[GNC] Learning relate Gnucash to bank in 3-letter anagram world

Tommy Trussell tommy.trussell at gmail.com
Mon Dec 3 11:51:25 EST 2018


responses below. PLEASE copy the list with any replies

On Sun, Dec 2, 2018 at 8:54 PM Jonathan Ames <jnthn.ames at gmail.com> wrote:

> Obviously I'm new to Gnucash, though I've had it four years and decided
> after a few attempts that I had insufficient IQ, and was perhaps myself an
> evolutionary side-track.
>

This isn't the list to discuss the merits of IQ, though I believe many
respected professionals believe the concept is outmoded. Certainly you
would not want to let frustration with a free / libre software package
cause you to think less of your abilities. ;-)


> So on this last attempt I got accounts established; however, when time to
> attach to bank, or even copy and download transactions, it's alphabet city.
> So I don't lose my mind, someone please confirm that in 'open source' there
> is no automation of such transaction, as there is in Quicken, YNAB, etc.. I
> could download a QXF (or whatever) file to desktop, but could not bring it
> into Gnucash. The "import" tab doesn't seem operative, though I got the QFX
> from desktop into an odd file called "Imbalance" (unexplained). I then
> attempted to transfer the file to my home checking; would not do. The
> specific bank account behaves as if it were a placeholder, though it is a
> named account under "Bank Accounts". Of course, the bank uses its own
> categories; I would expect to categorize them as per "Common Accounts"
> list.
>

I think if you go back and read the documentation again and work through
the tutorials you might better understand what's going on with the
imbalance register. If you don't have the documentation copied to your
computer, try starting here:

https://www.gnucash.org/docs.phtml

Once you get to that page, you'll want to start with the Tutorial and
Concepts Guide. Probably you'll want to grab the PDF version for ease of
reading, but it's also available in other formats, including a web version
(which requires many more "clicks" to navigate through).

I see on the web that others have struggled with this basic, essential
> function of any accounting program (such as Quickbooks, which I use and
> want to discontinue).
>

This is where I became inspired to respond -- I have used GnuCash for well
over a decade, and Quicken for quite a few years before it, and I have
never used the download transactions features (except maybe to test them).
TO ME, downloading transactions eliminates one important part of the
purpose of using an accounting program, IN MY OPINION -- to verify that the
transactions in my bank accounts are correct and were initiated by me (or
someone in my household). (I emphasized that because your priorities may
differ.)

What do I do instead? Every few days I go through my receipts (from my
wallet, from my email, occasionally from my faulty memory) and enter the
transactions into the various registers. The credit card transactions to a
credit card account, the checks to a checking account, the cash
expenditures to the "cash in wallet" account, etc.

Then every month my banks issue a statement, which I use to reconcile
against the transactions I entered. I always seem to find some transactions
I missed, but that gives me a chance to track them down.

Occasionally I have found some spurious bank transactions that I did NOT
create -- once it was a transaction at a pizza shop; another time it was
coffee stored value cards purchased on my account -- these I have reported
to the banks as fraudulent. The banks removed them from my accounts asked
me to report them to my local police department. I also usually also tell
them to replace that card and I switch to using one at another bank until
all the balances settle.

If you download all the transactions from the bank, you're somewhat less
likely to notice the transactions that are not yours.

Also if (by some strange set of circumstances) someone at the BANK made an
error, you might NEVER catch it.

(I also reconcile my Cash in Wallet account -- which I do even though I
don't have a statement to compare, just the "emptiness" of my wallet -- so
my "books" reflect our family's actual expenditures at tax time. That
sometimes means sizable monthly "Miscellaneous" expenditures whose amounts
I cannot usually account for exactly.)


> I am running Sierra on an 8gb ram/512 gb storage. The help sources seem to
> have skipped over this function -- working with bank accounts. Sure it's
> there somewhere, though the three-step suggestion doesn't work.
>

Where specifically did you look at the "help sources"? I think you'll find
what you're looking for in Chapters 5 and 6 of the Tutorial and Concepts
Guide.


> So: is automatic connection to bank accounts possible? If not, how do you
> "aim" downloaded QFX transaction files?


I know many folks use these features, but maybe you should specify exactly
what you're hoping to achieve. I believe GnuCash cannot INITIATE
transactions at your bank, so if you have been using a program that did,
you are correct that GnuCash won't do that.


> Also, are Gnucash users mostly also
> developers, with at least some college CS (who therefore don't need to pay
> for commercial finance-tracking programs)?
>

I cannot claim to have never taken any college CS, because in the process
of getting my English and Communications degrees I worked with computers
and even wrote small programs that I got graded on (in Commodore BASIC and
in PostScript). But I don't think I have the sort of training you're
implying. Certainly not any sort of training or credentials that would
exempt me from paying for commercial software. (?)

-- Tommy Trussell



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