First, i'm surprised, if you've been using QBD this long, that you didnt' know this actually used to be a a feature.

Second,  bottom line. they took this feature AWAY,!!!   When? i'm not sure what year they took it away, but several years ago I used to do this for one of my clients all the time... It worked exactly as you asked for.  You'd Archive a year or two.  Then if you'd want to see the data in full detail, you'd close out of your current working file and open the Archive File, and BAM, there was ALL over your data.  (they needed this type of detail for audit reasons).

Intuit, you can't simply CONDENSE items that we would need access to later on.  We need full access to the details of the transactions, years later, but right at the moment, we want a smaller, faster, workable file to work on current transactions.

Please bring BACK the old archive option! (i know, i know, this goes on deaf ears) I too have been working with Intuit QBD since 1998 version.  (and no, don't come back saying the Online version solves this problem, it doesn't and won't)