Intuit Quicken 98 to Microsoft Money 2004 or later conversion

Some UK and other country users have had problems when converting Intuit Quicken 98 to Microsoft Money 2004 or later, in that the conversion doesn't work. The typical error is 'the file cannot be converted'. This is not that helpful in allowing you to even try the product out, or to use the product you have bought.

Some steps to try and rectify the problem are below

1. First, try a validate and super-validate on the Quicken file. (Hold Ctrl+Shift keys down during the Validate process.
2. If that doesn't work, then possibly you will need to convert via an intermediate version (see below)
3. An alternative mechanism, which is quite time-consuming but a 'clean' method is to export the accounts as QIF and then import them into the Money file. See Article 28 for information on this (starting at the point where it mentions importing the accounts).

Intermediate Conversion (step 2 above)

For those people upgrading to Microsoft Money because they are upgrading their PC, the whole operation is considerably easier by using the old PC as a bridge i.e. installing the MS Money 2002 (Money 2001 for some languages) trial version on the old PC. Then you can just transfer the data file to the new PC without having to worry about uninstalling the Microsoft Money (2004 or later) version.

1. Take a backup of your Quicken file
2. Uninstall Microsoft Money 2004 or Money 2005
3. Reboot and set the clock date to November 2001 (this is to ensure the trial version works) - note, this can cause other software to fail or work incorrectly.
4. Install the trial version of Money 2002 (see note below)
5. Convert the file (this could take a little while - which is anything from a few minutes to hours, depending on how much data you have - it might appear at stages that nothing is happening
6. Close the trial version of Money 2002
7. Take a safe copy of the converted file
8. Uninstall the trial version of Money 2002
9. Reset the date
10. Reboot
11. Install Money 2004 or Money 2005 depending on which one you have
12. If you've installed 2005, open the sample or a new file and let Money download the update. Then restart Money.
13. Convert the Money 2002 file into Money 2004 or 2005
14. Make sure you keep a backup of the newly converted Money file

Note: You need the 2002 trial version, which you can get it from me (see contact link at the bottom of all of the pages on this site). It is about 20MB in size. Please let me know you've seen this page. I will also ask that you verify the conversion has worked - please do reply as I'm trying to establish the success rate of the process (currently around 98%).

Depending on which version of Money you have, you'll need a particular trial version - ideally the same one as that you are trying to get to (e.g, UK to UK). However, i have heard of this procedure working to convert to a French 2005 version using the Microsoft Money International 2002 trial version, so if I don't have the correct trial version, then the international one might work.

One user's experience of conversion is here. Fortunately, they are all not this time consuming, however, I thought it useful to put up on the site as it is worth nothing it's not always as straightforward as the above. See also Article 33.

For a brief discussion on why Microsoft can't or won't make this conversion work any better, see Article 285.

If you've come to this page wanting to convert from Microsoft Money to Intuit Quicken, then see Article 34.

Thanks to Richard Cotterill for some information which has been incorporated into this article.