Quicken 2005 User Looking To Move To GnuCash - Have some questions

[James Burton]

I switched from Money 2005 to GnuCash several years ago.

1. Quicken data *should* transfer out easily.  Export your accounts to QIF,
then import them in GnuCash.

The one thing that you should keep in mind is that GnuCash is a full
featured double-entry accounting system. Quicken is not.  (GnuCash is more a
replacement for QuickBooks than Quicken.) I will not go into the details of
double-entry accounting here, but basically in a double-entry accounting
system, money is neither created nor destroyed, it is just moved around
between accounts.  Instead of categories, you have "Expense" accounts and
"Income" accounts. For example, when you spend money, you debt your bank
account, and credit the associated expense account. (Thus, the name
double-entry.)

The QIF importer will handle these pretty well, BUT you will find out very
quickly just how meticulous you were in Quicken as the double-entry system
will find all your uncategorized transactions and demand that you fix them
by dumping them into Imbalance-USD or Orphan-USD.

GnuCash handles split transactions very well.

2. Not sure about this.  My experience with GnuCash on Windows is minimal.

3. GnuCash imports OFX and QFX along with QIF and even CSV.  The CSV import
is new and not very refined, though.

Jim

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 9:44 PM, rt1001 <member5555 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I have been using the Quicken 2005 version for keeping track of my personal
> finances for a number of years.
>
> I am now looking to "move on" and am considering GnuCash.  I had tried
> GnuCash, briefly, several years ago but did not switch.
>
> My questions are:
> 1. How easily can I transfer my existing Quicken 2005 data to GnuCash (and
> how completely)?  For instance, does GnuCash support split credit card
> transactions (one purchase going to 2 or more categories)?
>
> 2. Whan I tried GnuCash previously (under Windows XP), it created a bunch
> of
> directories for the data in very non-standard locations.  Can the location
> of the data be controlled by the user?  Does it still use multiple
> directories?
>
> 3. As for downloading transactions from my bank and credit card, can
> GnuCash
> import OFX or QFX formatted files?  Some companies offer OFX while some
> offer QFX.
>
> Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
>
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