OFX Import Account Association

[Bill Burke]

I have looked through the source for a couple of hours, and I've arrived
at the following conclusions.

1. it looks like it will be fairly easy to set up a window that will
show what accounts are associated with online accounts by the ofx
importer.  Simply show the account and online_id slot.  Also, we can
show the ofx/associated-income-account slot if it exists. 
We can create a list of associated accounts by running
gnc_account_foreach_descendant(...)  with a callback that will fill its
argument with a list of accounts and online_id's.
gnc_import_get_acc_online_id(...) and gnc_import_set_acc_online_id(...)
from import-utilities.c can be used to read and modify the online id's. 

2. It is true that only one online account can currently exist per
stock, so holding the same stock in different accounts will not work.  
This can be remedied by storing "data.acount_id"+"data.unique_id" as the
online_id instead of just the data.unique_id.  (L421 of
gnc-ofx-import.c)

Unfortunately, I have no experience with modifying the gui aspects of
the program.  But I've tracked it all down.  Any suggestions about where
to put the button/menu item to display this screen?  Also what would be
the best format to display all this in.  Honestly, I'm kind of hoping
somebody will throw it together, and I won't have to sift through gui
stuff.  

Bill

On Thu, 2010-03-18 at 18:22 -0600, brad wrote:
> I have similar experiences.  aqbanking doesn't work and import OFX is
> very fragile.   
> If you make a mistake somewhere along the line with the OFX import
> you're damned forever.   When you import the OFX there is very little
> visibility into what it's doing and often the transaction goes to the
> wrong account(s) and it's hard to track down.  You're further along than
> I am since you've found out how to mess w/ the xml to fix it.  
> 
> How should this be done?  I think if there were a file which contained
> the relationship of the OFX file account and the GC account which the
> user could edit would be a huge step.  I don't care if there's a GUI,
> just some way to connect the accounts.  Also everything imported should
> be in a tab (like the scheduled transactions tab when there are new
> transactions), so the user can check it and fix it.
> 
> I'd like to start contributing this year, but haven't even gotten to the
> point of downloading source code, & this would be tops on my list.
> Maybe someone will get there before I do :)
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2010-03-17 at 22:03 -0500, Bill Burke wrote:
> > I have been having problems getting the aqbanking to work correctly.
> > However, I have used the python scripts ofx-ba.py with great success.  I
> > am able to connect to all of my various bank accounts and download
> > transactions.  I have figured out how to import them using the generic
> > ofx importer.  
> > 
> > The only problem is when I set up which account corresponds to which
> > security as well as income accounts.  If I make any mistakes in this
> > process, I can't fix them using the gui.  At least I haven't been able
> > to find a place to do this.  The only remedy that I've found is to
> > gunzip the file and manually delete the "online_id" "slot" from the xml
> > for the account that is in error.  Then, when I import the ofx file, I
> > am prompted again to choose the correct account.  
> > 
> > In my opinion, this is a pretty big shortcoming in the ofx import
> > functionality.  I love the fact that you can import ofx files, since it
> > makes up for the buggy aqbanking online plugin, which often crashes when
> > I try to use it.  The ofx import is a good workaround aside from this
> > account management problem.  I am also concerned that i might not be
> > able to hold the same security in multiple accounts.  It may be that
> > only one account at a time can be assigned to a security.  Have I missed
> > anything on these two issues?  
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Bill
> > 
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