yet another QIF import problem

[Charles Day]

On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 9:05 PM, Carla Schroder <carla at bratgrrl.com> wrote:

> On Friday 14 March 2008 8:49:45 pm Charles Day wrote:
> > >I tried exporting just the last month's activities, and GnuCash had no
> > > problem
> > > importing the file. So apparently there's something in the big QIF
> export
> > > that isn't right. Spose I can break it down into smaller pieces and
> see
> > > what
> > > happens. Moneydance won't do separate exports by account, but you can
> > > choose
> > > smaller date ranges.
> > >
> >
> > When you find a smaller QIF file that won't import, please let us know.
> > Maybe we can isolate the problem. There have been a number of Moneydance
> > users that have had trouble importing, and it seems like the problem
> (other
> > than the known parentheses thing) never really gets clearly defined for
> us,
> > so it's hard to fix.
> >
>
> Allrightythen! I broke the QIF file into three smaller chunks. GnuCash
> handled
> them fine, all at once.


Are you telling me that:
1. You took a 70k file that wouldn't import, and split it into three without
changing any of the data.
2. You imported those three together, in one run (using the "Load another
file" button).
3. It worked?

If so, there would seem to be two possibilities:
A. Moneydance inconsistently uses date or number formats, but you split the
file up in such a way that each of the three files is consistent within
itself.
B. The GnuCash QIF importer is detecting an inconsistency that isn't really
there.

I'd sure like to know which.

I thought something had gone wrong again when it
> opened to a blank window, but then 'File -> New accounts page' brought it
> all
> back. Which is a good thing for all of us, because I might have come to
> your
> house in the middle of the night and awakened you with weeping.
>

By the next release of GnuCash the QIF importer will automatically open up
that list of accounts when it finishes, so that you don't have to hunt for
it on the menu.

The import went beautifully, I haven't found any errors yet.


If you did the import with 2.2.1, then don't get your hopes up. You'll
probably find some. :(


> I really like not
> having to create a set of accounts first, or almost as bad, go through
> them
> one at a time like some finance programs make you do. Once I gave it
> digestible QIF files it went quickly.
>

Not sure how you set up your account tree, but I think GnuCash generally
works better when a subaccounts are used, i.e. instead a Visa account and a
Mastercard account, you'd have Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa and
Liabilities:Credit Card:Mastercard. If you just have a flat list of
accounts, rather than a tree, then you might want to consider using the "New
Account Hierarchy Setup" druid to generate an initial set of accounts, then
redo the import and map the QIF accounts to the right spot in the account
tree.


> Thanks for helping!
>

You're welcome.

Cheers,
Charles


>
> Carla
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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