Importing invoices

[R. Victor Klassen]

Hi.

I (fairly) regularly receive a (somewhat) lengthy order by email, in a format that I can readily copy/paste into a spreadsheet, which I do in order to generate a packing list.   The order contains descriptions, quantities and unit prices, so I have everything I need in electronic form to create the invoice as well - everything, that is, except the information that is typically autofilled when I manually type in the invoice.  And that could be hard coded into a script, presumably.

As I understand it, I could massage that order using - e.g. /bin/nawk or another scripting language, or possibly just read it directly in python and then use the python bindings to enter the order into the data file used by GNUCash.  This has the disadvantage that I would have to close down gnuCash and restart it after, incurring the startup delay.  

I’m wondering whether I could write some code in a scripting language to put the invoice in QIF or OFX or any other format that GNUCash will import, and then import it, thereby avoiding the need to restart.   I just don’t know whether (any of) these import formats are rich enough that I can automatically assign accounts, taxable status, etc.

Thoughts?