v2.2.4 QIF import & reports

Charles Day cedayiv at gmail.com
Wed Mar 12 01:02:10 EDT 2008


On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 9:35 AM, Stuart Blood <stuart.blood at valley.net>
wrote:

> At 06:10 PM 3/9/2008, Charles Day wrote:
> >On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 11:30 AM, Stuart Blood
> ><<mailto:stuart.blood at valley.net>stuart.blood at valley.net> wrote:
> >At 08:07 PM 3/8/2008, Charles Day wrote:
> > >On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Stuart Blood
> > ><<mailto:stuart.blood at valley.net>stuart.blood at valley.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >(1) I've downloaded transactions from my credit card company.  That
> > >generated a file called Activity.qif.  I confirmed that the file was
> > >ok by importing the transactions to Quicken 2005.  However, when I
> > >"import" to GnuCash, I get a message that, "QIF file load failed:
> > >File does not appear to be a QIF file."
> > >
> > >
> > >GnuCash expects the first non-blank line of your QIF file to start
> > >with an exclamation point. Can you show us the first few lines of
> > >your file, without giving away any personal data? That's the first
> > >step. If that's not it, then I believe that there is a line
> > >somewhere else in your file that starts with an exclamation point,
> > >and that GnuCash doesn't understand the rest of that line. So that's
> > >what we'd need to find. But let's start with the first few lines of
> > >your QIF file.
> >
> >
> >I've realized that I can import QFX files, which seems to have solved
> >my problem.  Thanks for the tip.  I'll save it in case I run into the
> >QIF problem again.
> >
> >
> >You could still help us out by working through the QIF problem, as
> >other users are sure to see the same problem in the future. If
> >there's a problem with GnuCash's importer, I'd like to identify and
> >fix it. If Quicken accepts it, then GnuCash probably could too.
> >Could you post the first few lines of your QIF file, and any other
> >lines beginning with an exclamation point?
>
> I'll be happy to help if I can.
>
> If I use the QIF file as I've downloaded it from my credit card
> company, I get the message that I mentioned above.  If I edit the
> file, prepending '!' on the first none-blank line, the operation
> proceeds.  However, the dialog titled "Match QIF accounts with
> GnuCash Accounts" is unpopulated.  If I click forward, the next
> dialog is also unpopulated.
>

Since the file does not reference any accounts or categories, it is no
surprise that those two dialogs are blank. It would be better if the
importer detected that situation and just skipped those two steps, but for
the moment it unfortunately doesn't work that way.

If instead, I select File | Import | Import QFX/OFX, I see that the
> file selection dialog offers me both QIF and QFX files to choose
> from.  If I select the unedited or edited QIF file, I get an
> unpopulated "Generic import transaction matcher", but no error
> message.  I don't know if that's useful info.
>
> Here are the first few lines of the uneditted QIF file.  (Note that
> the first two lines are blank.)
>

OK, so the first non-blank line doesn't start with an exclamation point to
tell us what kind of transactions we are looking at. The problem is that
some lines can be interpreted multiple ways, depending on whether the
account holds investments or not. The importer could be modified to ask for
an account type when it finds itself in this situation, but I think that the
way it is designed that might take a fair bit of work. In the meantime, what
you have to do to make the QIF importer accept your file for this credit
card account is to insert a line at the top to specify the account type,
such as:

!type:ccard


>
> C*
> D02/11/2008
> NN/A
> PMAINE ISLAND TRAIL
> T-65.0
> ^
>
>         Stuart
>
>


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