online balance info

[Derek Atkins]

linas@linas.org (Linas Vepstas) writes:

> two remarks:
> 1) I've concluded that the est way to deal with OFX import is with scheme
>    However, I'm a scheme newbie, so this opinion is lightweight. (but=20
>    still correct!)

I have no objections with that..

> 2) OFX also seems to loose inter-account transfer info, and has
>    mal-formed, badly capitalized and cryptic info in 'payee' and
>    'memo' fields, at least based on samples I've looked at.

Well, we could easily 'force' a capitalization :)

>    Its a bit cleaner than QIF to parse (e.g. it should indicate the
>    currency of the transaction).  But its not a double-entry system;
>    all you know is that money came, or went, but you are never clear
>    on to whom, or how or why.   You have to guess based on the=20
>    badly-formatted, badly-capitalized, and possibbly blank 'payee'=20
>    and 'memo' fields.   To maintain consistency, the OFX importer=20
>    would have to remember how it guessed last time, and hope it can
>    do the same again.   Sigh. And I thought OFX was the answer to=20
>    all problems.

My specific problem is with Vanguard.  I've got three vanguard funds
all managed within the same account.  With QIF, I have to download
transactions for each fund and it loses the inter-fund transfer fund
information (e.g., when transfering $100 from fund A to fund B, fund A
contains a transfer of $100 to UNKNOWN and fund B contains a transfer
from UNKNOWN), wheras with OFX it appears to actually maintain the
inter-fund transfer information.

In neither case does it actually appear to contain information about
external transfers into or out of Vanguard.  However this limitation
is sufficient for my needs.

-derek

-- 
       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@MIT.EDU                        PGP key available