Dealing with a large QIF file

[David Carlson]

I believe that the GnuCash QIF importer allows nearly arbitrary mapping
from the incoming account tree to the resulting account tree during the
import.

Thus I would suggest taking the time to diagram (in a spreadsheet, perhaps)
a desired path from the old tree to the new tree, defining certain new
accounts to collect transactions going to or from old obsolete accounts.
Thus the transactions will stay when they are needed to keep the books in
balance, but then they can be hidden or even deleted after the import is
complete if the sum of the deleted accounts containing those obsolete
transactions is zero.

Another way to look at it would be to call it a special case of "closing
the books" on the old account tree.

Each user has the ability to tailor his account tree to his specific needs
even if that is not the way other users would do it.

David C

On Sun, Dec 24, 2017 at 9:23 PM, D via gnucash-user <
gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:

> Gnucash creates the accounts because you and the transactions used those
> accounts. Personally, I prefer having all that "clutter," since it
> represents what happened. Accounting is supposed to track what happened,
> after all.
>
> Two points: first, you can hide accounts in the Chart of Accounts, which
> would allow these accounts to exist without disturbing your daily
> accounting work. Second, you can delete accounts, if that really is your
> goal; when you delete an account with transactions in it, you get a chance
> to move them all to an account of your choosing. (I propose that this would
> be easier than editing the QIF, as another suggests).
>
> Personally, I'd keep the transactions and hide the accounts.
>
> David
>
> On December 25, 2017, at 5:47 AM, cliffhanger at gardener.com wrote:
>
>    Thanks. Yes one can import one at a time but this cheque ac from
>    Quicken is huge and has references to other card accounts as categories
>    within it. These accounts don't exist anymore and gnucash is trying to
>    create them as part of the import. This is something I'd like to avoid.
>    Hope this makes sense. Cliff
>
>    -------- Original Message --------
>    Subject: Re: Dealing with a large QIF file
>    From: Colin Law
>    To: Cliff McDiarmid
>    CC: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>
>      You should be able to export one account at a time from Quicken, I
>      think. Then import them one at a time.
>      Colin
>      On 24 December 2017 at 19:02, Cliff McDiarmid wrote:
>      > Hi
>      >
>      > I'm importing a large QIF file(a current a/c)about 6000 entries.
>      > There are about a dozen other a/c's from Quicken, now closed,
>      > associated with this large file. When importing, Gnucash seems to
>      > want to create these defunct a/c's to 'balance the books'. I
>      assume
>      > there isn't any way of avoiding this. The whole thing looks like
>      it
>      > will be horrendous. I've imported some small credit card a/c's
>      already
>      > with success, but they were not any of these other closed
>      accounts.
>      >
>      > Any advice please.
>      > thanks
>      >
>      > Cliff
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