Sharing and backing up gnucash files on several machines

[David Reiser]

On May 7, 2011, at 9:38 AM, Michael Miller wrote:

> In asking before trying it because of previous bad experiences with Quicken
> which really had issues with this.  Quicken stored information on what had
> been downloaded from the bank in a separate file so if you switched
> computers and downloaded again, the same transactions would be  downloaded
> to the register and I would have to fix each one.

In gnucash, transactions imported from any OFX source are in the gnucash data file. If you're using aqbanking to connect directly with the bank, that OFX data stream is not saved at all (unless you turn on aqbanking's log function). If you are importing from a downloaded webconnect OFX file, that data stays in the file you downloaded (gnucash doesn't destroy it during or after importing the transactions).
> 
> I was going to just try it with Gnucash to see what would happen but I ran
> into a problem.  I noticed that I had to setup the OFX download with each
> machine...that information was not saved in the data file.  If that
> information wasn't saved then I just assumed that records of which OFX
> transactions had been downloaded were not saved within the data file either.

The direct-connect settings are saved in aqbanking's configuration files. On a unix system, those are usually in ~/.aqbanking

> 
> So...the data is saved and it is safe to try it?
> 
> Sent from my Droid
> On May 6, 2011 8:39 AM, "Derek Atkins" <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Reese Ray <mrmsudawgs at gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>>> Curious...I also want to use Dropbox to share my Gnucash data between
> three
>>> different machines:
>>> 
>>> 1. Windows 7 Laptop
>>> 2. Windows Vista Desktop
>>> 3: Ubuntu Desktop
>>> 
>>> I already have my data file in Dropbox which I can open with either
> system
>>> but I'm concerned that the fact that I downloaded OFX files on my Windows
> 7
>>> laptop may not be communicated to the Vista or Ubuntu machines because
> the
>>> record of that download (which downloaded files from a certain date
> range)
>>> is stored on the Windows 7 laptop.
>>> 
>>> How did you address this? Is there a way to ensure overlapping downloads
> do
>>> not occur?
>> 
>> The data file contains the import information, so this should already be
>> happening. Is it not? Or are you asking before you tried it?
>> 
>>> Thanks!
>> 
>>> 


Dave
--
David Reiser
dbreiser at earthlink.net