[GNC] Changing account tree on large database

Cricket Onebit cricketbeautiful at gmail.com
Fri Apr 26 21:49:12 EDT 2019


The speed thing is disappointing. I thought 3.5 fixed that, but maybe not
enough. I planned to save as XML to get going, since the docs say it's more
stable, then try SQLite.

(Aside: https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#SQL_Database recommends not using
the SQL just yet. Several posts on this list say otherwise. Out of date
manual, or optimistic / lucky users?)

QIF files are just text files, right, and human-readable? So I can use a
text editor and search.

How easy is it to delete old transactions? (Or export recent ones to a new
file?) That way I could migrate 10 years worth, so they're all in GC format
rather than QIF, then use a smaller file going forward. [Searching "site:
gnucash.org file size" gives many hits, but none answering my question. .
https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-help/tool-close-book.html  says
closing doesn't delete old transactions. "site:gnucash.org delete old
transactions " doesn't have anything useful, at least not on the first few
pages.

You're right, I planned to make everything look right, which isn't
necessary, and would take a lot of time (and explains putting it off for 2
years).

   - Anything older than 5 years is useless for budgeting. The kids are now
   teenagers. No more playschool. Much more food and clubs and trips. Soon to
   be tuition and rent.
   - The lifetime cost of all but the current cars is already inaccurate.
   Two years ago I tried to delete all transactions older than 10 years. Some
   are gone, but not all. The final balances stayed the same (or was easy to
   fix), so I kept going. Also, why does it matter? I have the backup QDF from
   that time, maybe even a QIF from an attempt to migrate.
   - We keep original paper receipts anything that affects future tax, and
   for big items with long warranties.
   - I stopped tracking stocks and such in Quicken in that

I do need to calculate how much the kids owe us for things they said they'd
pay us back for. The cheques we wrote are in Quicken, but I didn't split
the transactions into "we pay / kid owes" at the time. That mess goes back
to 2010. I handled each big expense differently. I'll use a spreadsheet for
the final report rather than trying to get one from Quicken.

2015 reduces it to 7400 transactions and avoids all but a few stock
purchases. I'll think about it and see what if my husband has a preference.

Thanks! You may have saved me from myself!

Cricket / Sandy


On Fri, 26 Apr 2019 at 19:18, Tommy Trussell <tommy.trussell at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 4:53 PM David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Strongly consider only moving one or two years data to GnuCash.
>>
>
> I agree. I found that I could import a lot more, but I found I was going
> crazy trying to make everything look right, which ultimately seemed
> pointless for things like long-ago closed bank accounts etc.
>
> Since I had been using Quicken since the 1990s I had a number of
> "historical" transactions I MIGHT conceivably want to look up, so I
> exported those and kept the (enormous) QIF files. Any time I want to find a
> transaction I can just do a few searches through the QIF file and find the
> transaction date and the amount. If I really really want to, I COULD create
> a "historical" GnuCash book with the imported data and just ignore the odd
> balances etc.
>
> (I'm looking through my data and found that I kept a complete QIF I
> exported in 2000, and then another one I exported in 2007. I believe 2007
> is when I gave up on Quicken for good, so my original GnuCash-only data was
> based upon 2006 and 2007 transactions only.)
>
>
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-- 
+++

Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.
-- Rudyard Kipling


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