OFX question

[plussier at mindspring.com]

In a message dated: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 10:42:01 EST
Benoit said:


>Well, the most visible difference for the user is that all transactions have a
>unique id.  This means that there are never any duplicates if the transaction 
>was originally downloaded thru OFX.  It also allows you not to care about the 
>date range of the files you download.  If you download 30 days worth every 
>teen days, you'll only see the last ten days in the matcher.

Currently, from my bank, I need to download 2 QIF files; one for 
checking, and one for savings.  Online transfers between the 2 result 
in duplicate entries being made into Gnucash.  Would you expect any 
given bank to:

    - provide 1 OFX file covering all accounts you have at that bank
    - provide 1 OFX fil/account but maintain txn IDs between 
      them
    - provide 1 OFX file/account and use different txn IDs in each?

Obviously the first option is optimal, however, I'm rather cynical 
and skeptical that a bank would do anything which would ultimately 
benifit their customers unless the gain for them was greater :)
I don't see a huge gain for the bank here, so I'm expecting the worst!

>Off course OFX also includes much more information about the transaction than 
>QIF, but that is not always provided by banks or supported by gnucash or 
>libofx.

So, my skepticism/cynicism is not without warrant :)
Of course, I expect you guys will support far more than the banks 
ultimately provide.

>Finally OFX also allows you to initiate actions in your account, such as 
>paying bills, but that isn't yet supported.

I'm a little leary of having Gnucash directly connected to my bank.  
I like the fact that I have all my data centralized, but each bank 
thinks they're the only ones I do business with :)  So, this
"lack of feature" IMO, is added security, which I'm just fine with :)

Thanks for answering my questions!
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
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