Importing CSV files

[Maf. King]

On Fri 20 July 12 09:51:27 Richard Thomas wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for pointing all that out, I have given the concepts and tutorial
> guide a read and understand about the double accounting system now (which
> admittedly I had no idea was the way that GnuCash worked).
> 
> There's a few things I'd like explain at this point...
> 
> Firstly, the way I have been entering transactions.  If I can take the
> "buying a pizza" example (just search the PDF for "pizza" and you'll see
> it).  I would typically pay for a pizza using my debit card, so I'd enter
> the transaction in my Checking Account (the only account I really use).  So
> in the description, I enter the name of the pizza place that I ordered the
> pizza from.  The default "Transfer Account" that is used is called
> "Imbalance-GBP".
> 
> Whether this is the correct Transfer Account for this type of transaction,
> I really don't know.  All I know is that the Transfer Account should really
> be the pizza place's bank account, as they are the ones receiving the money
> that I am sending.
> 
> I have tried to figure out from the guide what the correct way of using
> GnuCash is for this type of activity, but I don't mind the Transfer Account
> being Imbalance-GBP, as long it does not seriously go against GnuCash's
> principles or cause me a really big headache down the line.

Hi Richard,

You _can_ just use the imbalance account, but it is really against the point 
of GC and double entry.

Let's suppose that you have 3 transactions showing on your bank account.
1. you bought pizza (an expense)
2. you bought some petrol for your car (also an expense)
3. you put £50 into a high interest savings account (not an expense)

Would it be useful to you to know how much you spent on pizza in a given 
week/month/year/lifetime against what you spent on petrol?  Could you concieve 
that similar analysis might be useful in the future?  What if you wanted to 
keep track of different income streams, perhaps because they are taxed at 
different rates (im thinking UK savings interest and ISA interest, for 
example)

Trasnaction 3 isn't an expense at all - you keep the money to spend later on, 
but if you just pour it into the imbalance hole, then it would appear that you 
don't have any savings building up....

This is where the GC transfer accounts come in to play.  By having an expense 
tree that is as complicated as you think you may need later on, you can report 
on the numbers that have been spent on each different type of expense (or 
income)

EG. you could have a tree that looks like:
Assets
     Bank Current
     Bank Savings
Income
     Wages
     Taxed interest
     Untaxed interest
Expenses
     Food
           Supermarket
           Pizza
           Fish & Chips
     Car
           Fuel
           Insurance
     Taxes
             PAYE
             tax taken from interest
Liabilities
     Bank Loan
     That loan from Dad from years ago (might repay one day!)
Equity
     Opening Balances  

And you can make it as complex as you need. (eg Pizza and Fish&Chips could be 
recorded in a combined "takeaway" account, or you could furhter split pizza 
into Dominos/Pizza Hut/Fred's Pizza Emporium etc.). 
 Also, this keeps track of other investments etc. that you may have, by 
creating the relevant accounts under the Assets section.

(Equity:Opening Balances  is a "cheat" account to let you correctly set the 
bank balances on the day that you start to use GC)

I think that you have taken the term "transfer account" too literally in your 
post above.  Your records aren't concerned with the financial details of any 
other orgainsation (sort code etc.)  "Transfer Account" in the GC context  
means "allocate this money to this type/category of expense (or income or 
savings account etc)"

I suggest that the very least, you should create Expense and Income top-level 
accounts, the imbalance-GBP is intended to catch data entry errors and 
shouldn't really have any transactions in it. (you could rename the one you 
have already rather than starting over or editing each transaction!)

> 
> The second thing I'd like to explain is what I'm trying to achieve by
> importing the QIF file.
> 

Can't help with QIF importing and transaction matching, as I've never tried to 
do it!

HTH,
Maf.