Importing journal entries

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

swallace <shawn.wallace at hotmail.com> writes:

> I'm an accountant and just started using Gnucash for one of my clients. I'm
> having trouble getting it to import journal entries. Most of my source data
> is in Excel already, so my plan of attack is to write a simple python script
> to convert a csv to qif, then import to Gnucash. The problem is the the QIF
> format is bizarre to me. How do I tell it which account to debit and which
> account to credit? I've looked over the QIF specifications but it isn't very
> helpful. I've also played around with various csv to qif converters online
> but didn't have very much luck.
>
> Here is an example of a simple entry I want to do:
>
> (09/26/2013)
> Purchases $500
>                      Cash $500
> (purchased inventory at ABC mart)
>
> Any help would be much appreciated.

The simplest way is to use the fact that the QIF File is an assumed
"Local Account".  So if you have a file "cash.qif" the importer will
assume it's for the QIF Account "cash".  Then you map that to the
GnuCash Account Assets:Current Assets:Cash on Hand as part of the import
process.  Then you would do:

!Type:Cash
D09/26/2013
PABC Mart
MPurchased Inventory
T500.00
LExpenses:Purchases
^

The "cash" -> "A:CA:CoH" mapping only needs to be done once; GnuCash
will remember that mapping for the next time.

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-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