Quicken 2009: The Missing Manual

Chapter 15. Backing Up and Protecting Your Quicken Data

Quicken makes tracking your finances easy. But all the convenient features in the world don’t matter if you lose your data to a hard-drive crash or, worse, a thief. Quicken’s ready to help. With a good backup routine, you can get back to work quickly. Passwords are the other half of keeping your data secure. If someone steals your computer and your data file, your money at the bank could soon follow. This chapter shows you how to implement both safeguards.

One more thing: Quicken data files, like houseplants, do better with proper care and feeding. As time passes and your Quicken skills blossom, your data files contain more transactions and financial information. Slogging through all that info slows Quicken down. You can help by buying a PC with a blazing-fast processor and ginormous hard drive—or by keeping your Quicken data file in neat, trimmed-down condition.

In fact, even if you have a computer that’s the envy of your geek support group, there are plenty of good reasons to regularly maintain and archive your data file. For example, archiving your data file as of December 31 of each year lets you keep a copy of your file as it was when you prepared your tax return, which can be a huge help (if small comfort) in an IRS audit. (See the box on Backup Reminders for more advice.) Or you can make a copy of your data file before you make significant (or experimental) changes to it.

Quicken provides several tools for protecting and ...