Merging 2 gnucash files

David Carlson david.carlson.417 at gmail.com
Tue Feb 26 08:18:48 EST 2013


On 2/25/2013 8:52 PM, Lukas Haase wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thanks a lot, this really seems to work. Including split transactions
> etc. I really hope that it is robust enough!
> What I mean with robust: For example, I import, check the "Total" of the
> top accounts, thinking everything is fine and then I see months later
> that something is completely screwed up.
>
> If this does potentially not happen, it is fine (it is just a one-time
> import).
>
> However, there is one account which is just not exported using
> gnucashtoqif! The account shows up in the QIF but no transactions. When
> importing, this account does not show up at all.
>
> It was an "equity" account under "Equity" which I used to "virtually"
> transfer money from the other GNU cash file (i.e., it was not an income
> because I had the money already in my other file and it is not an asset
> or liability because that would have screwed up my balance what I "have"
> and "owe" in the current file.
>
> In any case, I thought that maybe Equity is not supported and moved the
> account under Income (and changed the type to "Income"). Unfortunately
> it is still not in the QIF file. Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> Luke
>
> On 2013-02-25 16:44, David T. wrote:
>> Lukas--
>>
>> You can read about the QIF format here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicken_Interchange_Format
>>
>> I am not sure what kind of robustness you might need. Are you merging GnuCash files once, or repeatedly?
>>
>> David
>>
>> On Feb 25, 2013, at 11:32 AM, Lukas Haase <lukashaase at gmx.at> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2013-02-25 08:24, Derek Atkins wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>> Lukas Haase <lukashaase at gmx.at> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Is it possible to merge 2 gnucash files?
>>>>>
>>>>> For the start, it would be enough that the second file is imported in a
>>>>> large "File 2" account from the first file.
>>>> There is no direct way.
>>> Oh, that's no good news :(
>>>
>>>> One potential approach is to use Gnucash2QIF to convert one data file to
>>>> QIF, and then use the QIF importer to include it in the second file.
>>> Is QIF "robust" enough?
>>>
>>> I have not much experience with it but what I know so far is that it is
>>> more like CSV for a Spreadsheet ... so only one table, problems with
>>> formats, settings etc.
>>>
>>> Does it also mean I have to import/export each individual account?
>>>
>>> Are transactions linked from one account to another?
>>> Are split transactions stably handled?
>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Luke
>>>
>>>
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First, I hope that you are working with test copies of your data files,
not the real ones.

That is interesting.  Please take a peek at some of those transactions
that appeared in the QIF file with the Equity account and see what
GnuCash assigned instead. 
I have never tried importing to that account myself, but I suspect that
you are correct that it does not import.  Perhaps they go to an
Imbalance account.  If they are all there, you could try changing the
Imbalance account to be a child of whatever account you decide to to
use, then delete the account.  You should get a choice to assign the
transactions to that account.

Before you make your final decision, I want to ask you a couple of
questions.
1.  If these two files include a lot of transfers, if you will, between
them, How do you want to account for those transfers (and future
transactions) in your consolidated file?  Wouldn't you want them to be
someplace other than Equity?  Perhaps income and expense accounts? 
Perhaps directly from one asset account to another?
2.  Regarding your definition of Robust.  Would you buy a new car
without test driving it or another of the same model?  I would recommend
spot checking every significant action in detail, not just the
"Totals".  Check whether the various descriptions were imported
correctly.  Did you have any special characters (including backslash,
colon, semicolon, underscore, pipe, tilde, right and left brackets, to
name a few)anywhere in your file?  Did any amounts end up in accounts
named Imbalance or something else?
3. Did you start with a fresh test copy of your data file for each
test?  The second import of the same file will not be the same as the
first, as GnuCash will make a lot of assumptions that you may not want.

David C


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