importing data

[Ewan Slater]

Hi Bela

<facts>
     Apologies if I'm about to tell you stuff that you know already.

     Excel and other spreadsheets such as OpenOffice/LibreOffice allow
you to write macros (mini programs you can run from within the
spreadsheet software to automate tasks).

     You could certainly create a QIF file from a spreadsheet that way.

     There's lots of how - to's on the web and the online help in
Excel is pretty good.

     Another way would be to save the spreadsheet as a comma separated
(CSV) file and create another program in any language to convert the
CSV file to QIF.
</facts>

<speculation>
     I would think that it would be possible to run a report or set of
reports out of GnuCash to get the information that you wish to export
out of one GnuCash instance into another.

     You could then have a program read the report data and create a
QIF file from it for import.
</speculation>

<wild-speculation>
      I haven't played with the custom reports from GnuCash yet, but
it might even be possible to have the report generated in QIF format
(can anyone comment on the sanity/feasibility of this suggestion?)
</wild-speculation>

As to your comments about whether GnuCash is suitable for "business" I
think it depends on the business.  If I was self - employed or had a
company small enough for the accounts to be handled by one person, I
think it would be fine.

Cheers,

Ewan

>
> Message: 12
> Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:41:02 +0800
> From: tereque <tereque at gmail.com>
> To: "gnucash-user at gnucash.org" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Subject: Re: importing data
> Message-ID: <5018892E.1030707 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> hi
>
> On 31/07/2012 06:17, Derek Atkins wrote:
> > "David T." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> writes:
> >
> >> Tereque--
> >>
> >> You surmise (correctly, I believe) that there is no way to import Gnucash data directly into Gnucash, and your spreadsheet solution is probably as good a way as any to achieve your goals.
> >
> > You could try to use GnuCash2QIF to convert an existing GnuCash file
> > into QIF and then import it, but you would have to clear out the
> > transactions between each run or you'll have to match duplicates every
> > time from all previous imports.
> didn't work on first sight (crashing in the process). Will take a closer
> look later
>
>
> >> That said, I believe that you are seeking to have Gnucash provide you with more of an enterprise solution than Gnucash was designed to provide.
> >> Gnucash is primarily meant for single users;requests for it to provide more robust multi-user access (as by allowingmultiple >> file import, or by allowing multiple simultaneous users)
> have met with little enthusiasm.
> >
> > Yeah, GnuCash really was not designed to solve your problem.  It was
> > originally for personal use, and then later added SBHB support, but it
> > was always designed with "everyone with access to the books has full
> > access to all data".  It's unlikely that will change anytime soon.
>
> I totally could understand arguments being 'there are no sufficient
> capacities to go into that further yet' or 'developers would not want to
> go into that because ...' but 'it was meant to be for single users only
> in the first place...' sounds a little bit weird to me.
>
> Having the whole 'business' section is a statement for meaning
> 'business' in my eyes. But what I read through the lines somehow is that
> people seem to not really recognize that as a fact, but more as if it
> would have been 'a little playing around' but not meaning it really
> serious. And I guess there is much more work into the business section
> then just' playing a little around' so it might be worth to go continue
> working on that (I mean in a way not to say that it is just not made for
> business whenever a problem with this is posted). I guess a more
> confident sounding approach towards the 'business' section would be good.
>
> My impressions on that might be not be reflecting the real situation for
> 100% as I am following this since a very short time only.
>
> > Your other option is to look at additional software (like Excel, but
> > perhaps something better) for transaction entry which can then be
> > imported via e.g. QIF.
>
> can you explain a little how that would work? What would be the 'like
> Excel but better' software you refer to? How would I get to produce a
> QIF file out of Excel (or the unnamed 'but better' software)?
>
> many thanks
> Bela
>
>