Continuing Problem Exporting from Reckon Accounts to Excel 2013

Mark Richardson
Mark Richardson Member Posts: 9
edited February 2017 in Reckon Accounts (Desktop)
Refer also to the related conversation "Problem Exporting from Reckon Accounts to Excel 2013" initiated by Tricia Neary posted a year ago (apparently unresolved) and its comments since 

My problem affects Reckon Accounts Premier 2015 and exporting to Excel in Office 2013/365. We were originally using Office 2007 with no problems.

Now exporting from a Reckon Accounts report takes many minutes instead of seconds - smaller reports used to export almost instantaneously.

My multi class Reckon Accounts Profit & Loss Prior Year Comparison report now takes 25 minutes of exporting to Excel 2013 (it use to take no more than a couple of minutes). 

and now this problem has added 40 minutes to our monthly reporting process. :(

NOTE: Referring to the related conversation "Problem Exporting from Reckon Accounts to Excel 2013" initiated by Tricia Neary  - 
Liron Lightwood also has this problem with Reckon Accounts Personal Plus 2013 and is also present in the 2015 version. 
If I export a large report to an excel compatible format (about 1.5-2MB), then sometimes the report puts many lines together, i.e. newlines are missing in certain places.  Sometimes when this happens, the Excel spreadsheet opens with a popup window saying that the file was not loaded completely.  At other times, Excel opens normally but the bug is still present.  At other times there is no problem.
This makes it difficult to compare reports from an older version of the program to a newer one when upgrading.  I use a file difference program to do this and the missing newlines cause it to report differences.  there are too many differences to go through them one by one.
Whether this bug occurs seems to depend on a lot of things, for example, which of two otherwise seemingly identical reports you try to export, whether another report is open at the same time, whether the report has two pages or more, or only one, whether another report was open beforehand (even if it's closed at the moment), whether you press the mouse button on the taskbar (the report takes minutes to generate and in the meantime, the screen doesn't repspond), etc.  I'm not 100% sure about the last one but it seems to make a difference.
EDIT: Here is some more info:
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit fully up to date
Computer specs: Intel 2nd gen Core i5, 6GB RAM, 1TB HDD
Software: Reckon Accounts Personal Plus 2013 or Reckon Accounts Personal Plus 2015 (only one or the other installed at any one time)
Excel version: Office 365 Home Premium

Comments

  • gazza73
    gazza73 Accredited Partner Posts: 802 Accredited Partner Accredited Partner
    edited February 2017
    Mark

    Now that this 'issue' has been posted as a problem, and not a 'not to be answered' matter that seems to have left it in the cold for so long......  try this, now that this topic has come to the attention of we AP's.

    At the risk of confusing Reckon Accounts with Intuit Quickbooks (TM) (R) ,   there seems to be a common EXPORT issue into Excel 2013 from both these products, but again, at the risk of plagiarizing the solution of someone else (but at least giving them the credit!),  take a look at the remedy posted here:


    https://community.intuit.com/questions/877879-export-from-qbe14-into-excel-2013

    If this is the solution to the Microsft adjustment needed,  then perhaps the guts of the soltuion could be posted to the other articles on this Community Forum.  (Hope this is okay, Mirko!)

    Better late than never!

    Cheers!

    Gary Pope
    An Accredited Partner- Consultant  (VIC. Aust)
    http://www.alchester.com.au/reckon-accounts-clarified/
    "Working with Accountants/Bookkeepers PPs/APs, as an
          independent IT Professional
    and retired FCPA Accountant"?
  • Dan Fardon
    Dan Fardon Member Posts: 43
    edited February 2017

    Hi there,

    I have been using Reckon Personal from Reckon V5 right up to Reckon Personal Plus 2015, and have been using the following simple method to copy Reckon Reports to Excel.

    1  Restart the computer, to clear the computer memory etc. see my comment at the end of this reply.

    2. Open the destination Excel file, and place the cursor where you want to paste the Report.

    3. Open Reckon, and create and customize the Report.

    4. Move the cursor to anywhere on the Reckon Report, right click, and select "Copy Report to the clipboard"

    5. Move the cursor to the position in the Excel worksheet, to where you want the top left-hand corner of the Report, and press CTRL v This pastes the Report into the Excel worksheet.

    6. In Excel, format the Report and rearrange the rows and columns of data to create the Report you desire.

    Some of my Excel Reports involve:

    a) Copying a Reckon "Cash Flow by Tag" Report to one Excel Worksheet,

    b) Copying the Reckon "Account Balances with the Account Details" Report to a second Excel Worksheet,

    c) Rearranging and annotating the account names and balances in the second Excel Worksheet, and in a third Excel Worksheet, creating an Excel Pivot Table using those balances and Tags.

    d) Copying that Pivot Table from the third Excel Worksheet to the first Excel Worksheet etc.

    e) Reformatting the first Excel Worksheet.

    I have found this method reliable, provided you restart your computer before you start this process.

    Occasionally, if I have been working my lap-top hard before starting this process, I find that the computer pastes the Reckon Report data into the top 2 or 3 rows of the Excel instead of the columns. If that happens, I restart the computer or turn it off for a few minutes and go for a walk before restarting the computer.

    Hope this helps.

    Dan Fardon

  • Mark Richardson
    Mark Richardson Member Posts: 9
    edited February 2017
    Hi Dan

    Thanks for your contribution. 

    It is an interesting workaround and unfortunate that Reckon customers/users have to develop them.

    We have only experienced this problem since migrating to Excel/Office 2013; previously the Reckon Accounts export to either a new Excel workbook/sheet or existing sheet worked well and was an impressive Reckon/Quickbooks feature.

    PS For us adopting the proposed workaround is a significant backwoods step.

    Kind regards

    Mark
  • Mark Richardson
    Mark Richardson Member Posts: 9
    edited July 2015
    Hi Gary

    Thank you for your prompt response.

    I'll try it out in a weeks time, after our Auditors have left.

    Kind regards

    Mark

  • gazza73
    gazza73 Accredited Partner Posts: 802 Accredited Partner Accredited Partner
    edited December 2016
    Mark/Dan

    Did that solution above solve the problem better now?  I'm not sure if Dan or yourself have tried it,  as it seems Dan's entry may have almost overlapped the submission of this idea:

    https://community.intuit.com/questions/877879-export-from-qbe14-into-excel-2013



    PS:  OOPS:  I was responding to the email alert,  and failed to notice you've already recognised this in the sub-answer further up this post.  Sorry.


    Gary