Transferring data between two Gnucash files

[Jesse C]

ahh, now i understand how the import works.  Thanks.  That was a crucial
piece of data (how the Category thing works).  Since I think there will be
splits, I guess I'm going with QIF.  Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I'll get
some time and knock out some test files and see if I can't get this
rolling.

I know there is some Bayesian learning in Gnucash for imports.  Will it
automatically learn how to map Categories to I/E accounts over time?

cheers
jesse

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 10:08 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Jesse C <crimson.corelio at gmail.com> writes:
>
> [snip]
> > 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?
>
> You don't need to do that.  All you need to do is create a QIF file for
> the transaction from the Liability account.  E.g.:
>
> Husband.qif:
> !Type:Oth L
> P...
> M...
> N...
> T50.00
> LExpenses:Housing:Rent
> ^
>
> This assumes that this is a Liability account.  If it's an asset then
> you could use use !Type:Bank or !Type:Oth A.
>
> When you import this QIF file you map the Qif Account "Husband" to the
> GnuCash Account "Husband A/L:Shared Expenses:Owed to Him:Merged".  And
> the QIF Category "Expenses:Housing:Rent" to the GnuCash Account
> "Expenses:Housing:Rent".  Eh viola.  You have your transaction imported.
>
> > Since I know every account before I start importing, on both sides of the
> > transactions, I can specify this.
>
> Correct.
>
> >     [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.
>
> No, you *CANNOT* use OFX then.  OFX does not support that.  QIF Can.
> You just need to add the S, M, and $ tags to specify the split
> categories instead of using L.
>
> > cheers
> > jesse
>
> -derek
>
> --
>       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
>