OFX and investment account imports

[David Reiser]

On Jan 15, 2005, at 8:51 PM, David Reiser wrote:

> I'm having a problem importing investment transactions via OFX.
>
> the section of the ofx file:
[snip]
> <UNITS>100.000
> <UNITPRICE>78.30
> <COMMISSION>10.990
> <FEES>0.00
> <TOTAL>-7840.99
[snip]
> When I import the transaction set the brokerage account cash balance 
> gets appropriately reduced, but in the stock subaccount, the 
> transaction shows up as 7840.99 shares bought at a price of 1 dollar 
> per share.
[snip]
> OFX version 0.6.6, GnuCash 1.8.9

I've found the answer to this one. When I started using gnucash, I had 
no clue I'd be able to coax an OFX file for my account out of 
ameritrade, so I defined all my commodities and stock subaccounts by 
hand based on the ticker symbol only, with no entry in the CUSIP for 
commidity nor Code number for account. CUSIPs are not the easiest 
identifiers to find, and not particularly necessary because at least 
within one country, ticker symbols are unique. (But ticker symbols 
sometimes change, without changing the CUSIP of the security. And 
sometimes more than one CUSIP/other-nominally-unique-ID will point to 
the same ticker symbol -- yuck).

Anyway. Enter the OFX download. Ameritrade (probably like everyone 
else) includes CUSIPs in the ofx file. LibOFX prefers the CUSIP to the 
ticker symbol as an identifier. On import, libOFX asks me to choose or 
create a commodity to match the security being imported at the moment 
-- showing the ticker symbol and CUSIP of the item for which it wants a 
match. So I choose my manually defined commodity, matched by ticker 
symbol, and then the appropriate account. And then libOFX imports the 
transaction as 7840.99 shares priced at 1 dollar per share.

If I delete the offending transaction, manually paste the CUSIP into 
the commodity and account definitions, and reimport the same ofx file, 
the transactions import correctly.

I think it's a bug that libofx can ask for a commodity and account, be 
given commodity and accounts with type=stock, and still import the 
transaction incorrectly. Perhaps it is an enhancement request that the 
importer ask me if I want to fill in the blank CUSIP on my commodity to 
match the apparently identical security in the import file.

Dave