QIF Import and accounts

Ian Lewis ianmlewis at gmail.com
Mon Dec 17 04:56:47 EST 2007


The currency selection comes up for you when you do QIF imports? Lucky you!

Ok, I saw that your reimbursed expenses account is in GBP and the QIF is GBP
but the locale currency (or reporting currency (not totally sure what it
uses)) is EUR right? That should have worked if you selected the right
currency. The accounts in the QIF you provided seem strait.

It's purely speculation on my part and I would have to check myself but the
reason might also be that gnucash is getting confused because your account
structure has accounts with different currencies than their parent account.
I'm not sure why it would get confused necessarily but usually you have
separate account trees for different currencies since balances for
sub-accounts are usually summed up as part of the balance for parent
accounts (e.g. so you can see the total balance of your assets in a
particular currency).

Ian

2007/12/17, Georg Stapper <georgstapper at yahoo.com>:
>
> Ian,
>
> Thanks for your reply.
> Just to make sure, at the top level I set EUR (Asset, Equity etc.). Each
> QIF file is has got only one currency. I chose the respective currency for
> the account during the import process.
>
> Cheers,
> Georg
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Ian Lewis <ianmlewis at gmail.com>
> To: Georg Stapper <georgstapper at yahoo.com>
> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Sent: Monday, 17 December, 2007 10:41:28 AM
> Subject: Re: QIF Import and accounts
>
> Georg,
>
> Thanks for posting this in user. This is really where an issue like this
> should be posted.
>
> I picked up on what your problem might be the second time around. I had a
> similar problem recently and since you are working with multiple currencies
> I'm guessing this is your problem. If you are importing QIF files that have
> a different currency than the currency for your locale it will often try to
> import the QIF as your locale currency rather than the account currency. I
> submitted a bug for this. The QIF import should allow you to select a
> currency.
>
> See this mailing list thread:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2007-December/thread.html#22727
> and the bug report: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504007
> Feel free to add yourself to the notify list on the bug report.
>
> I believe that I was able to import properly by changing the default
> reporting currency in the preferences->reporting to the currency I was
> importing then doing the import and then changing it back to what it was
> before. I would have to try that again when I get home to confirm but give
> it a try.
>
> Ian
>
> 2007/12/17, Georg Stapper <georgstapper at yahoo.com >:
> >
> > 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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> >
> >
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> >
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>
>
>
> --
> Ian Lewis
> ianlewis at member.fsf.org
> http://www.ianlewis.org/
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________
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-- 
Ian Lewis
ianlewis at member.fsf.org
http://www.ianlewis.org/


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