Transferring data between two Gnucash files

[Jesse C]

 comments inline

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 7:07 PM, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:

> On Wed, January 11, 2012 6:24 pm, Jesse C wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 7:48 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> [snip]
> > What it appears is that if I import, say, a Liability account with the
> > transaction:
> > 1/1/2012 "Spent some money"  $100
> > and an Expense account with a transaction:
> > 1/1/2012 "Spent some money"  $100
>
> Except you would never do this.  (or you're skipping the double-entry
> accounting portion of it).  When you import a transaction you are only
> importing Asset and Liability transactions.  For each transaction you need
> to assign the "far" account (the second split in the double-entry).
>

Uhm, I am trying to account (haha) for the double-entry part of it.  Going
back to my original example, I want to import the following transaction:

(Liability Account) Husband A/L:Shared Expenses:Owed to Him:Merged  +50
(Expense Account) Expenses:Housing:Rent  +50

That's a fully balanced gnucash entry (or maybe it should be -50 for the
expense, if that's how you think about things.  Either way it is increasing
the expense # and driving the liability)

I want to import that transaction using QIF files.  What I was hoping to be
able to do is make one QIF account from the Liability account and one for
the Expense Account and have GnuCash match them up when I import them.  Is
that being too optimistic about the QIF importer?


> > Then Gnucash should be able to connect them up as being the opposite
> sides
> > of the same transaction.  Or least that is the impression I got from
> > reading the mailing list archives.  If that is case, then it is perfect
> > for
> > what I'm doing (and way simpler than I was fearing).
>
> It can, *IFF* you specify the correct accounts during the import process.
> If you wait, import the transactions as "Unspecified", then no, GnuCash
> will not be able to determine that the $100 Transfer from Bank to
> Unspecified is the same as the $100 transfer from Unspecified to
> CreditCard.
>

Since I know every account before I start importing, on both sides of the
transactions, I can specify this.


> [snip]
> > I don't need splits, but having looked at the syntax for OFX, I have to
> > agree that QIF is a much simpler format.
>
> So you never import a Salary with Withholdings?  Okay.
>
> Hmm, there are transactions with multiple-splits.  I may need to use OFX
then.  Hopefully the java libraries are up to snuff.  Assuming that what I
want to do is possible at all.

cheers
jesse