Interesting QIF Importer "problem"

[Bill Gribble]

On Mon, Feb 19, 2001 at 10:42:53AM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> And that's the problem..  Vanguard is making transfers directly
> between two Mutual Fund accounts.  Does this mean I have to make a
> generic "Vanguard Equity Account" that has no meaning in real-life,
> just to make GnuCash happy?  

You may, but not for the reason you may think.  This problem is really
outside the domain of the QIF importer, if you have described it
correctly, and into the realm of how Gnucash handles multi-commodity
accounting.

ATM, transfers between accounts in different currencies are A Big
Problem in Gnucash.  For some circumstances, you can get around it if
the Securities are different but the Currencies match; in other cases
you *have* to use an intermediate Currency account that refers to both
of the commodities in question.  The changes to fix this are mostly
designed but won't be added until the 1.9 series (which will follow
the 1.6 release, which should be in a couple of months).

In your case, it seems that it should be OK to transfer from one
mutual fund to another because they'll both have the same Currency.

I'm getting really confused about which parts of all this are you
fooling around with the QIF files to test stuff, which parts are
actual files you downloaded from banks, and how much of your original
account hierarchy in Gnucash is "legal".  Can you straighten me out? :)

> I suppose, in this case, the right thing to do is the non-intuitive
> thing that doesn't quite match reality?

I'm not sure.  I *think* you should be able to do what you describe
(transfer between funds) without an intermediate account,
theoretically, but I'm not sure the QIF importer will allow you to
right now.  I'm just not all that sure about what's going on.  Could
you email me personally your .gnc file and the downloaded .qif file
with a description of what you want to have happen?

If the DNS problem will prevent you from reaching me, you can send to
me personally at grib@billgribble.com.

BTW, the DNS thing should be fixed within an hour or so, though CVS
won't be back up until tomorrow.

b.g.