[GNC] Import CSV Multi-currency

[David Cousens]

GTI,
 
>No. I have in my register a ton of one-line two-currency transactions even 
>though the register allow them to be displayed on 4 lines pressing the 
>split button: 1 Description, 2 involved currencies, 1 in white. 
>
>In my humble understanding, splitted transactions are transactions where a 
>value is transferred to two or more destinations because the possible logic 
>for this is split. 
>Two-currencies transactions does not allow the logic for splits = Division 
>by 1 (if you prefer). 

David Carlson's description is actually more correct in accounting terms and
the way GnuCash actually works. This is a double entry accounting system
which means that all transactions have at least two splits. 

In the case of a currency conversion transaction, the transfer of asset
value is between the account in the initial currency and a separate account
in the final currency, so there is at least a split for each account. (If
there are currency conversion fees involved that are not incorporated in the
price/currency conversion information for example you could have additional
splits to account for this.)

Each of the two (or more)  "splits" which constitutes the transaction only
affects the account to which it refers. The data structures internal to
GnuCash maintain a separate data structure for each component of the split
which has a pointer to the transaction it belongs to and the transaction
data structure maintain pointers to all the splits which constitute that
transaction.

For convenience and compactness, in the register display, this is normally
(depending on optional choices in the preferences for the register display)
compacted to a single line display which can be expanded to show the full
structure of the transaction. That expanded structure is  more
representative of the way a transaction is represented internally inside
GnuCash.

As you noted GnuCash's default export format is multiline but it can also
export in single line format if you check the SImple Layout box in the first
page of the wizard but this can cause a loss of information compared to the
multiline format.

There is currently a problem with importing data with a currency exchange
even with the multilline format, which I will be reporting as a separate
bug. In essence for importing a currency exchange between an AUD and a USD
account for $100AUD to $110 USD, the importer creates the trnsaction
correctly in the AUD asset account and the USD asset account but it also
creates an Imbalance account transaction for $1000, which it should not. To
correct this requires deletion of the Imbalance account transaction which is
incorrectly created on import,

The single line format data cannot be imported correctly at all at the
moment as Geert indicated in his reply. The single line exported data has a
separate column for the base account for the transaction and a separate
column for the transfer account but in the importer as it is coded at the
moment there is no facility to associate a transfer account to this column. 

Geert also indicated that the main developer effort is currently directed to
other areas. I have had a little bit of experience with some parts of the
importer code although not that associated with currency/commodities to data
so far. I will try have a look at the code area to see if I can isolate at
least the above problem with the multiline import which is in the
import-matcher I have previously looked at and fix that. I may learn enogh
to start looking at the single line import problems, but that will certainly
take longer. 

David Cousens




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David Cousens
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