Quicken® 2010 For Dummies®

Chapter 9. Housekeeping for Quicken

In This Chapter

• Backing up your Quicken data

• Knowing when and how often to back up your data

• Knowing what to do if you lose your Quicken data

• Creating and working with more than one set of Quicken data

• Setting up a new file password

• Changing a file password

Okay, you don't have to worry about chasing dust bunnies in Quicken, but you do have to take care of little housekeeping tasks. This chapter describes these chores and how to do them right, with minimal hassle.

Backing Up Is Hard to Do

You should back up the files that Quicken uses to store your financial records. But you need to know how to back up before you can back up.

Backing up the quick-and-dirty way

You're busy. You don't have time to fool around. You just want to do a passable job backing up files. Sound like your situation? Then follow these steps:

1. Insert a writable CD into the appropriate drive, or a flash drive into a USB port.

   You can back up to any disk or storage device you can write to — this can be a floppy disk, writable CD, Zip disk, or flash drive. You only need to know which letters your computer uses to label its drives. If you don't, consult the documentation that came with your computer.

2. Verify that the file you want to back up is active.

   Display the Cash Flow Center and make sure that it displays one of the accounts in the file you want to back up. (If you don't remember setting up multiple files, don't worry. You probably have only one file — the usual case.)

3. Start the backup operation ...