OFX Support

[Benoit Grégoire]

On December 9, 2002 02:06 pm, Kevin Cramer wrote:
> I saw on the website that the latest betas now support OFX import.
> How can I find more information on this new feature?

Well, here is the readme on the OFX module.  You may also want to check out 
http://libofx.sourceforge.net/

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This is the new OFX import module.

Implemented features (some of these are from the generic import module):
-OFX file selection
-Account matching, using unique OFX account ID
-Account creation
-Transaction duplicate detection, using the unique OFX transaction ID.
-Saving of ALL transaction data currently supported by LibOFX.  When no 
gnucash equivalent, it is put in the Transaction's Note field.  You must have 
double-line mode enabled to view the notes field.
-Full OFX investment transaction support, including commodity matching.

Unimplemented features:
-Account currency compatibility check

To compile:
Add --enable-ofx to ./autogen.sh (for CVS) or ./configure (for tarballs)
make
If successfull, an item will appear in Gnucash's File/Import submenu.

You must have LibOFX > 0.32 installed. http://libofx.sourceforge.net/
LibOFX depends on OpenSP , read LibOFX's "INSTALL" file.  LibOFX needs a 
recent version (1.5pre5 as of this writing, 1.4 will probably work fine, 
1.3.x MIGHT work, but is very buggy and depends on horrible kludges in the 
LibOFX code.  You have been warned.).

You may want to first run your OFX file thru ofxdump to test your libofx 
installation before you try it from GnuCash.
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> I am currently using Quicken but I've wanted to move over the GnuCash
> for some time.  I use online banking and bill pay and that is the only
> thing stopping me from switching.  I am wondering what the new support
> will do for me and how it will work.  I got the impression that you
> download the OFX file and then import it but I might have read it
> wrong.

You are right, you have to download the OFX responses from your from your 
bank's website.  If you currently bill pay from a web interface created by 
your bank and shown in Quicken, you can continue to do it.  

I am the author of LibOFX.  But to develop direct query and direct bill pay, I 
need a list of all bank's OFX servers, complete with the IP address and port 
number of their ofx server.  That information is queried at runtime by 
Quicken from a central Intuit server.  Most bank refuse to publish this, and 
without it, we are stuck.  I could reverse-engineer how Quicken requests it, 
but I would most likely quickly get blocked, and it might not put me in a 
very comfortable legal position.
   
-- 
Benoit Grégoire
http://step.polymtl.ca/~bock/