New to GnuCash

[David T.]

JJ,

Welcome. As a longtime fellow user, I will offer you a little information, but I hope that others with experience in the other areas can step in.

With regard to importing in general, if your institution offers QIF or OFX export, you will be a happier person. Those import functions (which I use a lot) work pretty well. I do not wrestle with CSV import; my transaction load is light enough that it quickly becomes easier just to enter the transactions manually. Perhaps others can help you with this.

With regard to the question about Mutual Fund (and stocks, for that matter) price tracking, GnuCash does not emphasize this. My understanding (and I am sure that my comments will cause others to jump in to correct my understanding) is that GnuCash aims to be a traditional double-entry accounting system, and the developers take the (as I understand it) accountants' viewpoint that the software needs to track the held asset, and not necessarily its fluctuating value. Thus, the toolset for gathering and tracking an asset's unrealized loss or gain is somewhat limited. 

It is possible to create a script in your operating system to systematically retrieve quotes on a regular basis (see 
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes), but that won't get you historical prices. You might want to look at 
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Stocks/get_prices, although this involves a bit of action on your part.
 

Cheers,
David


----- Original Message -----
From: "j.j.chojnowski at gmail.com" <j.j.chojnowski at gmail.com>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Cc: 
Sent: Wednesday, January 7, 2015 6:49 AM
Subject: New to GnuCash

Hi There,

I'm a new user of Gnu Cash, and think it's a pretty good program so far. I
have some questions that I'm having a difficult time answering on my own,
and was hoping you could help me out.

   - Import from CSV - It seems there is only one generic import to any
   particular account, which is fine for most, but it does not align well with
   mutual fund accounts, which require a stock price, stock quantity, and
   total. Is there any easy way to upload this via CSV?
   - Import from QIF - I've seen some help sites on the web about
   converting CSV to QIF, along with some tools. However, it does not seem to
   set the asset's price in the Price Editor. Is there a way to do this using
   either of these methods?

As some more background, I'm attempting to start this from scratch (i.e.,
no Quicken output). I'm content with beginning to log expenses this year,
but I think I still want the historical prices for the stocks in my IRAs.
Could you please point me in the right direction?

Thanks!

~JJ
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