Bank account balance incorrect after import from Quicken

[David T.]

Tom,

I suspect that what happened was that when you imported your Quicken file, you were asked what your opening balance was, and you told GnuCash the amount. GnuCash then created an Opening Balance transaction to account for the existence of your money. Since your Quicken file already had an opening transaction, however, this caused a duplication. Instead, you should have simply skipped having GnuCash account for your opening balance, since you had already done so. 

I believe that deleting the transaction (as you describe) is perfectly fine.

Once you have determined that the balances are accurate, you should most likely focus your attention on determining that GnuCash has used accounts for your transactions that make sense for your accounting situation. Many find that the import causes transactions to be categorized in unexpected ways. These are easy enough to fix, but it is helpful to look for them.

As an aside, Quicken is less strict in its accounting implementation, and will allow transactions to be one-sided. GnuCash requires every transaction to have at least two splits. I used Quicken for 15 years before transitioning to GnuCash 10 years ago, and dimly remember having to clean up a bit. 

Also, since GnuCash is a volunteer effort, some areas (like documentation) are not as well maintained as others. As a user, I have attempted to help out with the documentation, and I can understand the frustration at holes such as this. Since you seem to be quite engaged in this, I would humbly ask you if you could write up your experience of the overall import process; there is currently a drive to document the import procedures better, and having a first-hand write up would be excellent.

Cheers,
David

> On Sep 1, 2015, at 11:15 PM, Tom Allred <tallred7 at triad.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> David,
> 
> I haven't been using this mailing list long enough to know how easy it is to
> look back at a thread but there are more details in the previous posts.  One
> of the problems of using a list instead of a forum...  I appreciate your
> willingness to help.  First, I'm not a newbie to accounting.  I've taken a
> couple of accounting courses in the past, ran my own business for a long
> time, and have been using quicken for 20 years.  Yes, quicken uses
> "categories" instead of "accounts" but you still have to have at least two
> sides in a transaction.  I have read the gnucash manual through chapter 3
> plus other sections that seemed like they may be pertinent, including the
> parts on importing quicken QIF files which, BTW, has 3 blank pages where
> some QIF topics are supposed to be.
> 
> Yes, the closing balance in gnucash doesn't match quicken.  The problem is
> the "magic" transaction gnucash created during import that offset the
> opening balance entry in the account in 1995.  There is my original
> transaction opening the account with a deposit, and the "magic" transaction
> reversing it with a withdrawal on the same date.  Both entries are exactly
> alike except one is a deposit and one is a withdrawal.  If I delete the
> withdrawal then I have the correct current balance.  When Geert replied to
> my original post he said the account an opening balance entry is normally
> applied against is "Equity:Opening Balances" which didn't exist in my
> account list after creating the database by importing the QIF file.  Today's
> post was explaining what I had discovered since our previous exchange.  My
> plan at this point is to delete the "magic" transaction, which has a
> Reconciled flag of "n", and continue looking for other inconsistencies
> between gnucash and quicken.  If it doesn't matter that gnucash used the
> Retained Earnings account instead of Opening Balances for the opening
> balance entries in other accounts then I'll just leave them alone and carry
> on.
> 
> Thanks,
> Tom
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David T. [mailto:sunfish62 at yahoo.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2015 10:20 PM
> To: tallred7 at triad.rr.com
> Cc: edodd at billiau.net; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: Bank account balance incorrect after import from Quicken
> 
> 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
>