exporting selected account subtree

Tue Mar 1 16:01:53 EST 2005

On Tuesday 01 March 2005 3:15 am, Derek Atkins wrote:
> At this point in time there's no way to do that.  Nor is there a way to
> import into an existing CoA.
>
> Neil Williams is working on this kind of problem.
>
> -derek
>
> TMaynard <rustym at main.nc.us> writes:
> > Hello list,
> >    I new to the enjoyment of gnucash and have a question about exporting
> >  transactions specific accounts (from a portion of one chart of accounts)

You'll need to wait, I'm afraid. 
:-(

I've got a solution that is progressing well - as a proof of concept, I have 
nearly finished code to export the Chart of Accounts for any specified date 
and include Opening Balance transactions for each account so that you get 
live data balances for each account on that date, rather than just a copy of 
the account tree. More than that, any selection of entities will be 
exportable in the same way, it's merely a case of creating the menu commands 
and dialogs. I'm looking at a possible standard QSF export dialog that could 
be activated from almost anywhere within GnuCash - but exports are easy.

Most importantly, the same code will allow this XML to be imported and merged 
into a GnuCash file. Your data will become more portable between users and 
between files - instead of having to copy the entire data file, you can 
select the entities that matter to you. Filter on periods, single dates, 
amounts, customers, types, accounts, status ... with the exception of 
commodities (which is a problem I hope to solve eventually).

It will also allow further data processing (data-mining) and manipulation, 
including conversion to forms suitable for other applications. The Chart of 
Accounts test code is just the first of many facets of GnuCash that will 
become exportable in a form that retains the live data AND which supports 
merging that data back into a GnuCash file. 

The main aim of the project is manipulating invoices outside GnuCash, 
especially the creation of GnuCash invoices from a HotSync with a Palm PDA 
using pilot-link. I am working on pilot-link as well to bring a simple 
command to GnuCash that calls pilot-link code to request a HotSync, query the 
Palm databases and create usable GnuCash data that can then be merged into 
the current GnuCash data file. The same code will also be able to query 
offline storage, created in QSF XML, so that queries can be executed against 
recent data when the PDA is not connected.

There are significant amounts of code left to be written before the code is 
fully functional but large elements of the code are already in the HEAD and 
Gnome2 branches of GnuCash, further elements are working locally and are 
awaiting further testing and other areas of code are pending completion of 
the above.

http://code.neil.williamsleesmill.me.uk/palm.html

http://code.neil.williamsleesmill.me.uk/qsf.html

The 'secret' to the whole design is QOF - a generic abstraction layer for C 
objects that is essentially the GnuCash engine with all the financial parts 
removed. I'm wrapping QOF around pilot-link (as an option) to provide access 
to the Palm data using SQL type queries.

This is why almost anything within GnuCash will be exportable using this 
method - it is also why the work takes some time.

> > into another chart of accounts.   The export command seems intended to
> > export an entire file or COA  ...not for exporting a partial selection of
> > accounts from a COA.

That can be done using the QSF code described above. It's coming, but it's a 
large amount of work. So far I've been working on it for a year. I estimate 
usable code in the next release of GnuCash (providing that next release is 
the much-awaited Gnome2 port). The codebase will then continue to expand as 
new export capabilities are added - the main emphasis is on getting the 
import mechanism working.

If anyone has ideas for the kinds of exports they would need, let me know.

Currently, I am intent on supporting these in the first release:
1. Chart of Accounts for a specified date with opening balance transactions.
2. Invoice, Customer and Statement exports with integral data.
3. Invoice creation within GnuCash from a direct call to pilot-link - this 
will use data streaming to operate in real-time and without a requirement for 
intermediary files or scripting.

That is my intent - I will do what I can to match that with real code and a 
lot is done already but I can only say I will try.

If others on this list have *urgent* needs for other export / import 
mechanisms for PARTIAL data - not including QIF, OFX, HBCI, CVS or new / 
modified reports within GnuCash itself - please reply and I will consider 
your requests. Further mechanisms can be added in future releases, for now 
I'm concentrating on the main 3 above plus suitable urgent requests.

Please remember that this new code is specifically designed to import the data 
back into GnuCash after export. It is not about creating new reports.

(Partial: anything where you cannot already create a normal GnuCash file that 
contains only the data you need - this does not currently include closing 
books at the end of a financial period.)

Offers of help will also be considered!

> > It would 
> > be preferrable to export only that placeholder subtree of account
> > transactions to be then imported into the business COA.

That is a fundamental component of QSF - all data exported using QSF will be 
capable of being merged back into a GnuCash file. It will also be capable of 
being converted and manipulated to be imported into a range of other 
applications.

> > I do not find a 
> > tool for exporting just a subtree of accounts  into a file that can be
> > imported into another COA. Is there an undocumented method?

No. The method is in development but you'll have to wait until the code is 
ready - unless you have the skills to help it along!

All the documentation you could need is available at the above links.

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.dcglug.org.uk/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/isbnsearch/
http://www.neil.williamsleesmill.me.uk/
http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x8801094A28BCB3E3

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