Problem with importing from Quicken

[Charles Day]

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Barry Bird <barry at ornithade.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've started using Gnucash and importing accounts from Quicken,
> converting the PRN register reports to QIF files using the
> XL2QIF macro (and writing one myself to ensure splits are handled
> correctly), but I find that the "Cleared" status of transactions is
> lost. The statuses all go to 'n' although the cleared statuses are
> definitely 'R' in a lot of the transactions in the QIF files.
>

Doesn't your version of Quicken support QIF export?

In any case, if you are importing a brand new transaction then the reconcile
status from the QIF file should be imported correctly. If not, then this is
a new bug that I'm not aware of.

On the other hand, if you are importing something that already exists in
GnuCash, it should be detected as a duplicate. If you choose not to import
it, then the existing GnuCash transaction remains unchanged.


> Although I can find nothing about this in the Help documentation, I've
> now discovered there's a bug report
>
> Bug 95635 – QIF import: Mark matched transactions as cleared
>
> last commented in 2005, about this.
>

Bug 95635 only applies if you are importing a duplicate of something that is
already in GnuCash, which suggests to me that you may not be importing your
data in the best way to begin with. I would strongly recommend importing all
your QIF files (assuming you have multiple) in one go, rather than using the
importer multiple times. This tremendously improves the transaction
matching, should eliminate all the duplicates automatically, and should keep
the reconcile status.


> You can work around this with a lot of effort, but any idea when this
> might get fixed? My Gnucash version is 2.2.9 running on Windows.
>
> I must say Gnucash is far better than I feared. For example, you can
> sort the reconcile window into Amount order, that many people find
> useful. There are rumours that this is being withdrawn from Quickbooks.
> What's more it seems to be robust. Very important for accounts.
>
> Keep up the good work!
>
> Barry Bird
>

-Charles