Recocile checking account with OFX file

[dave boland]

Michael, 


You understanding is correct, but let me run through my process. 


About once a month (except the last 4 - shame on me!!!), I go through the  
paper receipts - mostly cash purchases from the Wallet account, but some are  
on the debit or credit card accounts. 


Next I download the csv version of my accounts (checking/debit card  
accounts, credit card account), and manually add the missing income/ 
expenses.  The reason I do this manually is that normally there are very few  
updates to gnuCash accounts, so it works well for me. 


Because I was so far behind, and there were a lot more credit card purchases  
than normal (Christmas season), I wanted an automated way to do this.  


My expectations were that I would download the OFX files (3 total), and then  
have gnuCash read them, match the transactions in the OFX files to ones  
existing in gnuCash (more on that in a moment), and display a list of  
transactions not matching anything in gnuCash.  I would accept the exact  
matches and they would automatically be reconciled.   The near-matches (date  
wrong - usually a day or two later than the transaction in gnuCash because  
they were either debit or credit card purchases), would need to be connected  
to the existing gnuCash transactions.  The new ones (automatic withdrawals,  
transactions I forgot to enter, etc.) need to be added and a description  
added for each.  Once done, the reconciliation would be done.  Repeat for  
the other two OFX files. 


Matching transactions is hard.  At best, the date and amount in a file will  
match a transaction in gnuCash.  Sometimes only an amount will match.  So,  
gnuCash needs to display the matches in three groups - those that match by  
date and amount, those that match by amount, and those that have no matches  
at all.  That is the process that I use manually. 


Hope this helps.  If not, then let me know if the mail group accepts image  
files and I will attach graphics to illustrate what I mean (as time  
permits).  I plan on trying KMyMoney and jGnash (both double entry) to see  
if they suite my needs better.  If I find something that I like, I'll make a  
screen shot for you. 


Dave, 


On Mon, Mar 16, 2015, at 11:07 AM, Michael Hendry wrote: 

>  
>> On 16 Mar 2015, at 13:38, dave boland <dboland9 at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
  


>> All,
>>
>> We seem to have gotten off my topic - how to import and reconcile bank  
>> transactions into gnuCash using an OFX file.  I backed up my gnuCash  
>> file, started the import process, and got the window listing the results  
>> (red, yellow, green).  I clicked on Help, but found it to be of little  
>> use.  I Googled gnuCash OFX import, but found very little and no official  
>> documentation.  A lot of the transactions the importer wanted to load  
>> were duplicates that varied by date only (date of actual transaction in  
>> gnuCash, date vendor got paid in the OFX file), and it was very  
>> confusing.  I decided to just download a CSV file, load it into  
>> LibreOffice Calc, and do every thing by hand.
>>
>> Call me disappointed.  Hope that new releases of gnuCash improve the  
>> importer.
>
>
Sorry you’ve been disappointed, but perhaps you could explain clearly what  
you are looking for? 

>
> If I understand your original post correctly, you’ve been recording bank  
> transactions, but you haven’t reconciled the accounts for a long time -  
> you want the OFX import to bring in any transactions you’ve failed to  
> record, correct any that you’ve misrecorded, and flag up any transactions  
> that are in GnuCash but not in the bank’s version. While this is being  
> done, the “Reconciled” flags will be set on the matching transactions, and  
> at the end of it all the Balance in your bank statement will match the  
> reconciled balance in GnuCash.
>
> If this is what you want, I’m afraid you’re doomed to further  
> disappointment - unless you can specify to the developers in great detail  
> how this magic would be achieved.
>
> Michael
>
>> Dave,
>> --
>> dave boland
>> dboland9 at fastmail.fm
>>
-- 

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-- 
  dave boland
  dboland9 at fastmail.fm

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