Bank account balance incorrect after import from Quicken

[David T.]

Tom, 

Whether GnuCash uses “Equity:Retained Earnings”, “Equity:Opening Balances”, or even “Equity:What The Heck!” is immaterial. What matters is the amount that gets put into the checking account in this transaction. If this amount is not correct, then we have to examine what number GnuCash used for the opening transaction, and why it is being added. 

Also, can you explain a little more fully how you are determining that the balance has been thrown off? Is it because the closing balances don’t match? Or that you ran a reconciliation and the numbers didn’t match?

Please also go back and read chapter 2 in the GnuCash Guide on Accounting Basics—especially section 2.1.3 on double entry accounting. It clearly explains *why* GnuCash creates what you are calling an “offsetting transaction”—and it may help you to understand what is going on. 

David

> On Sep 1, 2015, at 9:42 PM, Tom Allred <tallred7 at triad.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> I kind of have to get hung up on the import consequences if not the
> procedure because it threw off the checking account balance.  Need to run
> reports out of both quicken and gnucash to see if there are any other
> surprises.
> 
> Geert, I did not have an Equity:Opening Balances account, only a
> Equity:Retained Earnings account.  Several accounts had that as the
> offsetting account for opening balances.  Thinking that importing data to
> create a new database might be the issue, I deleted the old database and
> used File -> New to create a new empty database, only choosing the types of
> accounts for it without setting up any actual accounts, then imported my
> data into that.  Now there is an Equity:Opening Balances account but the
> import process didn't use it.  For the primary checking account it once
> again created an offsetting opening balances transaction into the checking
> account which again threw the balance off by that amount.  In a second
> checking account it did not create a new offsetting transaction for the
> opening balance entry but used Equity:Retained Earnings instead of
> Equity:Opening Balances for the offsetting account.  This checking account
> had the correct balance.  Unless someone knows the best way to handle this
> I'll figure it out.  Just wanted to report the odd behavior.
> Thanks,
> Tom
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gnucash-user
> [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+tallred7=triad.rr.com at gnucash.org] On Behalf Of
> Liz
> Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2015 7:25 AM
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: RE: Bank account balance incorrect after import from Quicken
> 
> Tom Allred wrote:
>> Thanks.  Yes, gnucash is completely new to me but I've been using 
>> quicken (double entry) since 1995.
> 
> As best I remember, Quicken, which I did use once, was not double entry, and
> I had many entries which were entered wrongly in Quicken, such that it took
> a lot of work to untangle. Simply user error, because the classes and other
> subdivisions did not enforce correct accounting procedures.
> Of course, your data entry may have been much better than mine!
> 
> Welcome to Gnucash.
> Don't get hung up on the import procedures, the future usage is the most
> important part.
> 
> Liz
> 
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