active investment account is unchanged.
Instructions
- Archive Investment Transactions can be accessed from the gear icon menu above the investment register.
- Select Archive Transactions.
Because Archive potentially affects large numbers of transactions, you will be prompted to make a Backup of your data file as part of the operation.
As a final step in the Archive process, Quicken will perform a File Validation, which could take several minutes.
"Could not create Archive Account" Error
This error occurs if the investment account name is 22 (or more) characters long. You will need to rename the original account to something shorter than 22 characters, then try the Archive again.
To do this:
- Right-click the account name in the Account bar.
- Select Edit/Delete account.
- Update the name in the Account name field and click OK.
- Try the Archive process again.
After the Archive is complete, you can change the name back.