LOAN ACCOUNT PROBLEMS

[Christopher P Hunt]

Hi Charles,
 
Think I have found the problem to my dilema.  The qif files I am
downloading from my financial institution treat both loan (liability)
and Bank (asset) accounts the same and therefore show Debits (Deposits)
as a positive figure & Credits (Withdrawls) as a negative figure.
However as I have read in the GnuCash help files this is incorrect as
debits & credits work oppositely in the two type of accounts.  Therefore
the payments from my bank account to my loan account are correct,
however the transactions imported via qif for my loan accounts are
reversed because of incorrect -/+ sign.  When I look at my account
electronically the transactions appear in the correct debit/credit
columns but after importing into GnuCash they are transposed into the
opposite columns, so I will talk to my financial institute and see if
they can rectify the problem with their process when creating qif files
from loan accounts.
 
Thanks you for the reply it certainly pointed me in the right direction
to identify the reason behind my problem.
 
Regards
Christopher
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Day [mailto:cedayiv at gmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, 30 December 2007 13:11
To: Christopher P Hunt
Cc: gnucash-user at lists.gnucash.org
Subject: Re: LOAN ACCOUNT PROBLEMS


On Dec 29, 2007 11:55 AM, Christopher P Hunt <thehunt at tpg.com.au> wrote:


I am currently setting up my personal finances using GnuCash 2.2.2 on a
WINXP SP2 platform. 


Me too. 



I have set up my account structure and downloaded all my Bank
Account/Loan Account/Credit Card transactions using the QIF format and 
imported them into my account structure.  I have then been allocating



Do you mean that the QIF data came directly from your financial
institutions? Or did it come from another finance program, such as
Quicken? When you look in the QIF file(s) at the payments, are the
amounts shown for the bank account transactions negative? Are the
amounts shown for the loan account transactions positive? (That's how
mine are.)



transfer categories to each transaction.  This has worked as per the
documentation except for when I transfer money from my ASSETS:CURRENT 
ASSETS:BANK ACCOUNT (type bank account) to my LIABILITIES:LOAN ACCOUNT
(type liability account)  When downloading the transaction qif files for
these accounts I have two entries one in the Bank Account showing a 
withdrawal of the appropriate amount and the other in the Loan Account
showing an increase of the correct amount.  Noting these were the same
transaction I deleted one and then assigned the other a transfer from 
one account to the other.  However when I transfer from the Bank Account
to the loan account it shows up as a decrease in the loan account and
increases the debt (reverse of what it should be).  I then tried it the 
other way round and when I set the transfer in the loan account from the
bank account it shows up as a deposit in the bank account not a
withdrawal.

For clarification in my loan account money going out (eg money going to 
my fixed assets:house) show up in black in the decrease column,
payments show in the increase column in black and the balance in in red
as a negative figure.



Hope this makes sense and someone can either explain what I'm doing 
wrong or confirm this as a bug.  Also is there a way to tell gnucash
when importing qif files that the two entries in the separate accounts
are the same transaction?



Strange. All my loans and payments were imported perfectly, so I
wouldn't immediately suspect a bug. 



Other than this problem GnuCash is stable on my XP SP2 machine and I 
have set up my credit card, shares account and mutual fund and all seem
to be functioning correctly.

Any help or direction will be great fully received

Christopher Hunt


Cheers,
Charles