Start New Year
This copies all the transactions from the current file to a new backup data file (your file name with BKP.QDF added) and then deletes transactions prior to a specified date from the current file. This procedure can be used to delete old transactions from the current data file when the file contains too many years of records. Start New Year should be used to delete transactions from the current data file after those transactions from earlier years have been saved in other data file(s) using Archive.
Example of Start New Year
EXFARM now has transactions for 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002. You have already archived the 1998 and 1999 data in EXFARM98-99 using the Archive option. You want to use Start New Year to delete the 1998 and 1999 data from EXFARM so it will contain only 2000 and 2001 transactions as you start recording 2002 transactions. When the START NEW YEAR window opens, it will automatically name the backup file EXFARMBKP.QDF and this is where all the transactions from EXFARM will be copied to. If you want to name the backup file something else, the name of the file can be changed here.
The START NEW YEAR window also asks about the starting date for transactions to remain in EXFARM. If you want to delete the transactions from 1998 and 1999 so only 2000, 2001 and 2002 transactions remain, you will specify the starting date to be 1/01/00. Click OK and EXFARM now has 2000, 2001 and 2002 transactions and EXFARMBKP has 1998 through 2002 transactions. You can delete EXFARMBKP at this point if you want.
The third option to manage Quicken data files at years end is Copy. Click File, Click File Operations, Click Copy to open the COPY FILE window.