Archive dialog can be invoked using File->Archive menu item. The dialog box allows to pick a date and check if AceMoney should delete archived data from the currently loaded file. Depending on the value of that flag, AceMoney will copy or move data from the past until the selected date (including that date) to the separate archive file. Once you click Ok, AceMoney will display standard file save dialog and you would have to enter the name of the archive file.
Archives are saved as mmw files, so they can be opened later as regular data files using File->Open. When AceMoney saves data to archive, it writes only the information relevant to the archived transactions. For instance, if archive doesn't have any transactions that use category "Food:Groceries", this category won't be written to archive. The same rule applies to accounts, payees, transaction categories and investments.
AceMoney never copies future bills or deposits to archive.
If you checked an option to delete archived data from the file, then AceMoney will modify initial balances on all the accounts that had transactions in the archived period. For instance, if the last day in archive is December 31, 2006 and balance on the account at the end of that day was $1000.00, then initial balance will be set to $1000.00 in order to make up for the removed transactions.
Since investment transactions are moved from the current document to archive, investment purchase history may be lost. AceMoney will automatically add "Add shares" transactions on the last day of archive plus one (January 1, 2007 for the example above). The number of added shares will be the same as number of shares that you had before archiving data. Since old transactions don't exist anymore, AceMoney won't be able to determine the actual cost of investments and gain values on Portfolio Page may change. It will look like you just received a lot of shares as a gift with zero cost associated with it.