QFX imports for Investment accounts

Sat Oct 17 16:33:32 EDT 2015

Al,
As you know, there are two or more sides to each import.  I did not provide
enough detail in my previous note.  When you enter the very first import
from your financial institution, you are presented with an opportunity to
either assign or link it to an existing account in your file or to allow a
new account to be created.  If you find out later that you did not get that
financial institution linked to the correct account in your data, you do
need to jump through hoops to fix that problem.  You can find some
discussion about that in this link: <
http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2009-July/030522.html>

On the other hand, once the base account is correctly set, then each line
that appears in the next part of the OFX/QFX import is where the 'transfer'
account is either assigned (somewhat arbitrarily) by GnuCash using Bayesian
matching and possibly colored green or left unassigned and probably colored
yellow, or colored red, which would mean that it will be ignored.  This is
where we get the chance to 'correct' the errors that GnuCash was offering
to make and ultimately complete a 'good' import.

Unfortunately, that is the limit of my knowledge about the OFX/QFX import
process.  If it is not possible to see and properly assign the commissions
at this stage, for example, I can not help with that part.  In my personal
experience, years ago I gave up on importing from my broker and resorted to
manually duplicating transactions from similar historical transactions and
updating dates and amounts.

There is another possibility for confusion, however, which I suggest that
you check in your chart of accounts.  Historically, the sample accounts
that GnuCash offers to set up for investments have contained some errors,
and may not be correct in your file.  Your brokerage account should be
under Assets:Investments:*Your Brokerage House *and should be of type
Bank.  Then the securities should be under that account and be of type
Stock or Mutual Fund.  While it is optional to have other intermediate
sub-accounts between Investments and *Your Brokerage House* such as Taxable
or Tax Deferred, that is not required.  If the brokerage account is not of
type Bank, that could cause import errors.

Good luck,

David C

On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 8:55 AM, Al <atrud at yahoo.com> wrote:

> "but I did notice that you do not mention whether it is possible for you
> to
> manually correct those imported transactions to the correct accounts"
>
> I tried to "edit" this new account and point it at my existing account....
> I get a "ACCOUNT ALREADY EXISTS" pop up and it fails. Reasonable.  I can
> only seem to cut and paste the transaction data and then delete the
> imported account, however I do not get the commission detail  (doesn't
> exist) so I need to adjust the entry to include same. This seems odd as I
> am pretty certain that data is actually in the QFX file because Quicken
> puts this data in its transaction file after import.
>
> After all this a complete manual entry seems easier but I am used to
> Quicken and it has no problem with QFX imports and investment accounts.
> Brokerage accounts almost universally use QFX or CSV,   QIF is not
> available.  I took a cursory look at CSV and it seemed chaotic so I did not
> pursue. If CSV is an viable option, then I could use some guidance because
> what I encountered looked unworkable. As mentioned before, Bank accounts
> and QFX are flawless so I was expecting the same for Investments accounts.
> .
>
> Thanks
> Al
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
> *To:* gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> *Sent:* Friday, October 16, 2015 6:34 PM
> *Subject:* Re: QFX imports for Investment accounts
>
> On 10/14/2015 2:47 PM, Al wrote:
> >  I am unable to get QFX imports to interact correctly with my existing
> >  investments accounts.
> >
> >  Example. I have under Assets---Investments---Brokerage
> Accounts---Stocks------
> >  "MY BROKERAGE COMPANY NAME" ; under which I have an account for each
> Stock (for
> >  example Gnu Business Machines),  Within this account I have 2
> >  historical transactions (BUY/SELL, Imported via QIF)) and the current
> view
> >  shows.....GNU Business Machines  0 GBM...... which is correct, at
> >  least the data is..
> >
> > My QFX file has a Buy Trade for GBM and when imported I get a New Account
> > Window showing GBM as a new Account, Type= stock, Parent Account=
> Brokerage
> > Accounts. I can change the Parent Account to indicate where my existing
> GBM
> > account lives, but no matter, when I OK the import I have a "New" GBM
> account
> > with the correct trade info per this QFX file. So now I have two GBM
> > accounts.  Another Import generates a another New Account as a sub
> account of
> > the prior import's new account. .  So every import creates a new account
> >  rather than adding new entries to my original GBM stock account and
> every new
> > account is a sub account of the prior import containing transaction data.
> >
> > I cannot seem to solve this issue on my own, your help will be greatly
> appreciated.
> > Final comment. I also have a separate file with Bank accounts and I have
> no problems
> > with importing QFX files.  New data is entered where old date lives and
> life
> > is good.
> >
> >  Thanks  Al
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnucash-user mailing list
> > gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> > -----
> > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>
>
>
>
> Al,
>
> I do not use the OFX/QFX import for investment transactions, but I did
> notice that you do not mention whether it is possible for you to
> manually correct those imported transactions to the correct accounts in
> a manner similar to fixing a grocery store or gasoline station
> transaction that was incorrectly guessed by GnuCash.  It seems to me
> that should work for investment transactions too.
>
> David C
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>
>
>
>