In microsoft.public.money, spiggman wrote:

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First, don't think of this as MY " 'archiving and removing the
unwanted years' approach". I would avoid archiving, just as I would
not want to break my file up into separate years. It was you who
wanted to split your Money file into various years. Yes, I would
admit to saying that a person who wanted to do that would be the
person who could benefit from archiving as a means toward a stated
goal of splitting the file into separate years. But as Dick points
out, customizing reports from a unified file will let you get the
benefits of archiving without the significant downsides.

Also, I guess looking back at the thread, it is implicit that we are
talking about Microsoft Money and not MSN Money.




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I don't archive. Most people who try archiving assume that the file
will get significantly smaller or faster due to archiving. They may
incorrectly assume that the archived info can be restored to their
main file. They are not going to be happy with the results of
archiving. You wanted to separate files into separate files for some
sense of order. That appears to be what archiving is for.

If you want to understand what archiving does, I suggest you make a
copy of your actual Money file (under a different name such as
spiggmanTest.mny) and archive that copy. The "archive" file itself
is a copy of the file as it existed at the time of archiving. Open
and then archive spiggmanTest.mny, specifying January 1 2006 as the
archive date. Then open spiggmanTest.mny again, and note how it
worked out. If you like it, great. If not, your original file is
still there. You can switch to it easily by using the list at the
bottom of the Money File menu.

Some people use archiving, and some of those actually like the
effect. And those that do seem to be rather knowledgeable, but with
a particular business model in their heads than I have.

Actually, I can think of at least one reason. If my transactions
from a given year were in a separate file, I could give that to my
accountant to help deal with taxes for that year. Yet customizing
reports would seem to be even better, unless the accountant was
Microsoft Money knowledgeable.

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Keeping track of investments that are not part of a 401K, IRA, etc
account is the highest calling of Money IMO. That information is
needed when you sell investments, and Money can almost fill out your
schedule D for you with the help of TurboTax or TaxCut.

Within a 401K, the information is more of interest vs being needed.
There are various ways 401K accounts are handled. Some give detailed
information which you can track in Money. Others just tell you how
much you have at a given time. While the latter account info can be
entered into Money, it does not seem as compelling to me.

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Greetings,
Spiggman the 'original OP' here. Thanks for all the input. The only
financial info that I was worried about integrity-wise was the mortgage and
flexible spending account balances. Sometimes the balance from 12/31 is not
reimbursed in the flex account until the next year so I want to be sure to
keep it all accounted for. Mortgages are more obvious in their integrity
needs. The rest is just making sure that my bank balances all finish
correctly for the ending year and start off correctly for the next year. Do
you think your 'archiving and removing the unwanted years' approach would
cause much disruption here and what specific details should I use when doing
this? Also, if I want to start off a new file for 2007 how would I go about
bringing in the balances from the previous year and not losing track of
history, making the mortgage start off and work properly etc? The only other
investment accounts in there tracking 401k deductions (match & unmatch). I
haven't started tracking my stock investments etc but I should. What should I
watch out for there?
Thanks...

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

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I have full data back to '93 and some special cases entered back into the
'80s. The M04 file is presently 65.3 MB--in M06 it's about 2MB larger. M04
is slow. M06 is slow. M01 was slow. I have had two or three occasions over
the years where there has been some "corruption" problem or other. All were
solvable by various means. I go to a lot of trouble to assure I have backups
of various forms, kinds, and dates stored in various places and on various
media types.

"robert.larson.at.gmail" <robert.larson[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1150005032.847036.22280[at]f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

I have a money file that dates back to 1995; I have never archived and I
have never ever had a file corruption.

What I do do is remove old stock quotes that seem to be a cause of bloat.

--
Regards
Bob Peel,
Microsoft MVP - Money

For UK tips & fixes see
http://support.microsoft.com/default...d=fh;EN-GB;mny.


I do not respond to any emails that I have not specifically asked for.

"robert.larson.at.gmail" <robert.larson[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1150005032.847036.22280[at]f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

I've been archiving my Money file since 1996. I have archive files for
each year. There are days when I wish I hadn't done this. Some of my
loan accounts don't amortize correctly anymore. I've got one loan
account where I'd deleted the associated recurring bill. Now when I try
to recreate the bill it always says "enter a date before the end of the
loan." Well, I'm entering a date from this month and there are still
years left on the loan. Go figure.

I archived because the file size was getting unwieldy. Maybe I protest
too much. My current file is 53MB big. I guess I figured if I kept all
data from the beginning of time the file would be so big that Money
would get sluggish. What's the consensus then? Should I just let
transactions pile up in my .MNY forever and not worry about it? If I do
that, just how often does the file get corrupt and need repair?


Cal Learner-- MVP wrote:
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In microsoft.public.money, Dick Watson wrote:

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What you say makes perfect sense. However I assumed that his
definition of "integrity of the data" was loose-- that he would be
content to get the balances to work with the separated transactions.

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While I agree that keeping things together is more useful, some
people find a sense of order in separating the data. As long as they
don't expect the files to become significantly smaller or faster,
and if they understand that reintegrating the data would be
impractical (most people should read that as "impossible"),
archiving could be of interest to some.

- quote -

I rejected that because the OP specified "and keep the integrity of the
data" as a requirement. Archiving is notoriously bad at this and I hadn't
pondered your approach to the year by year requirement of successively
archiving the archive. If investments were not involved and if the planets
aligned correctly if might get there. I'd sure keep lots of copies along the
way. But I wouldn't do it nor advise anyone that it would do what they want.
It might be amusing to try it if, say, there weren't a reality show or a
soap opera or an old movie rerun on TV.

"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_newsgroup[at]please.tnx> wrote in message
news:0rs982djkv75jmo02jr5au9s54583bcnq9[at]4ax.com...
- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Dick Watson wrote:

- quote -

I wouldn't want to do it or suggest he should do it, but perhaps a
series of "archiving" actions could do what spiggman asks for. Start
with the newest first, and then successively strip out the latest
remaining year from the "archive" from the previous archive step.



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There is no practical way to achieve both goals you list. There is little
practical benefit to doing so were it possible.

"spiggman" <spiggman[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:8734E2EF-3E4C-4F49-96B8-DC158E2BC14C[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I've been lazy and kept adding financial data to my 2002 file so that it has
everything from Jan 2002 to the present. How can I split the data apart into
the component years 2002, 3, 4, 5 & 6 and keep the integrity of the data?
It's all check, savings, credit card, mortgage and flexible spending account
data.