Importing QIF files with multiple accounts w/o going through a transfer account

rianmonnahan . rian.monnahan at gmail.com
Thu Mar 23 08:31:43 EDT 2017 

David,

In a word, "yes." The only way to associate the transaction that transit
through the interface is via the transaction number, T# in the contrived
scenario. You can look at the interface account and see the mirror image of
the accounting entries you would make in the G/L. Then you see both sides
of the transaction together but reversed.

If you need to see an account-account association in the base/transfer
accounts as if you entered everything by hand, you will have to load those
transaction in one of the accounts like you do with a bank reconciliation
statement.

Now, not all of the transaction in my G/L upload file are NOT simple
account to account transactions. Here's an example:

Account                              Date
Transaction                                   DR                  CR
401ADRE 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 0 33.34
421 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 0 2561.78
421 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 0 2288.03
421 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 0 2225.37
421 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 0 2587.95
431 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 0 4723.58
43732 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 0 1121.78
4374 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 0 70.22
4375 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 0 157.06
6333 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 157.06 0
6411 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 12109.34 0
6451 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 2777.87 0
64521 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 16.67 0
64532 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 673.06 0
64534 1/31/2017 PAYE 17-01 35.11 0

Try loading that against one account! The example above did not originate
from Gnu. It originated from a French accounting system where entering what
is called an OD (Operation diverse) is not constrained. You open the OD
journal and make an accounting entry just like you would on paper. Gnu
forces you to open one account and make an entry against 1-n transfer
accounts.

Unless the GnuCash developers modify the import function, the only way
upload 1000s of transactions is either through the method I describe or by
loading the transactions account by account. As the example above
demonstrates, it's not always possible to identify the base/transfer
account relationship. Moreover, it's likely a very tedious exercise to do
so in a file with 1000s of lines.

Now, if anyone has a better solution, I'm a taker.

Rian Monnahan


On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 1:10 PM, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Wouldn't that result in every transaction being a transfer to/from your
> dummy account?  Then how do you associate a simple pair of half
> transactions such as a bank payment to some other account with that account
> receiving payment from the bank?
>
> That is what double entry is all about.
>
> David C
>
> On Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 7:35 PM, RianMonnahan <rian.monnahan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> First, many thanks to those who replied to my request for help. The
>> comment
>> that "I may be trying to use import to do something it was not intended
>> for"
>> put me on the right track.
>>
>> I was indeed trying to use the QIF and CSV import facilities to load
>> transactions from a legacy system's general journal. And I have succeed by
>> tricking the system. I'll explain later.
>>
>> GnuCash import appears to be geared to loading, say, a transaction summary
>> from your bank. The QIF/CSV important wants you to import into one
>> account,
>> usually the bank. It will then happily distribute the balance of the bank
>> statement to various other accounts - suppliers, clients, expense, income,
>> etc. BUT all of these accounts "tranfer" account will be the bank.
>>
>> The way to trick GnuCash into importing a general ledger is to set up a
>> dummy account, say, 9:91 called interface and to use that as the
>> base/transfer account for anything you throw at it. When important has
>> completed all of you BS accounts from the legacy system will be Dr/Cr
>> accordingly and the dummy account will have a zero balance.
>>
>> Here's a contrived example:
>>
>> File:
>> 1 T1 Client A    100DR  BAL100DR
>> 2 T1 Revenue 100CR  BAL100CR
>> 3 T2 Bank      100DR  BAL100DR
>> 4 T4 Client A  100CR  BAL0
>>
>> Dummy after GnuCash import (mirrors the file):
>> 1 T1 Client    100CR BAL100CR
>> 2 T1 Revenue 100DR BAL0
>> 3 T2 Bank     100CR BAL100CR
>> 4 T2 Client    100DR BAL0
>>
>> Accounts...
>>
>> Client
>>
>> 1 T1 Dummy   100DR BAL100DR
>> 4 T2 Dummy   100CR BAL0
>>
>> Revenue
>>
>> 2 T1 Dummy   100CR BAL100CR
>>
>> Bank
>>
>> 3 T2 Dummy 100DR BAL100DR
>>
>>
>> Again, thanks for your help everyone and I hope this post will be helpful
>> for anyone wanting to do the same thing.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabb
>> le.com/Importing-QIF-files-with-multiple-accounts-w-o-
>> going-through-a-transfer-account-tp4690449p4690497.html
>> Sent from the GnuCash - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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>
>


-- 
Rian Monnahan
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