How to export/import accounts (using QIF)

Due to incompatibilities in the format of regional Microsoft Money files, and sometimes due to corruption, and other times just to convert a Quicken File into Money, it is sometimes necessary to export all of your accounts into QIF files and then import them all again in a clean/new or the same file.

Import and Export of a Microsoft Money file to QIF can be a very time consuming operation, as it depends on the number of accounts you are dealing with, numbers of transactions, transfers etc. In addition, when you start introducing files using multiple currencies, things start getting complex.

But, it usually has the desired effect of either repairing a file, or speeding things up - or both.

Exporting your accounts from Money

1. Choose 'File'->'Export'
2. Select the 'Loose QIF' option
3. Enter the name of the account in the filename box - this makes it easier to identify the accounts you have exported
4. Choose the type of account, i.e. 'Regular' for checking, savings accounts etc and 'Investment' for your investment accounts
5. Select the account from the 'Account List' box
6. Click 'OK' to export the account

You'll need to repeat this for every account, including closed ones if you need them.

Importing exported accounts into Money

1. Start a new Money file (if required) by clicking 'File'->'New'
2. In the filename box, give your new MS Money file a name
3. Although not strictly necessary, it is useful if you create a number of new accounts with the same names and types as the ones you exported earlier. This makes the import process a lot cleaner. Make sure they have zero balances
4. Click 'File'->'Import' (or 'File'->'Import'->'Recover Accounts' in Money 2005 and 2006)
5. Select the QIF files you wish to import. When importing your QIF files into Microsoft Money, you will need to make sure you select them all to import at the same time, because then transfer transactions should be picked up properly.
6. Click on the Import option
7. Select 'As a new or recovered account' and then press 'ok'
8. On the next window, make sure you match the QIF files with the correct accounts - you'll need to do this multiple times
9. Click OK to finish

It is useful to print off a net worth report, lists of bills and deposits and loan details from your first Microsoft Money file. This can then be used to cross check the results in the new file.

Notes on the import and export process

• You cannot export and import Inventory, scheduled or recurring bills or deposits, business data (invoices and customers) and planner data using this mechanism, and these will need to be entered by hand.
• Loan accounts cannot be exported (see Article 402).
• If you have closed accounts, you may need to open them to export them. Once they are imported, you can close them again.
• If you have transfers between accounts which are in different currencies, then you might find that these don't import correctly, as the QIF export does not contain details of exchange rates used. Some manual work might be required to sort these out, including re-entering the transactions and deleting some of the imported data.
• It has been reported to me (thanks Jack A) that there could be a 500 transaction limit when importing (both OFX and QIF file format). If your file is particularly large, you may need to split it up into separate downloads from the financial institution.

See also Article 27 which is related to importing data from Microsoft Excel.

For more information on Microsoft Money file types (QIF, OFX and OFC), see Article 235.