QIF Import and accounts

Georg Stapper georgstapper at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 17 02:20:29 EST 2007


Hi there.

my checking and savings accounts are with ABSA (ZAR), Barclays (GBP), and ING DIBA (EUR). So far I kept track of my accounts with Excel, but that's far from perfect and I thought it would take too much time to put it all together. I have spent so much time now trying to import my Excel data history into a software package that I could have continued with Excel for the rest of my life. My wife is freaking out already.

So I am looking for a better option. Strangely enough only the South African bank allows to download the transaction data in different formats. The other two banks provide only CSV downloands for each account separately. My first attempt was MS Money 2007 with QIF files and a category and a sub-category, but MS Money does not even recognise the categories of its own QIF files. GNU Cash seems to be the better choice then.

Instead of using just two categories I tried to set up the whole account structure using the category field and a colon as the account separator. This ended up in a mess. So, I decided to set up the account structure by hand. A simplified version looks like this:

Assets (EUR)
    Current Assets (EUR)
        Cash (EUR)
            EUR
            GBP
            ZAR
        Checking (EUR)
            Absa (ZAR)
            Barclays (GBP)
                reimbursed expenses (GBP)
            Diba (EUR)
        Savings (EUR)
            Absa (ZAR)
            Barclays (GBP)
            Diba (EUR)

Equity (EUR)
    opening balance EUR
    opening balance GBP
    opening balance ZAR

Expenses (EUR)
    flat (GBP)
        renovation (GBP)

Income (EUR)
    Bonus (EUR)
        Barclays (GBP)

If I try to import the following QIF files for my Barclays accounts GNC comes up with an additional asset account structure due to "QIF import: Name conflict with another account" only for the reimbursed expenses. 

During the import process the QIF account name and the GNC account name for both physical accounts are recognised to be the same. I am happy with that. 

The problem starts when GNC tries to match the QIF categories its own accounts even though they should be exactly the same. It wants to set up another account for the reimbursed expenses even though it exsits already:
        Assets:Current Assets:Checking:Barclays:reimbursed expenses
By double clicking on the entry the "Select Account" window pops up, but I cannot change there anything except setting up another new account. That does not help. The same applies to
        Assets:Current Assets:Savings:Barclays
and
        Expenses:flat:renovation.

The result is a mixture of new accounts in the existing account structure and a whole new "Asset 2" branch.

I did not go any further to import my EUR and ZAR accounts, because it's a mess already at this stage.

First file:
------------
!Account
NAssets:Current Assets:Checking:Barclays
DBarclays Checking
TBank
/01/08/2007
$0.00
^
!Type:Bank
N1
D03/08/2007
MEmployer EXPENSES
T100.00
PEmployer
LAssets:Current Assets:Checking:Barclays:reimbursed expenses 
^
N2
D08/08/2007
MK A C BUILDERS MER
T-16.00
PK A C BUILDERS MER
LExpenses:flat:renovation 
^
N3
D28/11/2007
MMe
T-100.00
PMe
LAssets:Current Assets:Savings:Barclays

Second file:
----------------
!Account
NAssets:Current Assets:Savings:Barclays
DBarclays Tracker Account
TBank
/01/8/2007
$0.00
^
!Type:Bank
N1
D29/10/2007
MMe
T1000.00
PMe
LAssets:Current Assets:Savings:Barclays 
^
N2
D29/10/2007
MEmployer
T1000.00
PEmployer
LIncome:Bonus:Barclays
^
N3
D28/11/2007
MMe
T100.00
PMe
LAssets:Current Assets:Checking:Barclays
^


I have some questions now:
1) Is there anything wrong with my QIF files?
2) How do I make GNC import my accounts properly?
3) Should I maybe use an older GNC version?
4) Does it make sense to enter reimbursed expenses under assets? 

I deleted always qif-accounts-map to start all over again.
I am using GNC 2.2.1, built from r16462 on 2007-08-20 on Windows XP.

Thanx for your help
Georg


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