Newbie questions

[Rory Campbell-Lange]

Hi

I'm thinking of moving to gnucash but am keen to know a few things a
cursory glance at the documentation and a quick run-through on a test
install haven't answered. Sorry if these questions have been answered
many times before.

1. Import and Export
--------------------

I've successfully imported a file from my bank's website which has a QIF
format. Big suprise! However I have been running my (very small)
company's accounts using Filemaker over the last 18 months and would
ideally like to import this data which could be presented in .csv or
.tab formats.

I'd like to know how easy it is to export data to csv or something like
that. My accountant uses Excel and I'd like to back my accounts up to
postgres. 

I've had a look at the format of the gnucash data file and I'm confident
I could at least extract my data using Perl. However I'd prefer not to
have to reinvent the wheel!

2. VAT
------

In the UK most transactions require VAT to be paid at 17.5%, which is
then recouped by Customs and Excise. Do I have to do a transaction split
on every VATable item to render it to a VAT account?

3. Dealing with imported data
-----------------------------

I have a personal bank account for which I would like all the data to be
simply imported, and not be required to run a transaction against each
entry. Is this possible to achieve?

Similarly, is it possible to define a default transaction for any
imported data when imported to a particular account?

Is it possible to detect duplicate data entries on import? (i.e. when I
have data from the same dates mistakenly imported twice.)

4. Fonts
--------

OK, this isn't a fair question! I'm running Debian testing/unstable and
I spend my life in blackbox/xterms. The only app I use at the moment
with a conventional gui is Firebird, which has very smooth fonts.
Gnucash's fonts look very jaggedy in comparison. Messing around with the
font preferences hasn't helped (in fact, the display fonts don't change)
-- maybe the error message noting a missing library (libxfce.so) has
something to do with it?

Thanks for all and any help.
Rory

-- 
Rory Campbell-Lange 
<rory at campbell-lange.net>
<www.campbell-lange.net>