Importing accounts/data as CSV

[John Ralls]

> On Jan 5, 2017, at 1:15 PM, Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
> 
>  Upgraded from 2.6.13 to 2.6.15. Got hung up because I built and installed
> 2.6.13 while 2.6.12 was installed, but 2.6.15 would not build until I
> removed the 2.6.13 package. Strange. Anyway, ...
> 
>  Table 4.1 in the gnucash-help doc notes that to import accounts and data
> they need to be in the same format as gnucash exports have. My searches in
> gnucash-help and gnucash-guide find no information on the export format.
> Please point me to a source for this information.
> 
>  When I know the fields and their sequence I can write a one-line awk
> script to reformat the .csv files that I've exported from the previous
> software.

Table 4.1 doesn't say that. It says that to import Accounts from CSV they must be in the same format as that exported by GnuCash, meaning GnuCash's Export>Accounts Tree to CSV function.

Importing transactions is a lot more flexible and includes a wizard lifted from GOffice wherein you can assign the transaction and split fields to the appropriate column in your CSV file. It is limited in that it cannot handle transactions with more than two splits. Because the GnuCash CSV exporter *does* support more than two splits per transaction it has multiple lines per transaction and so can't round-trip back into GnuCash.

There exist some 3rd-party tools that can convert CSV to QIF or OFX. Some of those might handle more complicated situations than GnuCash's CSV importer can.

Regards,
John Ralls