Trouble Importing QIF to Gnucash 2.4.8

[Bruce Perryman]

Thanks again for all of your help. And thanks for advising me to adjust my thinking from categories to accounts.

Based on your replies, it seems like this management software generates invalid .qif files. There are ^^ all throughout the .qif(s). I would have to manually change all of these. Also, not understanding the process, at first I put an arbitrary !Type:XX just to satisfy the requirement. That allowed me to continue through the import, but it yielded no apparent change in my gnucash data. I then put a name of an existing account to see if there was any difference for example, !Type:Checking. That produced the same results (nothing) as the !Type:XX.

Should I create accounts in gnucash that match what is contained in the .qif(s) before I perform the import? Again, the management software's accounts have been created with 'quicken account or category' specifications so that when I perform the import the transactions are either directed to the appropriate accounts or new accounts are created.
For example, in this software I can create an account called PettyCash and specify that it is a quicken account. When I export a .qif, the file is generated like I showed you without the !Type statement and with the ^^s. Quicken has no problem importing it and if the account doesn't exist, Quicken will ask if I want to create it.

I will need to make sure that the process is as seamless as possible. What will I need to do to ensure that gnucash will understand what is being given? It is apparent that the version of the software is compatible with Quicken but not gnucash. I need to determine if the issues are show stoppers. I will try the single ^ and see if that produces any different results.


Thanks, you've been extremely helpful.




________________________________
 From: Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com>
To: Bruce Perryman <bperryman_us at yahoo.com> 
Cc: Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com>; "gnucash-user at gnucash.org" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 8:25 PM
Subject: Re: Trouble Importing QIF to Gnucash 2.4.8
 
Hi,

On Wed, January 11, 2012 7:32 pm, Bruce Perryman wrote:
> <Quote>
> Well, it depends what account the transactions are for.  The !Type
> description tells the QIF parser how to interpret the transactions.
> Options include !Type:Bank, !Type:CCard, and many others.
>
> Most likely it should be !Type:Bank, but really it does depend on what
> kind of transactions you are importing.
> </Quote>
>
> I'm not sure that I am getting the same functionality that I desire. The
> Financial management software that I've been using captures may sources of
> income and categorizes and sub-categorizes them for import into a quicken
> file via .qifs.

Don't think in terms of income and expenses or categories.  Think in terms
of your assets and liabilities, and the transactions into and out of those
accounts.  In general a QIF file would be the collection of transactions
into or out of ONE ACCOUNT (a Bank account, a Credit Card account, etc). 
Then the Category specification in the QIF Transaction would specify the
target Category for that transaction (i.e, it's a transaction between the
QIF Account and the specified Category, e.g. Groceries).  The Payee and
Memo fields are just ancillary data which you can use to map to Income and
Expense accounts if the QIF doesn't already specify a Category.

>      For example, the following .qif:
> D01/01/2012
> T10.00
> NDEP
> PCat1
> LCat1
> MCat1
> ^^

This is invalid QIF.  You should only have a single ^, not a double (^^).

[snip]
> Imports the data into the account that I have opened in the Payee,
> Category, and Memo fields respectively. When I first tried to import,
> because of the missing type statement, it displayed an error. When I place
> a !Type statement, it doesn't display an error, but it doesn't import any
> data into any accounts. When the screen comes up to match the fields, all
> fields are blank and there is nothing to match. Something is not
> connecting.

What !Type field did you put up front?  Also, remove the double carat and
use a single carat.  Also, you need a carat at the end of the file. 
Beyond that, the importer should read the file just fine if the contents
are what you sent.

> I need to understand the process a little better. Thanks again.

> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
      derek at ihtfp.com            www.ihtfp.com
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant