Share/investment prices history removed on upgrade to Personal Plus 2018

I have just updated from Reckon Personal Plus 2016 to Personal Plus 2018. On upgrading it wiped out all stock and investment existing pricing (history & current) for shares, managed funds and any investment that required a price. Any saved reports ( or existing reporting I run) I had where there was a valuation for the share/ funds/etc show nil value for the particular investment as there is no pricing included. I can manually input current prices for 2017/18 but no way can I input history. I have been using Quicken/Reckon for my personal finances for at least 20 years and have rarely had an issue. Has anyone else had a similar experience in upgrading to Personal Plus 2018 and if so how was it resolved. Can anyone help me with this problem. Thx

Comments

John Campbell

Check your qdata.qph file. Perhaps it got lost.

Try to find a backup of qdata.qph from ver 16 and compare the file sizes.

My quicken data is stored in \users\me\documents\quicken\qdata.*

I have 7 files for my quicken data set; .HCX, .IDX, .QDF, .QEL, .QIN, .QPH & .QTX.

.QDF is the main data file (largest) with most transactions and .QPH contains all historical prices. Perhaps you only copied 1 file, rather than 7 ?

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Fred_7639421

If all the excellent previous fixes fail, you may be lucky enough to be able to use System Restore and revert back before you installed PP2018 and start again ?

Grant_7915486

John
Thanks your comments, much appreciated. I have looked back at the files created when I save and for whatever reason there are times when only the QDF file appears to be saved and other times the other files including the QPH file is saved. I noticed though that in some instances the QPH file showed only 10kb was saved while at other times the size is 750kb. I have attempted to restore one of the QPH files(750kb) but it does not seem to make any difference to the result. No priceing of the various investments occurs. It may be the way I have gone about the process. I am anything but a Techo. Are you able to advise me on the actual pathway I should be taking eg File/???/???

Thanks for your help on this issue
Regards
Grant

Grant_7915486

Archie
Thanks very much for your time and the above comments on my issue. You may have also seen my comments back to John Campbell on this issue. I am not a techo so bear with me. Your comments on restoring backups etc was very informative and I have attempted to action this advice on my current problem. I have attempted to restore a backup file on prices but I must be doing something wrong as nothing seems to change in the results I get. All my investment values remain unaltered, generally at zero. I attempted to restore the QPH file which I understand is the pricing history file but with no results. Your comment that restoring a back up file is straight forward does not work for me as I must be doing something wrong. Are you able to describe the actual pathway I should take , ie file/----/---etc. As I am not a techo I am not feeling confident on fixing this. My last resort end game may be just to go back overtime and manually enter the 30 June pricing each year of all my investment categories.

Your advice on the compartmentalising old and new restored data is a good idea and going forward I will attempt this.

Thanks again for your comments on my issues.

Regards

Grant

John Campbell

Grant,

In some respects, the .QPH file is independent of the .QDF file, but from what you have tried, that may not be the case.

I am not sure of the backup process that you have used, or why you reverted to a .qph file of only 10kb, but they look to be of another data set.

In a dos box you could try the dos command "dir c:\*.QPH /s" to get a list of all .qph files on the c: drive

To recover an old .qph file from a data set that is the same as what you are using, my approach would be to:

0) make sure RPP is not running.

1) back up the directory where you think your latest database is. This is the one without either a .QPH or large .QPH file. Reckon Accounts Personal should identify this in the "File" drop down menu.

2) find the most recent large .qph file, ie the newest available when you could see prices.

3) copy this .qph file into the directory you identified as your current database in 1), using Windows explorer, not any RPP utility.

4) now open RPP and see if the prices appear. You could also try a One Step Update and see if the prices are returned, as it may require a prompt.

If this fails, close RPP and I would recommend returning to the backup you created in 1).

There are utilities available on the net to take a stand alone .QPH file and extract (convert) the data into a .csv file. Reltan.com provides a QPH file processor.

You can then "import prices" into RPP from this .csv file. This utility is mentioned in past posts regarding lost price records, in about 2014. I have written my own, but the net ones are easier to use.

Reckon should be able to do this also, as it is fairly straight forward, unless there have been company restructures like new shares replacing old shares, which need special attention.

See how you go, but the old .qph file can be scanned.

Grant_7915486

Fred
Thanks for your interest and suggestion on my issue. Not being a Techo, a System Restore, sounds a bit complex for me or is it easier than it sounds.

Thanks again for your comments on my issue.
Regards
Grant

John Campbell

Grant,

If all else fails, I could try to reconstruct a .csv file from an old version of your .QPH file. All the .QPH file has is price history, so there should not be a privacy problem.

What I would need is:

1) the old 750kb .QPH file

2) the latest .QPH file, which should have all the company codes you are now using.

3) the Security list (ctl Y) printed (exported) to a tab-delimited disk file which will list all company codes you are now using.

If you want to send them to me or discuss further, send me an email at johndcampbell@bigpond.com

Hopefully, I could send you a .csv file to import the prices and instructions on how to do so. Again, if there have been restructures this may need fixing, or we could just select a subset of company(codes) to import, via File > Import > prices. This is a menu option available when you are on the Investing tab.

let me know how you go.

John

John Campbell

Also, using RPP to do a restore can be dangerous, as it can overwrite the database and you may loose all transactions since the backup.

You need to be careful about what a restore may do !!

Your failure with the restore could also be that you are restoring into the wrong database location.

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Fred_7639421

My apologies - (had a seniors day). What I meant to say was try and use a Restore Point IF one exists.
Regards

Grant_7915486

John
Thanks for your time in providing further comments on this issue and your offer to reconstruct a .csv file. I have spent a number of hours on this to date in trying to understand what I could or could not do to rectify the problem and given my knowledge of file types etc. I have decided to go down the path of manually entering past history of share/funds pricing etc. Although time consuming, it does appear to be working for the past years, as reports I am running now are lineing up with the previous history. Although I still have a bit of data still to enter I think I will continue on this track.

Just a general comment on the Reckon product. They continually spam the user to upgrade to the new version and when you do, the product doesn't work and they want to charge me $5 a min to talk to them!!!!! I hope they realise the effort that you guys are doing in providing advice and helping to solve users problems, when things go wrong.

Again thanks for your time effort and advice on my problem

Regards
Grant

Grant_7915486

Archie
Thanks for your time and further comments on my issue. After reading your comments and those from John Campbell I have decided to take the path of manually entering the data for past years as I am not confident in manipulating various files to achieve an outcome. This approach to date appears to be succeeding although i still have a bit of work to do.

As with my comments back to John ( I assume you can see them in the above dialogue), I hope Reckon appreciate the work that you are doing in helping users like me to solve their issues with the Reckon product.

Thanks very much for your help on this issue.

Regards
Grant

John Campbell

Grant,

The easiest approach would be to send me an old 750kb .QPH file.

I could get a listing of the price records, as a .txt file, then

import the .txt file into excel and reformat as .csv file for importing into Reckon PP 2018

You could also review what is in the old file and suggest which company price records you want. ( some may be obsolete and a lot were duplicated in RP 2004 )

I could also supplement these records with any ASX code info since 2008, as I have this stored in my database (outside QPP)

Other problems can relate to ASX companies that have changed their code. I can recognise a few I unfortunately know, such as:

WDC > WFD

WRT > SCG

SYM > PTL

OST > ARI

BBP > AEJ

BBI > PIH

BBW > IFN

AGL > AGK > AGL

There have also been company restructures, such as WFD, BHP, FMG etc, but you would need to address this in QPP. Although this information is included in the .QPH file, I don't know how to import it via .csv

The main advantage of this approach is for companies that are not on the ASX because their old prices may not be easy to find.

It would only take me an hour, but I don't charge $5 pm !!!

This forum is much better value, especially if you were to pay $5 per minute to fix a problem caused by QPP

John

Robyn Kelly (Partner)

Not sure if you have resolved this issue now but there is a Knowledge base article on this topic:

http://kb.reckon.com.au/issue_view.asp?ID=3027

Regards, Robyn Kelly

John Campbell

Robyn,

The basis of this 2007 article is that you re-enter manually the price records.

My .qph file has 340,000 price records. I would not contemplate re-entering these manually, but the author of the article thinks that is a possible approach.

There should be a Reckon utility that converts any .qph file into a .csv file so that the records can be selected and imported. Some of us have developed such a utility.

Replacing a current database is rarely an acceptable option.

The following link explains the .csv file format that is very useful for importing the price records. This format can best be created in Excel, from a variety of sources, including third party .qph data extraction utilities.

http://kb.reckon.com.au/issue_view.asp?ID=3203

The example posted is:

RKN,2.34,---,2/2/12,---,2.36,2.30,150123,*

Omitted from the kb explanation of the extended price record example was:

RKN = Company_Code

2.34 = close_price

--- is a text field of --- ( presumably to identify not the date field )

2/2/12 = date as dd/mm/yyyy for pc with Australian date format.

--- is a text field of ---

2.36 = day_high

2.30 = day_low

150123 = Volume/100, so volume was 15,012,300 shares traded

* is a terminating text field

The "volume/100" value is now limited to 2,000,000 so sales up to 200 million shares are now possible. Previously it was limited to 200,000, ie 20 million shares which was not good for TLS shares.

How was the prediction of the Reckon share price of 2.34 on 2 Feb 2012 ?

There is also an abbreviated format which omits spread and volume:

RKN,2.34,25/2/2012 code,close,date

This is good for non-traded companies, such as super funds or trusts.