direct download from broker

[David Reiser]

On Jan 4, 2006, at 6:39 PM, Victor Chudnovsky wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I asked the technical support people at Charles Schwab, my broker,
> whence to download an OFX-, QFX-, or QIF-formatted file with my
> transactions. It turns out that they do not make this service  
> available
> on the web because they have a feature that allows Microsoft Money to
> connect directly to their system to download the transactions without
> going through a web browser.
>
> Can/could GnuCash connect to financial institutions using this  
> protocol?
> Does anyone have ideas for any workarounds other than using a Windows
> box to get the transactions from Schwab, save them to a file, and then
> read the file into GnuCash?
>
> FWIW, I suggested to the people at Schwab that they make  
> downloading the
> file from the website an option "because not everyone uses Windows."
>
> Thanks,
>
> Victor
It looks to me like you can use ofx.py to download the info, but  
you'd have to be willing to tweak the script. Once downloaded, the  
gnucash ofx import works quite well. Libofx (the parser used by  
gnucash) does have an issue with dividends in certain circumstances, but

http://www.jongsma.org/gc/ has a copy of ofx.py available.

aqbanking will probably get this capability in the not too distant  
future, but it isn't quite ready yet. Once aqbanking can do it,  
gnucash2 will be able to do it.

 From the data on banks/brokers/credit card companies, it doesn't  
look like Schwab inhibits access -- they just obscure the url:  
https://ofx.schwab.com/cgi_dev/ofx_server. Certainly, they have no  
intention of supporting access outside of Money. It could be that  
Schwab makes you activate access through a separate channel before  
you can log in to the ofx server (Chase does, but happily they don't  
charge for my particular circumstances). Once activated, it shouldn't  
be hard to download data. Since such activation is usually through a  
separate channel, you can probably just sign up, and then use other  
utilities. Again, no support...

What Schwab does say about support is:

The standard customer support numbers at Schwab are not prepared to  
help you with specific questions on Money. There is no support  
provided through email within the Customer Center at the Schwab website.

The Money Schwab customer support team is ready to assist you with  
any questions you have about passwords, User ID, availability of  
accounts for download and imported account data in the Online Banking  
and Investment place.

Charles Schwab Money Support 1-800-533-0439
--
David Reiser
dbreiser at earthlink.net