Finding Invoice Type "?" / CSV Import Help

[Benjamin Soffer (SLF)]

Geert,

 

Thank you very much for inspecting the test data file I emailed you and
providing the very helpful detailed instruction for cleaning up the data.  I
followed each step you outlined and successfully removed the bad data.

 

Best regards,

 

Benjamin Soffer

 

 

From: Geert Janssens [mailto:geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be] 
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2016 8:53 AM
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org; bsoffer at soffer-law.com
Subject: Re: Finding Invoice Type "?" / CSV Import Help

 

On Thursday 14 January 2016 10:01:37 Benjamin Soffer wrote:

> Geert,

> 

> 

> 

> Thank you for offering to inspect the subject data file. The data

> file is for a law firm and therefore, in some instances, it reflects

> confidential client information which may not be revealed. However,

> I could send you a sanitized version, stripped of all data except for

> the messed up records and a few others. Would that be sufficient?

> 

> 

> 

> Regards,

> 

> 

> 

Benjamin,

 

I have looked at your data file just now. You said you can't find the
missing invoices when searching for them in the gnucash program.
Unfortunately I can confirm this is so because they are not even in the data
file itself anymore.

 

I have no idea how this has happened and it's the first time I hear about
this.

 

The only cure I could propose is to make a few minimal changes to the data
file directly and then clean up via gnucash. Basically what the below steps
will make you do is

- remove the read-only restriction from the bad invoice transactions

- then delete the bad transactions via gnucash

 

The datafile is a compressed xml file. The first step to fix this is to save
is as *uncompressed* xml. For this you

- open your data file with gnucash

- go to Edit->Preferences

- click on the "General" tab and uncheck "Compress files"

- go to File->Save As

- use a different name to save your book now, so we will be working on a
copy of your data. If all worked out well, you can replace your original
data file afterwards with the corrected one.

- quit gnucash

- now open your data file in a decent text editor (not notepad!), something
like notepad++, wordpad, ...

- search for this xml snippet:

 

<slot>

<slot:key>trans-read-only</slot:key>

<slot:value type="string">Generated from an invoice. Try unposting the
invoice.</slot:value>

</slot>

 

(there's a line break inserted by my mail client right after unposting. That
line break is not in your data file)

You will find several of them, namely for each invoice transaction in your
Accounts Receivable account. For a proper invoice transaction this snippet
will be followed by this snippet:

 

<slot>

<slot:key>trans-txn-type</slot:key>

<slot:value type="string">I</slot:value>

</slot>

 

However for your bad transactions, this snippet is missing. I'm explaining
this so you can locate your bad transactions directly in the data file. 

 

- Now to make the bad transactions editable in gnucash (and hence
removable), remove exactly this snippet from the bad transactions:

 

<slot>

<slot:key>trans-read-only</slot:key>

<slot:value type="string">Generated from an invoice. Try unposting the
invoice.</slot:value>

</slot>

 

No more, no less (again, my mail client has added a line break after
unposting that's not in your data file).

 

- Now save your data file and close the text editor.

- Open the altered file with gnucash

- Go to your A/R account and delete the bad transactions. If all went well,
gnucash shouldn't complain anymore.

 

If all of this went ok, you can enable file compression again if you like.

 

Is this something you can do ?

 

Regards,

 

Geert