Switching from Quicken to gnucash.

[Tommy Trussell]

On 8/10/07, Charles Stroom <charles at stremen.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> I am now considering to combine the QIF files from each account into a
> single QIF file before importing to Gnucash.  That would involve
> weeding out the multiple-redundant info (I think this could be done with
> some scripts), but I don't know how transfers between accounts are
> handled in a single multiple-account QIF file.  Has anyone ever tried
> this?  Has anyone an example of a qif file where there is a transfer
> between 2 accounts having different currencies?  And, my last question
> for the moment, how is the "sending" account/currency specified in
> multiple account qif files.  The single account qif file does not have
> the sending account at all, only the recipient accounts are included.

I hope someone corrects me if I'm wrong, but I think what you have
described is exactly how the QIF file works -- the transfers are not
explicit and must be "inferred" by the import procedure. I believe the
importer looks for transactions with the same date and dollar amount
and assumes they match up. Fortunately, the Gnucash importer makes an
import table to translate between Quicken categories and Gnucash
accounts, so the NEXT time you import some amount of data the category
matching is already done.

I used Quicken (Macintosh) for years and went through the upgrade and
the export/import process several times, and even using Intuit
software, the errors always had to do with bad "guesses" on account
transfers. Fortunately they were usually very evident because (of
course) I was familiar with my own data.

After several failed attempts to convert 15 years' worth of data from
Quicken to Gnucash, I decided to settle for the previous calendar
year. When I need to find some historical data I plan to just use a
text editor to search for the transaction in the exported QIF file --
that will give me purchase dates, and if I need a cumulative report I
may just have to do it manually.