Using bank exports (CSV, QIF,...) to avoid the overhead that comes from processing bills

Tom Van Braeckel tomvanbraeckel at gmail.com
Tue Mar 9 03:47:02 EST 2010


*trythis: *Why are you not sure it would help ?*

*Allow me to elaborate on my current strategy. I've made a script that
converts the CSV's from my bank to QIF's, and which uses the transaction
description to guess which GnuCash expense post is appropriate for that
transaction.

For example, when the transaction description contains
"*PAYMENT*MCDONALDS*", my script will add "LExpenses:Food:Fastfood" to the
QIF file so that the transaction will be booked to the
"LExpenses:Food:Fastfood" expense post.

I'm doing something similar for my business transactions (which are often
split transactions, since the VAT is booked to another post).
For example, when the transaction contains "PAYMENT*INVOICE*NUON*", the
script adds:
SExpensesPro:With21%VAT:Utilities:Gas
$6.26446
SEquity:VAT:Deductible VAT
$1.31554

So, this works, but it completely bypasses the MKB features that GnuCash
has, such as bill expiration dates, or keeping track of whether or not a
bill has been paid. It also ignores the fact that a bill has a "posted"
date, since it only knows about the date a bill was paid, not when it was
received.


My question is: What are you other business users doing to (partially)
automate their MKB workflow ?
What do you think about my idea, or what other approaches would you suggest
?

Thanks a lot,

Tom.


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