Your process for converting from Quicken 2005 for Windows to Quicken 2007 for Mac needs improving. I understand the two programs don't offer compatible features nevertheless I encountered problems I shouldn't have. Also now that I am using Quicken for Mac I do hope you'll improve the product soon, it's is far inferior to your Windows product.
I followed the instructions for the conversion from this site: https://quicken.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quicken.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=774&p_created=1129160880&p_sid=E-Osczhi
First off, making me limit various strings to 15 characters in this day and age is ridiculous. And if you're going to do it, add a function that identifies all the long strings I need to convert for me. You also explained to convert some transaction types to other types but it would be nice if you offered details as to the specifics of how to do so. Finally, the instructions did not mentioned checking the box when exporting to include info for a Mac, they should.
I created the .qif file and while importing to Quicken for Mac I received 144 errors saying "Invalid investment transaction in account: account-name". I clicked continue and had most of my 6 years of data in Quicken for Mac, however I had no way of knowing which transactions were not imported. It's a basic rule of software (I'm a software engineer and VP of R&D) to provide a user enough information to handle the error.
I went to your website and after finding no other info to help me I tried a live chat. Connecting was no problem, here's my first conversation:
Bishnu C.: Hi, my name is Bishnu C.. How may I help you?
Howard: I'm converting from Quicken '05 for Win to '07 for Mac
Bishnu C.: Ok
Howard: I followed the instructions at https://quicken.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quicken.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=774&p_created=1129160880&p_sid=E-Osczhi
Howard: on inport, 3 of my accounts had incorrect balances
Howard: during input there were several errors reported
Howard: that specific transactions could not be inported
Howard: fair enough, but it didn't identify the transactions that were problematic
Howard: how do I find them?
Bishnu C.: Please give me 2-3 minutes while I check my resources to provide you with the best solution.
I do appreciate your patience and apologize for the delayed response.
Bishnu C. Has Disconnected
Alright, maybe there was a connection problem causing the disconnect, I connected again:
Thomas T.: Hi, my name is Thomas T.. How may I help you?
Howard: Hi.
Howard: I'm converting from Quicken '05 for Win to '07 for Mac
Howard: I followed the instructions at https://quicken.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quicken.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=774&p_created=1129160880&p_sid=E-Osczhi
Howard: on inport, 3 of my accounts had incorrect balances
Howard: during input there were several errors reported
Howard: that specific transactions could not be inported
Thomas T.: Howard, thank you for details.
Howard: fair enough, but it didn't identify the transactions that were problematic
Howard: how do I find them?
Howard: The errors were all: Invalid investment transaction in account: xxx
Thomas T.: What I understand is that when you convert your file the balance is not correct.Is this so ?
Howard: yes for 3 of the accounts
Thomas T.: In this case, I will request you to open the file in Quicken 2005 and perform reindex steps and convert again.
Thomas T.: This will fix your issue.
Howard: reindex?
Thomas T.: Yes, I will provide you the steps.
Howard: ok
Thomas T.: Here are the steps :- Open the data file. Go to Lists -> Accounts.
Press Apple key + Option key + B together and release the keys when you see "Reconstructing Lists" message.
Go to File -> "Save a Copy" of current file or specify a date range on the Desktop.
Howard: ok, do you want me to do the on the mac? you said in quicken 2005, but I'm going from quicken 2005 on Windows to Quicken 2007 on mac. also by data file do you mean the .qif?
Thomas T.: No, it is qdata file.
Thomas T.: I am sorry that is for the Mac.
Thomas T.: I will provide you the steps for windows.
Thomas T.: Here it is :- 1. Please choose File->File Operations->Copy. Please click Ok. Please wait while Quicken makes the copy. Please choose **new copy** after the copying is done.
2. Please go to File-File Operations and then select Validate. Please choose the name of the file (copy) and click Ok. Please click Ok when we get the message 'Validation is completed'.
3. Now please go to file-file operations- and this time click on validate keeping the CTRL+SHIFT keys pressed. Please locate the file that we just validated (Copy), then select it and then click on OK. This will super validate the File.
Howard: ok, so you want me to do this on the data file on the original (windows) machine and then reexport a .qif
I found the notion of a "super-validate" fairly humorous but followed the instructions and rexported and imported and still had the same problem. So I chatted again:
Pradeep K.: Hi, my name is Pradeep K.. How may I help you?
Howard: I'm converting from Quicken 2005 for Windows to Quicken 2007 for Mac
Howard: I'm following the directions at: https://quicken.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quicken.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=774&p_created=1129160880&p_sid=E-Osczhi
Howard: I've successfully importing the qif but there were some errors
Howard: e.g., "Invalid investment transaction in account: xxx
Howard: but it didnt' tell me which transactions
Howard: I asked one of you earlier who suggested I do a super validate
Howard: I did but it didn't help
Pradeep K.: Thank you for the details.
Howard: I then looked through some transactions and realized that the ones that caused problems (at least some of them) were MiscExp
Howard: (I'm a programmer, I understand how to give bug reports :)
Howard: so MiscExp wasn't listed as a bad transaction type, what should I do with them?
Pradeep K.: So, you want to convert Quicken 2005 for Windows to Quicken 2007 for Mac. Correct?
Howard: yes
Pradeep K.: May I provide with a web link to convert your Quicken windows data file in to Quicken for Mac program?
Howard: well if it's different then the one I said I'm following
Pradeep K.: yes
Pradeep K.: Title: Converting data from Quicken for Windows to Quicken for Mac
URL: https://quicken.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quicken.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=336&p_created=1129160849
Pradeep K.: Howard, If you are interested in our Cross-Platform Conversion service, please contact us at (800) 811-8766 to have your case escalated to Quicken Data Services. A Quicken data service specialist will be in contact to explain in more detail the services offered. Our cross-platform service is absolutely free for you.
Howard: ok, so those are the same instructions in a slightly different format :)
Howard: I guess a MiscExp is the same as as MiscExpX
Pradeep K.: I can understand, you can try the steps in case face any problem you can contact us on the above number.
Howard: so I can call that number and just ask questions, is that right?
Pradeep K.: correct, Our cross-platform service is absolutely free for you.
Howard: that's nice, I thought it was $65
Howard: when I call that number it says teh office is currently closed
Pradeep K.: Please call (800) 811-8766 M-F 5am-5pm PST
Howard: ok, will call tomorrow, thanks
So your live support didn't help answer any of my questions but you offered me a $65 conversion service value. I'm not that thrilled about sending all my financial information to you but if that what it takes. That evening I reduced my errors to about 60 by removing some old accounts that I didn't really care about tranferring. I twould be really convenient if I could export several accounts instead of just one or all. Instead I copied the whole file, deleted the accounts and exported.
The next day I called. Someone answered and I explained my situation as I have 3 times above. I explained that Pradeep said the conversion service would be free but realized how dumb that sounded since I had no proof I could offer. I said all I really wanted was to ask a question of technical person about finding the invalid transactions. The person walked me through the web site to the same conversion instructions I already mentioned I used. He then said he just wanted to confirm that there wasn't a conversion program to use. That took several minutes. He then asked more for info to escalate me for the free conversion service. That's reasonable: name, phone, address, email, version. He asked for the path to my data file which seemed ridiculous to me. If I'm going to send it to you why do you care where it is on my machine? The real problem was gathering all this info too 25 minutes. My phone has a call timer this call was 40 minutes long. He then ends with boilerplate question of whether or not he's completely resolved my issue for today, it's was a long question I had to listen through and the answer was unfortuantely yes because he moved me to the next step but in 4 contacts you've done nothing to help me solve the actual problem. Then I get forwarded to a 30 second survey which was similarly gathering extraneous data.
I then get two survey forms in email from you:
Reference Number: 060913-000910
Reference Number: 060913-001011
So I while waiting to be contacted by the conversion service to hear where to upload my datafile I figured I'd try to solve it on my own, I had now had a copy of my data file to play with. The remaining 60 errors were all in two accounts. Going through them I found sevearal transactions without transaction codes though they were mostly transfers from accounts that no longer exist. Within an hour I had all 60 found and entered.
But I wasn't done. After exporting and importing two accounts each had one security which were off, one by 9 cents the other by 4. I went through all the transactions and there were all accounted for an accurate. I was stumped. Since the transactions amounts were right but the total was different I figured going through transaction by transaction would find it. I created a spreadsheet with the transaction details from the Windows account and computed a running total of the number shares held. The QuickReport in the mac version couldn't help me here but the Transactions tab of the Security Detail view was just right. Please consider updating the QuickReport capability. I went through and in one account found a transaction with the correct amount but that produced the wrong total of shares. Yes Quicken's math was off and that is not comforting. I deleted and reentered the transaction by hand and all was fine. I did the same for the other account but found the 4 cents were off becasuse of two transactions that added incorrectly (one for 8 cents the other for 4 cents). So I solved my own problem with no help from your support staff or your documentation.
I also have yet to hear from your conversion service. It's been 5 days, 3 business days.
It seems to me your support organization is too concerned with trying to make sure you're meeting some internal metrics rather than actually solving a customers problems. Your's wouldn't be the first organization to fall into such a trap. To sum up:
1. Improve your Quicken for Mac product, it's far behind your Windows version and you obviously know it. See the low rating the product has on Amazon, I put off buying this product for 1.5 years because of that, but it was the last thing I was using my PC for.
2. Improve your instructions and processes for conversion. Describe the troubling transactions more explicitly and how to address them. When an error is reported include enough info to find and correct it. And don't make the user do things like reduce strings to 15 characters or make sure symbols are all in uppercase. These are tasks computers are good at, not humans. Fix it on import or at least add a super-duper-validate that does this for me.
3. Train your support people more techincally or provide a 2nd line of support that can be reached. Have them care more about solving the customer's problem rather than passing them off to the next person to check off they did what they were supposed to.
4. Change your metrics to measure the things that really matter.
5. Fix your internal systems to better hand off customers between systems, not send multiple surveys for the same issue and actually contact them when a support person says they will.
PS. I had a very long informative response but when I clicked submit it didn't fit in the URL to send you. If you provide me some way to send it to you I will. I will also post it on my blog for all to see. In the future I suggest you conduct surveys with email responses or at least use HTTP POST.
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