Transferring data between two Gnucash files

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Jesse C <crimson.corelio at gmail.com> writes:

> Hey Derek,
>
> Thanks for the reply.
>
> I can definitely make a QIF file (or an OFX file).  I've never used the QIF
> importer in Gnucash.  QIF (and also OFX) appear to be single-entry formats,
> rather than double-entry formats.  I assume that GnuCash does some guessing as
> to what balancing account a transaction belongs in based on the memo
> associated with the transaction?  Which would mean there really isn't a fully
> automated way to import the information, which would less than stellar, but
> still better than having to manually enter all the information. 

Well, yes and no.  QIF does allow you to claim a transaction's far
account by specifying a Category (for income/expense) or Account (for
asset/liability) through the 'L' field:

LCategory
L[Account]

Then in the importer you can map the QIF Categories and QIF Accounts
into Gnucash Accounts.

> It also seems like (from the mailing list archive) that the OFX importer can
> match up transactions from different OFX files with the same date and amount. 
> So I could technically generate OFX files for each account and once they are
> all imported, GnuCash will automatically match them up.  Is that correct?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  What do you mean by "matching
... from different OFX files"?

> Is there a preference in GnuCash for QIF vs OFX?  There appear to be java
> bindings in some form for both (and QIF is so simple that writing a generator
> for it would be trivial), so I can create either with minimal effort.

IMHO QIF is easier to generate, and QIF also has a way to create Split
transactions.  OFX AFAIK does not provide any means to specify a Split
Txn nor a way to pre-specify target categories or accounts.

> Once I get this working, I'll push out the results of my work to the
> community, in case there are other people who are interested in doing
> something similar.

That would be good.  :)

> cheers
>
> jesse

-derek

> On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>    
>     "David T." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> writes:
>    
>     > As I understand it, there is no facility to do what you want.
>     >
>     > You already seem to have the mechanics of coordinating the two sets of
>     books; I think that's the prescribed method.
>     >
>     > Have you considered merging your books? It would reduce the overhead...
>    
>     My other recommendation is that if you can take the entries from one
>     file and programatically decide what you need entered in the other file,
>     just generate a QIF file and use the QIF Importer to import those
>     additional transactions.
>    
>     > David
>    
>     -derek
>    
>     >
>     > ________________________________
>     >  From: Jesse C <crimson.corelio at gmail.com>
>     > To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>     > Sent: Sunday, January 8, 2012 1:18 PM
>     > Subject: Transferring data between two Gnucash files
>     >
>     > My wife and I both use Gnucash to keep track of our finances, in
>     separate
>     > Gnucash files.  There are some expenses that one of us incurs which are
>     > shared expenses, that the other person is liable for a portion of
>     (usually
>     > half).  Currently all transfer of these expenses is done manually, by
>     > exporting a report that contains the expenses, which the other person
>     then
>     > has to enter by hand.  That's a lot of work and it sucks.  So I'm
>     looking
>     > for a better way to accomplish this.
>     >
>     > It is easy to export the list of transactions to be transferred as a
>     html
>     > file and it is simple to parse the html and obtain a programmatic
>     > representation of the data (my languages of choice are Java and Scala,
>     but
>     > python, php, lua, etc. are also options, though I don't have any scheme
>     > experience).  But once I have that programmatic representation of the
>     data,
>     > I don't know what to do with it.  What sort of file can I write that
>     will
>     > allow me to import transactions, complete with account information, into
>     > gnucash/  I've never used the QIF or OFX functionality in Gnucash, so
>     I'm
>     > not sure if one of those would be answer.
>     >
>     > part of me wants to just switch to the SQL backend and stuff the data in
>     > there, but from reading on the wiki this sounds like a terrible idea.
>     >
>     > To present a quick example:
>     >
>     > I have a Rent transaction, for a month where I paid the entire amount.
>     >
>     > (Asset Account) Wife A/L:Shared Expenses:Owed To Me:Housing:Rent  +50
>     > (Asset Account) Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account   -100
>     > (Expense Account) Expenses:Rent   +50
>     >
>     > I then export the entire Wife A/L:Shared Expenses account to a report
>     > file.  I'd then like to write some new file that she can import which
>     will
>     > contain the following transaction
>     >
>     > (Liability Account) Husband A/L:Shared Expenses:Owed to Him:Merged  +50
>     > (Expense Account) Expenses:Housing:Rent  +50
>     >
>     > I'm not opposed to doing some development work to solve this problem,
>     but
>     > some direction would be great.  Thanks for any help.
>     >
>     > cheers,
>     >
>     > jesse
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>    
>     --
>           Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>           Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>           URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>           warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
>

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available