QFX imports for Investment accounts

Sun Oct 18 12:28:28 EDT 2015

David.
Thanks for your help.  Status is my base account was and is correctly set, double checked. My brokerage account was and is a 'bank' type, and I moved it under investments. So to recap.....I import QFX and I immediately get a 'New Account' pop up ( although the stock in this window already preexists). I link it to the brokerage account, click OK, and I go to the matching window with the 'New Account' showing green. I accept and I get the 'New Account' in the correct brokerage account.
If I then delete this 'New Account' and move its contents to the account that this operation should have added its info to in the fist place, I get a proper import without the commission detail but the dollars are in fact spot on, ( the commission is included in the value posted). So this is survivable but I wonder if the authors know about this anomaly. Is this a bug or just immature code? I must admit when I QIF'ed my accounts over from Quicken, I was impressed.......accurate and complete.....sweet. 

I may revisit the CSV import but my past experience was a total failure. I couldn't get past the error saying something about not enough columns set or date format wrong, really gave my keyboard a reason to explode. 

Again thank you
Al

      From: David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
 To: Al <atrud at yahoo.com> 
Cc: "gnucash-user at gnucash.org" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> 
 Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2015 4:33 PM
 Subject: Re: QFX imports for Investment accounts

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. .  

ThanksAl

      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.