AccountsAuditor is designed to help maintain the integrity of Quicken accounts files. The author’s experience is that Quicken files have in the past occasionally become corrupted, sometimes in ways that were not detectable by account reconciliation. It may be that recent versions of Quicken avoid or repair the data corruption observed in the past, but there is no way to be sure.
Basic Procedures
To use AccountsAuditor, you must periodically save a “good” (audited) copy of your Quicken data file. Then, periodically, you use AccountsAuditor to compare your working data file with your audited copy. AccountsAuditor will report changes between the two files. Some changes are the new transactions you’ve entered and checkmarks inserted as part of account reconciliation. (You can cause AccountsAuditor to ignore these.) Any substantive changes in the old transactions, unless you’ve been entering historical data or correcting data, reflect file corruption in your working data file. You can use the AccountsAuditor report to correct the data in your current file before making a copy to serve as the audited copy for the next time you want to check your file.
Obviously, AccountsAuditor cannot find errors introduced before you make your first backup. If all you have is your working file, AccountsAuditor can only help prevent the introduction of new errors from now on. However, if you’ve been keeping incremental backups, you can check them sequentially, each against the next older version. That should catch any data corruption other than changes to transactions that occurred before the first time those particular transactions were backed up.
Comparing Two Quicken Files
To perform a comparison, you must first use Quicken to export the data from the files. AccountsAuditor cannot read Quicken data files directly. You may do a full export of the entire file; however, AccountsAuditor only needs account descriptions and transactions, which (at least in the author’s version of Quicken) are output by exporting “transactions in all accounts.”
After you have saved the export files, launch AccountsAuditor. A control panel appears as shown below.
Use the two “Select” buttons to identify the export files to AccountsAuditor. Clicking “Select” calls up a standard Macintosh file selection box. File A should be the export file from the older, audited data file, and File B should be the export file from the current, working data file.
The selected files aren’t actually opened until you click the “Go”
button. You can click either of the Select buttons again to choose
a different file for use in the comparison.
You can choose checkbox options as described later in this document, or you can accept the default settings. Click “Go” to start the comparison.
AccountsAuditor reads the two files, extracting account and transaction data. A separate progress bar shows for each file.
The checkboxes remain active until both files have been read. Click
on a checkbox to change its state, but click only once. The box will
not change right away (checking frequently for mouse clicks would
slow the program down), but it will change.
AccountsAuditor then compares account descriptions (bank account vs. credit card account, for example) and compares transactions stored with each account. A third, barber-pole type progress bar shows during this comparison.
The Stop button remains active throughout the reading of files and
until the comparison is complete. Click it if you need to stop the
comparison for any reason. The progress bars will disappear. The
files you chose as File A and File B will still be selected. You
can of course change the selection and restart the comparison.
When the comparison is complete, one of two things will occur. You may see a dialog box telling you that the files have no reportable differences. Click “OK” and AccountsAuditor returns to its initial state. Or you may see a report window that will allow you to examine the differences that AccountsAuditor found.
Using the Report Window
If there are reportable changes, the report window opens.
The Accounts box shows a list of the names of accounts that have changed. Clicking on an account name highlights it and shows the changes. In the figure above, the user has clicked on “USA”. The large box is empty, which means there were no changes in the account description. AccountsAuditor shows only account description fields that have changed. However, there is a date in the Transactions box, which means that one of the transactions for the account has changed.
Clicking on a transaction date shows all the non-empty fields in the transaction except the date, which is after all what was clicked. Note that there may be more than one transaction with the same date. The “Was” column shows the contents of the fields as recorded in File A, and the “Now” column shows the contents as recored in File B. If the transaction had been deleted, only the “Was” column would contain data; if it had been added, only the “Now” column would contain data.
In some cases, AccountsAuditor may report a pair transactions, one
deleted from the old file and one added to the new file, when in
fact they are the same transaction. This will occur if the date in
the transaction has been changed, or if both the number and the
description (payee, payor, etc.) have been changed, or if the
description has been changed and the transaction has no number.
Similarly, AccountsAuditor may show a transaction as having been
changed when it has not, if the new file contains an added
transaction with the same date and either the same number or the
same description. This will occur only if (1) the original
transaction has been deleted or (2) the added transaction appears
before the original transaction in the new file. In case (2), the
original transaction will then be reported as a new transaction in
the new file.
In the example above, there are no changes in any of the fields. However, the presence of the italicized word split indicates that the transaction has split lines. To examine those, the user must click on the line containing split.
When there are split lines, the Category entry for the main
transaction doesn’t mean anything and does not appear in the
Quicken register for that transaction. Quicken (at least the
author’s version) exports the category of the first split line
twice, once as the category for the transaction and again as the
category for the line. AccountsAuditor takes the export file at
face value and does not suppress the duplicate entry.
Each split line is represented by up to three fields: the category, the memo, and the amount, in that order. Any altered field appears in red. In this example, the memo field of one of the split lines has changed.
Changes in transaction fields and split line fields appear in red.
Changes in account description fields remain black, since only
changed descripton fields are shown for accounts.
If the contents of the field are too long for the table, you may click on the line to cause the contents to appear in the “Was” and “Now” boxes at the bottom of the window. This would have been necessary in the above example if the user had chosen a larger font, as illustrated below; and it can be desirable because there are no ellipses to warn that not all of the field has been displayed.
The split line display can be returned to the transaction display by clicking on Close split or by clicking again on the transaction date. Clicking on a different transaction date or a different account name shows the associated data.
Changing the Appearance of Reports
The Font and Size menus affect the data displayed in the report window. All entries are affected alike. You cannot, for example, change the font for only one line of the table, and you cannot change it in the table without also changing it in the Accounts and Transactions lists.
Saving Reports
A report can be saved for later viewing by choosing “Save” or “Save As…” from the File menu. Any changes to the display font will be saved along with the data.
Reviewing Saved Reports
A saved report can be opened for viewing by choosing “Open…” from the File menu and selecting the report in the standard file dialog box that appears.
Using the Checkbox Options in the Control Panel
The checkboxes in the control panel alter the details of the comparison that AccountsAuditor makes. The first checkbox allows you to handle situations in which you have renamed an account since the last backup. The other two are designed to minimize the reporting of uninteresting changes to accounts.
The checkboxes remain active until the files have been read, so
their state can be changed by clicking on them after the “Go” button
has been clicked. Be patient. AccountsAuditor will not respond
immediately, but it will respond. Clicking a box twice, because you
thought the first click hadn’t registered, will cause the box to
remain in its original state (it will change, then promptly change
back).
Telling AccountsAuditor You Have Renamed an Account
When “Allow account name changes after reading files” is checked, AccountsAuditor stops after reading both files and presents a window showing the account names in both files.
In this example, the user has renamed “Closing” as “~Closing” to cause it to sort to the end of the Accounts list in Quicken. AccountsAuditor would normally treat these as two different accounts. The user has clicked on the two names to highlight them. Clicking on the “>> Renamed As >>” button will cause the names to disappear from the list and will cause AccountsAuditor to treat the two names as representing the same account when it continues with the comparison.
When “>> Renamed As >>” has been chosen for at least one pair of names, the “Revert” button will highlight. Clicking the “Revert” button undoes all the renames that have been recorded.
Clicking the “Done” button dismisses the window and causes AccountsAuditor to continue with the comparison.
Highlighting two names and clicking Done does not cause
AccountsAuditor to treat them as the same account. You must click
the “>> Renamed As >>” button first.
Assuming the user clicks “>> Renamed as >>” and then “Done”, the account description fields and transactions of “Closing” in the old file (File A) will be compared with the account description fields and transactions of “~Closing” in the new file (File B). In addition, AccountsAuditor will treat any transfer to or from [Closing] in the old file as equivalent to a transfer to or from [~Closing] in the new file. Thus, transactions differing only in the transfer name will be treated as being unchanged. When AccountsAuditor makes its report, it will report a change in the name of the account. In all other respects, it will report on both the renamed account and other accounts in the files exactly as if the name were “~Closing” in both files.
Suppressing Report of Recently Added Transactions
When “Ignore changes in account balance” is checked, AccountsAuditor treats an account as having no reportable changes if the only differences are (1) the account balance, which is an account description field; and (2) transactions in the new file (File B), not present in the old file (File A), that are the same date or later than the last transaction in the old file. The purpose is to prevent recently-added transactions, which are normal changes rather than data problems, from appearing in the change report.
This will not necessarily suppress all new transactions. For
example, if you enter transactions with future dates to account for
expected expenses or income, the old file may have a transaction
with a later date than new transactions entered after the old file
was created.
As noted earlier, AccountsAuditor may show a transaction as having
been changed when it has not, if the new file contains an added
transaction with the same date and either the same number or the
same description. If this occurs and the original transaction has
not been deleted, the original transaction would ordinarily be
reported as a new transaction in the new file. However, if the
original transaction is the last transaction in the old file, the
“Ignore changes in account balance” option will suppress the report
of this “added” transaction.
“Ignore changes in account balance” is checked by default. Unchecking the box makes AccountsAuditor a convenient tool for visually inspecting new transactions entered since the last backup.
Suppressing Report of Newly Reconciled Transactions
When “Ignore changes in reconciliation status” is checked, AccountsAuditor treats a transaction as unchanged if the only change is the checkmark indicating that the transaction has been reconciled. The purpose is to prevent changes to old transactions caused by the reconciliation process, rather than by data corruption, from appearing in the change report. When this box is checked, minor data corruption could also go unnoticed (if, for example, a previously reconciled transaction somehow loses its reconciliation status). The box is checked by default, since the type of corruption that would be missed would probably be discovered during the reconciliation process in Quicken itself.
Using the Menus
The File Menu
New prepares to create a new audit report by calling up the control panel. It is unavailable if the control panel is already open. If you don’t see the control panel, check behind open report windows.
Open… brings up the standard dialog box for opening a saved report. It does not open Quicken export files for comparison; use the Select buttons in the control panel for that purpose.
Close closes the frontmost report window, prompting you to save it if you haven’t done so already.
Save copies the report to disk. Save is available only if the front window holds a previously unsaved report or if you have changed the font typeface or size. If the report has never been saved, Save is the same as Save As…
Save As… brings up the standard dialog box for saving a copy of the report with a new name or location.
Quit exits AccountsAuditor, prompting you to save any unsaved reports.
The Edit Menu
The edit menu is present only to meet the Apple standards for handling desk accessories. None of the items are available in AccountsAuditor.
The Font Menu
The font menu lets you choose a new font (typeface) for the frontmost report. All data in the report use the same font and are changed simultaneously. The headers are fixed and are not affected.
The Size Menu
The size menu lets you choose a new font size for the frontmost report. All data in the report use the same size and are changed simultaneously. The headers are fixed and are not affected.
Warning Messages
If it runs out of memory, AccountsAuditor is supposed to recover gracefully, notifying you and canceling the comparison just as if you had clicked “Stop”. Unless you want to modify the comparison (choose another, smaller pair of files to compare, or check a previously unchecked “ignore changes” box), you’ll need to quit AccountsAuditor and increase its memory partition. You can safely save, open, or examine any existing report without quitting if you wish.
There’s also a backup process for notifying you and quitting, if the program can’t recover just by canceling. That really shouldn’t happen, so please report it to the author if it does.
If your version of Quicken exports fields with codes AccountsAuditor doesn’t recognize, you will get a message telling you where the unrecognized field code was encountered (account description, transaction, split line) and what the unrecognized code was. Please report this to the author. You can cancel the comparison or continue, either seeing each unrecognized code or ignoring further warnings. (Warning suppression is a separate option for account codes, which are examined while the program is reading the files, and transaction and split line codes, which aren’t examined until the comparison process.) If you continue, the program will still work, but it will not report any changes in the field corresponding to the unrecognized code.
If you do a full export from at least some versions of Quicken, the export file contains two descriptions of each account. It’s conceivable that those descriptions (in the same file) disagree with each other. You will get a warning if they do. You can stop the comparison or continue, but you can’t suppress further warnings. Continuing arbitrarily picks one of the two descriptions for use when comparing the account to the other file. Transaction comparisons are not affected.
It’s possible that you’ll see a message “Class ‘Object’ does not have attribute ‘’”, with a button that says “Finder”. This rather obscure message from the programming run-time environment used to appear a lot in low-memory tests until the code for recovering from low memory got cleaned up. It still occurs occasionally, though the author has not been able to establish conditions that produce it reliably. If it happens, clicking on the button will quit the program without any opportunity for you to save any unsaved reports (sorry!) The only recovery is to run the program again; the author’s experience is that no change to the memory partition will be necessary. If you find a situation that reliably produces this message, please report it to the author.
And of course, please report any system error messages (crashes) that you can replicate.
