trouble with date when importing a just exported csv file.

[Wm]

Fri, 30 Jan 2015 20:46:41 <mahfmj$tao$1 at ger.gmane.org>  Larry Evans 
<cppljevans at suddenlink.net>

>On 01/30/2015 12:26 PM, Tommy Trussell wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 10:21 AM, Larry Evans <cppljevans at suddenlink.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 01/29/2015 04:12 PM, Wm wrote:
>>>> Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:34:44
>>>> <CA+E35_7AN=0Zc11Y8dWvbeaXsjkRZSwba4g3Efa+1purnO6y8w at mail.gmail.com>
>>>> Edward Doolittle <edward.doolittle at gmail.com>
>>>>
>>>>> Probably the fastest way to get something working would be to write a
>>>>> program to translate from the CSV format that your brokerage provides
>>>>> into
>>>>> QIF or something else for easier importing into GnuCash.
>>>>
>>>> That is available for free, see my
>>>> ===
>>>> Subject: csv to qif / ofx
>>>> Date:    08 January 2015 21:27:00
>>>> ===
>>>> and similar
>>>>
>>>> is no one (not you, E) able to solve a problem using the tools available
>>>> these days?
>>>>
>>> Thanks for the suggestion, Wm.
>>> Here's what I tried:
>>>
>>> * Went to the webpage:
>>>   http://csvconverter.gginternational.net/
>>> * uploaded file:
>>>     SHA1_transactions.csv
>>>   which contained only 1 line:
>>> 01-06-2015,buy more,Checking Account,1.5,100.0
>>>   where fields were:
>>> Date,Description,Transfer,Shares,Price
>>> * Then tried the mapping step on the web page, but
>>>   got stuck at the place shown in the attached .png.
>>>   As you can see, there's no obvious place to put
>>>   the Price field :(

>> I haven't worked with this on this level, but I seem to recall some
>> discussion saying the security price gets derived from the sum of the buy
>> (or sell) transaction splits. In other words, you cannot just set the price
>> of a security for a transaction;
>
>I also gave the number of Shares bought.  Please review the lines:
>
>>>     SHA1_transactions.csv
>>>   which contained only 1 line:
>>> 01-06-2015,buy more,Checking Account,1.5,100.0
>>>   where fields were:
>>> Date,Description,Transfer,Shares,Price
>
>In my previous post.  There, 1.5 Shares were bought at a price of 100.0
>per share.  That's all that's required in the register, which calculates
>the value of the Buy (if Shares is positive) or the value of the Sell
>(if Shares is negative).  The import interface should behave similarly.
>
>> it is derived from the results of the
>> splits in a fully-formed transaction.
>>
>> If my memory is wrong, my apologies.
>
>No problem.

It might help to think of it this way.

In a test book use your lottery winnings to make a transfer from 
equity:lottery to assets:share1 [1]

you can also buy some assets:share1 using expense:share_purchases or 
income:share_reinvestment and so on

in gnc the expense, income and equity account types deal in money; lots 
of different kinds of money called currencies but only money [2] not 
units of something that isn't money.

So, the obvious way of getting your transactions in and out is through 
amounts of money.

Presuming you don't have thousands of these them it becomes a simple 
matter of adjusting the not-pure-currency (i.e. there was a number of 
frog-legs or bags-of-recycled-paper) involved via an amount of money 
which could, theoretically be an arbitrary 1.  But I'd suggest a best 
guess at a realisable value is better than 1.

Have I made things more or less confusing? :)



[1] mention of SHA1 consistently distracts my thought processes to 
something other than stocks and shares

[2] their are some exceptions like XXX but I've never seen them 
explained fully and suggest they are a distraction in this discussion

-- 
Wm...